Zack Snyder has put his own gritty spin on the Teen Titans. It was announced in July that the Man of Steel and Batman v Superman director would be featured on Teen Titans Go! as himself. Now, the unexpected crossover has arrived. Teen Titans Go! recently reached its milestone 365th episode in its seventh season, appropriately titled "365!"
"365!" sees the young team of heroes go to the Warner Bros. lot looking for a director for their landmark episode. There, they come across Zack Snyder, who proceeds to give them a makeover, depicting Robin, Raven, Starfire, Cyborg and Beast Boy in a dark and gritty animation style.
The Titans face Darkseid and the forces of Apokolips in a scene reminiscent of Justice League's flashback battle between the villain and humankind's united forces. Clips from the sequence have been shared on Twitter, which also show Snyder poking fun at himself and his signature visual flair.
The animation is somewhat reminiscent of Young Justice's and the style used in different DC Animated Movie Universe projects, such as Justice League vs. Teen Titans. Hilariously enough, though, while the character designs are completely different from those of Teen Titans Go!, the heroes retain their youthful and purposefully overly animated voices.
Aside from that, the episode also featured various callbacks to Snyder's body of work (as shown in the video below). At one point, for example, Robin is shown stopping a flood with his staff just like Aquaman did in Justice League. Another scene showed Starfire helping Robin in slow motion, based on how Flash helped Wonder Woman in the aforementioned film.
#RestoreTheSnyderVerse Lives Again
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Snyder's Teen Titans Go! appearance prompted the #RestoreTheSnyderVerse movement to pop back up on social media. The hashtag began trending once again at the time of the episode's release (via CBR), something that has happened various times since before and after the release of Zack Snyder's Justice League in March 2021:
As for how Snyder's appearance on Teen Titans Go! came to be, there's an interesting story behind it. During an interview with CBR, Beast Boy voice actor Greg Cipes revealed that the director watches the series: "He's a fan of the show, yo."
Teen Titans Go! director Peter Michail elaborated, stating: "We reached out and pitched him the idea. He loved it and was actually a fan [of] the show. It was surprisingly very easy. It was, and he was great! It was an incredible experience, and we're honored to have him as a part of the 'Teen Titans Go!' world, for sure."
Teen Titans Go! is confirmed to be coming back for an eigth season, making it one of DC's longest-running animated series.