Five DC Comics Characters We’d Rather See On Television Than Deadman
By Arturo R. García
DC Comics’ Deadman brought to television by the folks behind Supernatural? Makes sense, if the story holds up.
Much like SPN’s Winchester brothers, Deadman (aka ghostly acrobat Boston Brand) would give showrunner Eric Kripke another outlet for his horror/comedy stylings. Since Boston has to possess people to do anything in the physical realm, one can only hope a Deadman TV show, if it actually gets past the pilot stage, would actually feature more people who aren’t white.
But we wouldn’t bet on it.
Still, the biggest problem with Deadman is, before recent miniseries like Blackest Night and Brightest Day revived interest in him, DC played Boston as more of a “professional” guest-star, to be called upon for stories involving demons, posession and whatnot, crack wise with the core characters, then shuffle off back to the afterlife. And with DC’s “New 52″ relaunch starting tomorrow, it’s a good time to highlight characters who have come into greater prominence than Deadman over the course of the past decade, only to get passed up for bigger media opportunities.
Jaime Reyes is ready for prime-time right now. He’s been promoted on media platforms besides his own critically-acclaimed comic, and the test footage above, which made the viral rounds last year, showed us his extraterrestrial battlesuit can be done for the small screen – in fact it already was, even if it was for Smallville.
Besides that, DC’s animation division has already provided a blueprint for how to handle Reyes’ story arc, after featuring him on Batman: The Brave and The Bold.
In fact, there’s not that much separating Jaime from the Clark Kent we saw in Smallville: Midwestern setting? Check. Friday Night Lights proved that people will follow a series set in Texas – Jaime lives in El Paso – if the story’s up to snuff. Young hero dealing with his legacy? Check. In fact, you could do what BATB did and bring in Wil Wheaton as Jaime’s predecessor, Ted Kord, for flashback sequences or a time-travel arc. And Jaime’s trajectory is still malleable enough to open the door to the kinds of Guest Superhero appearances Smallville gorged itself on in its’ final season.
Before there was Jaime, there was Virgil Hawkins, who has gone from being the most-popular character from the dearly-departed Milestone Universe to his own eponymous solo series in the DC relaunch. And in between, he was exposed to a whole other fanbase in a critically-acclaimed animated series, where he was written to stand alongside – and stand up to – some of DC Animated’s bigger guns:
Virgil’s best friend Richie – aka Gear, the kid in the glasses in the clip above – could add another dimension to a Static show. Static’s creator, the late Dwayne McDuffie, said he considered Richie to be gay, even if he couldn’t acknowledge it on a kids’ show. But that relationship could be explored on a show skewing toward the crowd that’s grown up in the years since the cartoon aired.
The unlikely success and subsequent renewal of Nikita should make DC take notice: there is still a market for female-driven action stories outside of basic cable. A series following Renee Montoya’s adventures could provide The CW with a good complement to Maggie Q’s show.
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