TITANS Casts Chella Man as Jericho

The Titans are about to achieve CONTACT!

Deadline has word that the DC Universe series Titans has cast Chella Man in the recurring role of Joseph Wilson, better known to DC Comics fans as the superhero (and occasional villain) Jericho.

According to the article, Jericho is described as "Son of the infamous DC villain Deathstroke (played by Esai Morales), Joseph Wilson is the Titan known as Jericho.  Mute after his father failed to rescue him from having his vocal cords severed by assassins, Jericho has the unique ability to possess anyone just by making eye contact.  This gentle natured yet proud hero has proven himself a formidable Titan."

Man is a deaf, transgender model and YouTube star, reportedly with 173,000 subscribers and 2.5 million views, who shares his personal account of gender transition and living "deaf, Genderqueer, Chinese, and Jewish."  In addition, Man has written for multiple blogs (including Condé Nast’s Them) and is a speaker on gender, identity, race, and disability.

Created in 1984 by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, Jericho first appeared in Tales of the Teen Titans #43 as Joseph Wilson, the youngest son of Slade Wilson (Deathstroke the Terminator) and Adeline Kane Wilson. Joseph was a musical prodigy, as well being an talented artist.  When he was a child, he was held hostage by the terrorist Jackal, sent by the Quarac president for killing an important colonel, in an effort to obtain information from his father of whom hired him, who was secretly leading a double life as a mercenary.  Deathstroke refused to cooperate with Jackal, citing a violation of his professional code of ethics, then attempted to rescue Joseph by betting on his speed.  Deathstroke managed to save his son, but not before one of Jackal's men cut Joseph's throat. As a result, Joseph was rendered mute.

Following the incident, Joseph's mother Adeline divorced Slade (She had previously tried to kill him, but only succeeded in blinding him in one eye) and took Joseph and his older brother Grant with her.  At some point, Joseph learned to communicate through American Sign Language.  While still a child, Joseph discovered that he possessed the metahuman power to take possession of any humanoid being by making eye contact with it, a result of biological experimentation done on his father years before.  He first manifested his powers when his was saving a friend in danger, but Joseph was left traumatized by the event and his powers would lay dormant until his late teens.  In his late teens, Joseph worked with his mother in her espionage organization, Searchers Inc., and received training in combat and stealth.  During a mission, Joseph's powers awakened once again as he saved his mother from an assassin.  He embraced his abilities to further aid his mother in their work.  Later, in a storyline called "The Judas Contract", Adeline and Joseph discovered that Deathstroke had accepted a contract on the Teen Titans.  They approached Dick Grayson to help him rescue the Titans, with Joseph adopting the identity of Jericho. The rescue mission was a success, and Jericho subsequently joined the team, but the Titans were initially wary of him because of his relationship to Deathstroke, and the betrayal of Terra.

In the current DC Rebirth continuity, Jericho has an edgier personality and is now bisexual. He works as an executive vice-president for a tech firm that his mother owns in Los Angeles, and was engaged to his interpreter, Etienne.  Although mute and still using ASL, Jericho uses a special technology called a "subvocal mic", which lets a person's phone Bluetooth sync with the mic so he can vocalize his thoughts through the phone in a computerized voice.  On the morning of the wedding day, Jericho found Etienne dead in their apartment and believed his father killed her.  Enraged, Jericho went to the church in his Ikon Suit and try to kill Deathstroke, shocking his family.  Despite his father proclaiming his innocence and explaining that Etienne was a spy, Jericho figured out that all of Etienne's activities happened because the government wanted to keep an eye on Deathstroke and he learned that Etienne indeed loved him.  

Man will be the second actor to portray Jericho in live action, after Liam Hall in the CW series Arrow.  The character has also appeared on the Teen Titans animated series and the direct-to-video animated movie Teen Titans: The Judas Contract.

Titans is expected to return to DC Universe for Season 2 sometime in late Fall 2019.