Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) will finally be joined by Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) on her eponymous show, now on The CW. Photo: Frank Ockefels III and Diyah Pera/The CW -- © 2016 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved
By Andrew A. Smith
Tribune Content Agency
With the fall TV season on the horizon, and fans already looking forward to movies scheduled for 2017 (and beyond), there’s plenty of info pouring in about comics-related screen projects. Here are some fun bits:
Item! Batman’s Bad Guy Boffo!
Be honest, do you really take Bane seriously as a Batman villain? Yeah, he’s big and tough, but Batman’s whole schtick is that he can outfight just about anybody (even a certain Kryptonian, if a recent movie is to be believed). If he can’t out-muscle someone like Bane, he’ll out-think him. I mean … he’s Batman.
Which is why a great many fans went berserk when Ben Affleck tweeted a video clip Aug. 29 hinting at a villain for the standalone Batman movie to debut after the two upcoming Justice League films (also starring Batfleck). The clip appeared to feature a certain DC Comics supervillain who is a physical match for the Dark Knight – or, more likely, his superior.
That would be Slade Wilson, a.k.a. Deathstroke the Terminator, a mercenary assassin who has undergone an experimental treatment that increased his speed, strength and intelligence to superhuman levels. Affleck – and about a jillion websites – have confirmed that Deathstroke will, in fact, be the main villain in the movie that Affleck will star in and direct, a couple of years from now. (No, it’s not too soon to get excited. It’s Batman!)
Manu Bennett played a version of Deathstroke on The CW’s Arrow, but that character had an entirely different origin. Let’s just call him a distant cousin.
Item! Barb Gets Mugged!
Actress Shannon Purser played “Barb” on the Netflix series Stranger Things, a character that has somehow become an Internet favorite despite appearing in only a couple of episodes. So expect cheers when, according to Entertainment Weekly, Purser takes on another genre role, as Ethel Muggs (a.k.a. Big Ethel) on The CW’s Riverdale. Expected in January 2017, Riverdale features Archie, Jughead, Veronica and the whole Hee-Haw gang, but in a Twin Peaks version of their (formerly) idyllic town.
Robin Givens has also been cast, according to Deadline.com, as Riverdale Mayor Sierra McCoy. Her daughter Josie has a band called The Pussycats, of whom you may have heard.
Item! Mutant Maniac!
Fox really, really wants to expand the X-Men franchise. But it’s been hit (Deadpool) and near-miss (X-Men: Apocalypse).Their next effort, coming to FX in early 2017, is a character and a show called Legion.
In Marvel’s X-Men comics, David “Legion” Haller is the son of Charles “Professor X” Xavier and a long-lost love, who has multiple-personality disorder. Worse, each of his personalities has a different power set. The TV show will take that premise … and make it even stranger.
The first co-production between Fox and Marvel TV, Legion will star Dan Stevens as Haller, a man who isn’t sure whether he’s a mutant, or mentally ill – or both. The show has stars behind the camera as well, including showrunner Noah Halley (Fargo); X-Men movie producers Simon Kinberg, Lauren Shuler Donner and Bryan Singer; and Marvel TV’s Jeph Loeb and Jim Chory.
Item! Supergirl Gets Super Friends!
When the final episode of Supergirl Season One aired, there were two cliffhangers: 1) who is in the Kryptonian ship that just landed in National City, and 2) would there be a second season of Supergirl?
CBS did not, in fact, renew Supergirl – but The CW did, which will pick up the show beginning Oct. 10. That’s one question answered.
As to the other, I’m guessing the spaceship’s occupant will be Mon-El, a beloved DC Comics character with the same super-powers as someone from Krypton, because he’s from a very similar planet named Daxam. That’s my guess, because Mon-El shows up in the credits for Season Two, played by Chris Wood.
Other new faces on the show, according to Entertainment Weekly, include Tyler Hoechlin as Superman, former Wonder Woman Lynda Carter as the U.S. president, Sharon Leal as Miss Martian, Katie McGrath as Lena Luthor, Ian Gomez as Snapper Carr, Floriana Lima as Maggie Sawyer and Frederick Schmidt as Metallo.
If you don’t know who all of those characters are, you aren’t reading enough comic books.
Item! Avengers (and Guardians) Assemble!
Avengers: Infinity War – originally planned as two movies, but now pared to one – is going to be unusually crowded. And I mean crowded even for a Marvel movie, some of which have enough superheroes to stage a production of Cats.
The Avengers will assemble to battle cosmic supervillain Thanos on May 4, 2018. According to Variety, Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Hawkeye (Jeremey Renner) are confirmed for the movie, but you can expect a great many more – it’s an Avengers movie, so you have to have a bunch of Avengers. Potential combatants include Ant-Man, Black Panther, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Dr. Strange, Falcon, Hulk, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man, Thor, Vision, War Machine, Wasp, Winter Soldier and Captain America (if he’s still being called that after the events of Civil War).
But Variety says that’s not all: The Guardians of the Galaxy will be dropping by, too. That means Drax, Gamora, Groot, Rocket Raccoon and Star-Lord will join in the Avengering. Well, assuming Guardians of the Galaxy 2, debuting May 5, 2017, doesn’t change the team’s lineup.
And you thought Game of Thrones had a lot of characters.
Item! ‘Runaways’ Get a Home!
Every teenager thinks their parents are supervillains. What if they really were?
That was the premise of Runaways, a Marvel Comics series created by Brian K. Vaughn (Y: The Last Man) and Adrian Alphona (Ms. Marvel) in 2003. In that first series, a group of teens discover their parents – six sets of them – make up a supervillain organization called The Pride, which runs all crime in Los Angeles. Two of the parents are magic-users, two are mad scientists, and so forth.
So naturally, the kids team up and run away. And naturally, several of them develop super-powers as well. Which is a good thing, because their parents very much want to find them … and are not happy.
That concept will be adapted fairly faithfully by Marvel TV producers Jeph Loeb and Jim Chory on the streaming service Hulu, which has given a series order, according to Marvel.com. But it’s TV, so you’ll find some familiar teenage tropes – especially since the series will be run by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage (Gossip Girl, The O.C.).
"We've known the Runaways' story would make great television," Loeb told Deadline.com. I guess we’ll find out.
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Replies
That photo of Tyler Hoechlin as Supes is kind of odd looking but he was awesome in Everybody Wants Some so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yeah, he looks like he's squinting and sucking in his cheeks. And what's with the hair?