TCA Tour Announcements: Here’s What’s Hot in Superhero TV News Today
The Television Critics Association (TCA) held its annual conference today, leading to a slew of announcements about some of your favorite comic book characters on TV.
Is The Flash adding The Green Lantern to the show’s superhero roster?
It looks that way. The Flash show runner Eric Wallace told TV Line that fans of Arrow will finally find out what happened to John Diggle at the end of that series when actor David Ramsey joins the show this season.
At the end of Arrow, Diggle .was packing up to relocate his family to Metropolis when a meteor crashed nearby, slamming him against a moving van. After shaking off the blow, he fished through the debris to discover a box, which, upon being opened, emitted a bright green light.
This was taken as a nod to the character’s long-speculated Green Lantern destiny. Is John Diggle really John Stewart? Wallace declined to say directly, but said the back half of the Flash season would be John Diggle trying to resolve his “problem”.
Ramsey’s character will appear across The Flash (which opens Season 7 on March 2nd), Supergirl (final season premiere date TBA), Superman & Lois (which premiered on February 23rd) and Batwoman, and is scheduled to play “a mystery role” during Legends of Tomorrow‘s sixth season (premiere date May 2nd.)
Speaking of Superman & Lois, the show’s premiere drew the best ratings for its time slot for the past two years.
The 90 minute premiere of the program event averaged 1.71 million total viewers and a 0.4 demo (adults 18-49) rating. The first hour delivered The CW’s largest audience in that time slot (1.71 million) in two years, since The Flash season 5, episode 12.
And while it didn’t quite match Walker, which debuted last month to 2.44 million viewers and nearly a 0.4, it did deliver The CW’s second-largest season or series premiere audience since Batwoman back in the fall of 2019.
The show focuses on a middle-aged super couple. Now the parents of two very different teenage boys, Clark (Tyler Hoechlin) and Lois (Elizabeth Tulloch) are working in Metropolis, until the tragic death of Martha Kent forces the entire family back to Smallville, where the family has to deal with a number of changes since Clark was a boy.
Mark your calendars: Loki will premiere on June 11th.
Disney+ announced a slew of new show premieres today, including Star Wars: The Bad Batch (May 4th) and Monsters at Work (July 2nd.)
Loki sees the return of Tom Hiddleston as the immortal (?) title character. The God of Mischief will part ways with Thor to have his own adventures in a new series that takes place after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Hiddleston will be joined by Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia Di Martino, Wunmi Mosaku and Richard E. Grant.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch follows a unique squad of elite and experimental clones called the Bad Batch (first introduced in The Clone Wars) as they find their way in a rapidly changing galaxy in the immediate aftermath of the Clone War. Members of Bad Batch, who vary genetically from their brothers in the Clone Army, each possess an unusual power that makes them extraordinarily effective soldiers.
Is Jessica Jones coming back into the Marvel TV family?
Kevin Feige, Chief Creative Officer at Marvel Studios, intimated that some of the company’s earlier television properties, many of which ran on Netflix could come into the Disney+ universe.
Jeph Loeb ran Marvel Television, which was launched in 2010, bringing series like Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Punisher and The Defenders to Netflix. One by one, though, those shows were cancelled after only two or three seasons on the streamer.
Feige spoke at Disney+’s virtual TCA press tour, and when asked whether those properties could return to the Marvel Studios fold, he said, “I think we probably could do it, I think a lot of that stuff comes back to us. There’s always rumors online about things reverting, sometimes that’s true, sometimes it’s not, but I’m not exactly sure of the exact contracts but perhaps someday.”
Feige, who joined Marvel in 2000, added he wasn’t disappointed not to have had creative control of these properties, as he was more focused on the characters that were under his purview.
But obviously, things may be different now. Stay tuned!
As a reminder, at the end of Arrow, Diggle was packing up to relocate his family to Metropolis when a meteor crashed nearby, slamming him against a moving van. After shaking off the blow, Dig combed through the debris to discover a box, which, upon being opened, emitted a bright green light — seemingly nodding at the character’s long-speculated Green Lantern destiny.