A month after it was confirmed at DC FanDome that the Justice Society of America will feature in DC’s upcoming Black Adam, one more member of the JSA has been cast.
THR reports that The Invisible Man star Aldis Hodge has signed on to play superhero Hawkman in the movie about longtime DC comics antihero Black Adam. The news comes two months after Noah Centineo was announced as Atom Smasher, with Dwayne Johnson, of course, playing the titular character. Johnson shared an amusing story on his Instagram confirming the news:
This makes Hodge the third actor to be cast and another piece of the puzzle that is the movie iteration of the Justice Society of America. While the better-known Justice League is an elite squad of superheroes at the top of their game with specific missions, the JSA is currently more of a multi-generational organization that’s focused on training. Whether or not it will operate the same way in the movie adaptation is unknown, but what is known is that two more JSA members will be cast: Doctor Fate and Cyclone.
In the comics, Hawkman, who first appeared in Flash Comics #1 in 1940, is the reincarnated soul of Prince Khufu, one half of a pair of lovers from Ancient Egypt destined to be reincarnated over and over again. Currently, he goes by the name of Carter Hall, an archaeologist and adventurer with a complex and sometimes volatile personality. His iterations over the years have evolved into his Hawkman superhero persona. Using the gravity-defying alien element “Nth metal,” he crafted wings, harness, belt and boots that can be controlled mentally and allow him to fly. The Nth metal also enhances his human sense, lending him more strength and speed, the eyesight of a hawk, regulates his body temperature and speeds up healing. His millennia of lives lived has made him a master hand-to-hand combatant and weapons specialist as well as an excellent tactician, warrior and leader, as well as being brilliant in the fields of history and archaeology.
Normally, Hawkman is paired with and inseparable from his eternal soulmate Hawkgirl, the reincarnation of ancient Egyptian priestess Chay-Ara, but Hawkgirl will not be appearing in Black Adam. In August, Johnson revealed that Hawkgirl had been in the original script and planned as a character but complications arose, which likely means there were character rights complications involved in the use of the Hawkgirl character, as comic book movies often have.
As for Hodge, he’s having himself a moment, playing James Lanier in the wildly successful adaptation of The Invisible Man earlier this year, following in last year’s footsteps of a successful turn in Showtime drama City on a Hill and rom-com What Men Want. He’ll next be seen in One Night in Miami, Regina King’s theatrical feature debut that’s currently making the festival rounds and generating Oscar buzz. The story unfolds over the course of one fictional night in Miami where boxing legend Muhammad Ali, singer Sam Cooke, activist Malcolm X and football star Jim Brown got together to discuss their roles as icons, the civil rights movement and the upheaval of the 60s. Hodge plays Brown. With these notable projects and other strong turns in projects like Black Mirror, Hidden Figures and Straight Outta Compton, Hodge’s star has been on a steady rise the past few years but playing Hawkman in Black Adam will be by far his biggest role to date.
Black Adam is currently in pre-production. It’s set for release on December 22, 2021.
