What to watch between seasons of the HBO Max series

After a successful third season at its new home on HBO Max, Titans is due for a fourth season, though you may have to wait a while for it. In the meantime, what are some shows like Titans to keep you entertained?

Titans follows Dick Grayson, known to most as Robin, and his team of crime-fighting superheroes the Titans, loosely based on DC Comics’ Teen Titans. Having previously disbanded, the Titans are making another go of the team life in this live-action superhero series originally produced for the now-defunct DC Universe streaming service.

So, read on for the top eight shows like Titans you can stream right now. Or click the link below to get caught up on Titans.

If you like that Titans is a Batman show without Batman, you may enjoy Gotham too. Okay, to be fair, Bruce Wayne does appear in both shows, but they both conspicuously tell a story around his iconic presence rather than making him the focus. In Gotham, the action starts roughly with the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents. But rather than jump ahead to his inevitable ascension as the Batman, we follow a new detective, James Gordon, who, as Batman fans know, will eventually become the police commissioner and one of Batman’s main allies. Throughout the series, we are introduced to Batman’s rogues’ gallery of villains-in-training as the pieces of a familiar world fall into place.

Turns out there’s no shortage of Batman shows that aren’t about Batman. In this prequel series, we follow the Dark Knight’s famous butler Alfred Pennyworth. This version of the character exists in a parallel universe in which the Nazis won World War II. A former British SAS soldier, Alfred is forming his own security company. Targeted by a group of radicals attempting to take over the British government, Alfred allies himself with American agents who belong to the No Name League. These include Thomas Wayne and Martha Kane, the future parents of Bruce Wayne. While the first two seasons of Pennyworth aired on Epix, a planned third season will move to HBO Max.

If it’s young heroes with an adult spin you’re into, you could do much worse than Runaways, a show like Titans in its treatment of very different heroes having to learn to put their differences aside and work as a team. Follow a group of teens who join forces as the superhero team the Runaways. What do they all have in common? Not much, except that their parents are all part of a syndicate of supervillains. Together, the Runaways plan to stop them. This series is based on the hit Marvel comic book by Brian K. Vaughan.

A crossover show that is somehow less than the sum of its parts, The Defenders is nevertheless worth checking out if you like gritty superhero team-up shows like Titans. The show brings together Netflix’s stable of street-level Marvel heroes. Think of it as a kind of low-rent Avengers on the streets of New York. When the mysterious crime syndicate the Hand threatens the city, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Iron Fist reluctantly combine their powers to stop their shared foe.

Did someone order a bunch of misfits with superpowers who work together to become a force to be reckoned with? Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy, an adaptation of the wonderful Dark Horse comic, follows a team of adult foster siblings whose adoptive father put them through grueling superhero training as children. Now, as adults, they have to deal with their dark family legacy, time-traveling hitmen, and the end of the world. A little wackier than the DC superheroes, The Umbrella Academy is nevertheless a solid addition to your shows-like-Titans watchlist.

In a lot of ways, Doom Patrol and The Umbrella Academy are probably more similar to one another than they are to other shows like Titans, but why not watch all three? Doom Patrol does get some bonus Titans points for actually featuring two characters who also appear in Titans. They’re even played by the same actors, but the shows exist in separate narrative timelines. Based on the DC Comics, Doom Patrol follows the titular Doom Patrol, a group of social outcasts and misfits with mysterious abilities they earned in a series of tragedies.

Another superhero series that focuses on some of the smaller names of the DC Universe, Arrow, and the broader Arrowverse (including Supergirl and The Flash), earns its place on this list as a series about teamwork, trust, and overcoming adversity to fight for justice. After surviving in the wilderness for years, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen returns to his hometown Starling City, where he becomes the masked archer Arrow and fights crime to restore the city to its former glory. He’s joined along the way by a huge group of heroes also trying to make a difference.

In the tradition of Titans’ focus on young heroes finding themselves and getting out from under the shadow of elder heroes like Batman, Jupiter’s Legacy is primarily about, well, legacy. The series jumps back and forth in time, with businessman Sheldon Sampson leading a team of people on an expedition during the Great Depression. Together, they unlock superpowers and form the Union of Justice. In the present day, Sampson remains the team’s leader but struggles to preserve the Union’s guiding principles as a new generation of heroes comes up. These include his own children.