Last night, the internet lit up with the news of yet another JLAer being added to the so-called Man of Steel sequel. Broadway star Ray Fisher has officially been cast to play Victor Stone (aka Cyborg) in the upcoming superhero epic, leading most fans to think “why doesn’t Warner Brothers just call this movie Justice League already?”
Last week, twitter was all, well, atwitter when artist Sean Murphy tweeted out a loose pencil sketch of Robin — Batman’s trusty sidekick — with an African American teen under the mask. Needless to say, the internet pretty much exploded when the initial tweet went out. Two hours later, though, Murphy and Scott Snyder deflated many a nerd’s bubble when they clarified that this “new” Robin wasn’t actually meant to be “in continuity.” Instead, the sketch Murphy sent out was only meant to be a brief glimpse into an alternate future in one of the anthology pieces in a special issue celebrating the 75th anniversary of Detective Comics #27 next year.
Still, all the swirl around “the first Black Robin” — and the fact that cross-racial casting of superheroes has been a popular topic on the blog recently — got me thinking about comics’ prototypical superhero sidekick. Few headlining superheroes are as indelibly iconic as the Boy Wonder. He’s also one of the few “legacy” heroes — that is, heroes whose mantles have passed down to different characters over the years — who has successfully navigated through several different and distinct identities without losing any of the iconography (while developing ardent fanbases for each version of the character). He’s also one of DC Comics’ most enduring multimedia stars as well, having been portrayed in several incarnations in very different media.
Yesterday, it was announced that Spartacus: War of the Damned star Cynthia Addai-Robinson has been cast as Amanda Waller in season two of The CW’s Arrow. This casting news came pretty quickly considering rumors of Waller appearing in Arrow only surfaced a few days ago. Confirmation of her presence in the Arrow-verse is further proof that season two will be including more of the DC Comics mythology than was delivered in the first season. In addition to Waller, there will be story arcs involving Deadshot and Bronze Tiger (played by Michael Jai White) which pretty much confirms that the Suicide Squad is coming to Starling City (Is it wrong that I’m still bothered by the name of the city in this show?), not to mention the much-hyped appearance of The Flash/Barry Allen some time during the season.
Addai-Robinson’s take on Amanda Waller won’t be the first stab at the character in live action. In fact, multiple actresses have tackled the role in recent years, showing that The Wall is a major structural foundation of any iteration of the DC Universe (ha, see what I did there?). After the jump, we’re going to look back at all of the acclaimed actresses who have brought Amanda Waller to life. From CCH Pounder to Pam Grier and Angela Bassett, Cynthia Addai-Robinson is going to have some rather large shoes to fill (well, not that large, since it seems The CW is going with the slimmed-down and sexed-up New 52 version of the character. Ugh, have I mentioned how much I dislike the DCnU?)
