Joel McHale Joins DC’s ‘Stargirl’ Series as Starman. Ian Ziering Joins ‘Swamp Thing’ As Blue Devil
DC Universe has announced a couple of new castings for their upcoming comic books shows ‘Stargirl‘ and ‘Swamp Thing‘. Joel McHale has taken the role of Starman, whilst Ian Ziering will be donning the horns as Blue Devil.
‘Stargirl’ follows high school sophomore Courtney Whitmore (Brec Bassinger – ‘School of Rock’) who inspires an unlikely group of young heroes to stop the villains of the past. This new DC Universe series reimagines Stargirl and the very first superhero team, the Justice Society of America, in a fun, exciting and unpredictable series.
Joel McHale will be playing rich socialite Sylvester Pemberton, aka Starman. A courageous and confident Super Hero, Starman is a member of the Justice Society of America. Starman wields a mysterious anti-gravity weapon called the Cosmic Staff. His longtime partner is his sidekick, Stripesy, better known as Courtney Whitmore’s stepfather, Pat Dugan.
Those of you who are comic book readers are probably thinking “wait a minute… Sylvester Pemberton was never Starman, he was the Star-Spangled Kid,” and you would be correct. So it seems the tv show will be messing around with the origins of some of these characters, although, it’s possible there is a plotline reason for the change. Remember the who Zoom/Hunter Zolomon/Jay Garrick switcharoo in ‘The Flash’? Or it could be that it just helps streamline the story.
McHale is a well-known face on tv, having starred in ‘Community’, ‘The Great Indoors’ and most recently, hosting The Joel McHale Show on Netflix. He also popped up in the last season of ‘The X-Files’.
‘Swamp Thing’ follows CDC researcher Abby Arcane (Crystal Reed – ‘Gotham’, ‘Teen Wolf’) who returns to her childhood home of Houma, Louisiana, in order to investigate a deadly swamp-borne virus. There, she develops a surprising bond with scientist Alec Holland (Andy Bean – ‘Here and Now’, ‘Power’) only to have him tragically taken from her, but as powerful forces descend on Houma, intent on exploiting the swamp’s mysterious properties for their own purposes, Abby will discover that the swamp holds mystical secrets, both horrifying and wondrous – and the potential love of her life may not be dead after all, as Holland emerges as the elemental hero known as Swamp Thing (Derek Mears – ‘Sleepy Hollow’, ‘Friday the 13th’).
Ian Ziering joins the cast as stuntman-turned-movie-star Daniel Cassidy, who became semi-famous after starring as the demonic film character “Blue Devil”. But now, eight years later, Cassidy finds himself living out his days in frustration, pining for his former fame while on a collision course with destiny. If that “destiny” lines up with the comic book origin, Cassidy meets an actual demon who ends up permanently fusing him with his Blue Devil costume. The transformation does have an upside, as it also gives him superpowers, such as superhuman strength and durability… which hopefully, helps make up for being made permanently blue with large horns…
Ziering is probably best known for his role as Steve Sanders in the classic 90’s series ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’. Since then, he’s been keeping busy providing voices for animated shows such as ‘Spider-Man’, ‘Biker Mice from Mars’ and ‘Godzilla’, along with starring as Fin in the ‘Sharknado’ movies.
‘Swamp Thing‘ will be released on DC Universe in the US around June 2019, with‘Stargirl‘ following around September 2019. Neither show currently has a UK broadcaster, however, Netflix UK has picked up the ‘Titans’ series for broadcast over here in January 2019, so it would seem possible they may go for these too. We’ll let you know when we hear more.
