DC's Future State Brings Back Kevin Smith-Created Villain Onomatopoeia

This week's Future State: Catwoman #1 delivers another fantastic entry in DC's latest publishing initiative, telling the tale of what Selina Kyle's character is doing in this not-too-distant future. And what she's doing is hopping aboard a prisoner train put together by the evil Magistrate which is chock full of other villains that they're hoping to rehabilitate. Among them is a character that Selina enlists to help her make her way through the remaining cars on the train., but also one that hasn't regularly appeared in DC books for quite some time. Full spoilers for Future State: Catwoman #1 below!

On the train, Selina encounters a villain that is heavily secured, who she quickly identifies as none other than Onomatopoeia, the Kevin Smith and Phil Hester created villain that first appeared in the pages of Green Arrow almost twenty years ago. The name Onomatopoeia comes from the terms that appear throughout comics, phonetically suggesting the sounds they're describing like the classic BIFF!, BAM!, and POW! A trained marksmen and assassin, Onomatopoeia the character makes the sounds himself out loud as dialogue in the pages of the comics.

Writer Ram V. and artist Otto Schmidt are the ones that have brought Onomatopoeia back into the fold at DC with Future State: Catwoman. In the issue he agrees to help Catwoman on the train and since he's without any of his equipment, creates a brand new version of his mask from a torn T-shirt and the blood of a dead guard. The final panel of the issue reveals the most important prisoner on the train though, none other than Bruce Wayne himself. We know from the solicitation for Future State: Catwoman #2 that Onomatopoeia will still be present, so it will be interesting to see how they interact when it's published.

Recently Onomatopoeia had made minor appearance in Teen Titans, Deathstroke, and the #1000 anniversary issue of Detective Comics. Previously he'd been used almost exlusively by Smith who had him appear throughout his Green Arrow run but also in his Batman mini-series Batman: Cacophony and Batman: The Widening Gyre, which elaborated on his backstory a little more.

Smith previously opened up about the idea of f appearing as a character in the Arrow TV series after he'd lamented that the character would only work on the page. In the end, he came up with an idea.

"I've figured out a way to do it that is kinda bad-ass and also connects to comics more or less," Smith told Den of Geek (back in 2016) "So instead of just doing the actual sound – which to me, in the real world, would be like the dude from Police Academy making noises with his mouth – he'll just have little cards. Business cards that have typewritten words of whatever the f**k. So instead of him saying 'blam', you'd find this card on your desk and turn around and 'blam', he'd shoot you and stuff like that. Which I think is a little more chilly, you know, for doing it in live action. On a comic book page, those big word balloons with a tiny word in it were so f***ing sweet. It looks beautifully graphic, like, at the same time it creates an image of 'this is weird'. But I don't know if audibly making noises would ever work in the real world, so I think those cards would be bad-ass, man."

DC's Titans Season 3 Casts Barbara Gordon

Titans season 3 is going to be loaded with DC fan-favorite characters, and now the show has found who will be bringing the iconic Barbara Gordon to life. According to Variety, Savannah Welch has been cast in the role for season 3, where she will be the Gotham City Police Commissioner. In the show, it is revealed that her Batgirl days ended after she was shot and paralyzed by the Joker, and she's been in a wheelchair ever since. It's also revealed that her relationship with Bruce Wayne is "combative", but when Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) returns to Gotham their old romance is rekindled and they partner up to fight crime once more.
 

Welch has appeared in a number of critically acclaimed projects like Boyhood and Tree of Life, and most recently played a Marine who suffers an amputation in combat in the History Channel drama Six. Welch is also an amputee after losing one of her legs in an accident in 2016, and since then has become a spokesperson and advocate for the disability community.

She's also appeared in The Transcendents, The Golden Rut, Jack's Apocalypse, and Billy Bates, and she is represented by Collier Talent Agency.

The closes previous incarnation of Barbar Gordon occurred in WB's Birds of Prey series, which featured Dina Meyer in the role as a Gordon who had become Oracle after the tragic encounter with the Joker. We did get glimpses and flashbacks of her Batgirl days in that show though, so it remains to be seen if we'll get a similar handling of the character in Titans.

This will be the first time we've had Gordon as Commissioner of the GCPD in live-action however, though we have seen this a few times in other formats. Most notably Gordon was Commissioner in Batman Beyond (the animated series and comic series), and it will be interesting to see what Titans can do with the premise.

Batgirl and Static Shock Reportedly HBO Max Exclusives

The DC Films universe has gone through quite a few different evolutions over the years, as Warner Bros. has worked to bring a slew of beloved DC Comics characters onto the big screen. Even with the COVID-19 pandemic shifting elements of the franchise's schedule, there are still quite a lot of new films either on the schedule or in the pipeline -- and it sounds like DC Films could soon be expanding how they release them. A recent article from The New York Times profiles DC Films president Walter Hamada, and previews what the company's strategy could look like following the hybrid theatrical and HBO Max release of Wonder Woman 1984. Part of the article outlines that DC Films plans to release two films a year exclusively on HBO Max, with the article hinting that it could perhaps be films that are "focused on riskier characters like Batgirl and Static Shock."

Of course, there's no official indication of whether or not that will ultimately be the fate of either of those films, especially since that portion of the article does not quote Hamada directly. But still, the mention of both of those films in particular - especially when DC has countless other films in the work - is definitely interesting. The Batgirl solo film has been in the works for several years now, with Joss Whedon initially lined up to write and direct the project, only to drop out months later. Christina Hodson, who has penned both Birds of Prey and the upcoming Flashpoint for DC Films, has been handling the Batgirl script since April of 2018, but no official updates have been announced recently.

Static Shock, meanwhile, was just announced to be in the works in October of this year, with Michael B. Jordan lined up to produce the project.

While there are definitely fans who would want to see either Batgirl or Static Shock on the big screen - and again, this article doesn't definitively confirm either film's fate - there is an argument to be made for either film ending up on HBO Max, or even doing a hybrid release similar to Wonder Woman 1984 and WB's current 2021 film slate. Given how beloved Batgirl and Static Shock are as characters, there's a good chance that either film could reach a wider audience with the help of HBO Max, similarly to how Birds of Prey got a second wind once it hit PVOD and HBO Max earlier this year. Plus, as the theatrical experience proves to be more and more of a logistical challenge amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the idea of definitively having blockbuster films premiere on filming could have some upsides. It also would provide an experience equivalent to what the Marvel Cinematic Universe has planned for the future, with a mix of theatrically-released films and Disney+ exclusive series.

DC Films President Addresses Live-Action Multiverse Plans

DC Films president Walter Hamada believes moviegoing audiences are "sophisticated" enough to understand the multiverse, a concept allowing the studio to bring multiple versions of DC Comics superheroes to the screen — even at the same time, or in the same movie. That will be the case in The Flash, where the super-speedster (Ezra Miller) will encounter the Batman of his world (Ben Affleck) and a Dark Knight from another dimension (Michael Keaton). Yet another Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) will exist on a new Earth outside of the DC Extended Universe in the rebooted The Batman, which is separate still from Arthur Fleck's (Joaquin Phoenix) reality in the standalone Joker.

"I don't think anyone else has ever attempted this," Hamada told The New York Times. "But audiences are sophisticated enough to understand it. If we make good movies, they will go with it."

The DCEU — home to such superheroes as Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman and Jason Momoa's Aquaman — has already crossed over with the Arrowverse, home to television superheroes like Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) and Supergirl (Melissa Benoist). During TV's ambitious Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, Miller's big-screen Flash crossed paths with the Arrowverse Flash (Grant Gustin) to tease things to come.

"This really opens the door for us to do more crossovers, to really establish this idea that there can be a Flash on TV and a Flash in the movies," Hamada said during the virtual DC FanDome event over the summer. "You don't have to pick one or the other, you can love both. On one Earth, you have Gal and Jason and Ezra as this Justice League, and you can continue telling these stories. While on another Earth, you can have a more grounded, real, Year Two Batman [in The Batman]."

The move allows filmmakers like Matt Reeves the freedom to operate outside of a pre-existing continuity in The Batman, and filmmakers like Todd Phillips the opportunity to tell standalone stories like an R-rated villain origin in Joker. And Zack Snyder's Justice League, the filmmaker's long-awaited Snyder Cut, will exist "slightly elsewhere" in the ever-expanding multiverse.

"We're trying to keep it as simple as that, like there is that one Earth that exists in Justice League, and then the beginnings of another earth that is happening in its early stages of [The Batman]," Hamada said in August. "And then, obviously, there are outliers like Joker, which doesn't exist in either earth, but that's okay, it's all part of the multiverse. Matt Reeves can continue to build out his Gotham, and he's got great plans on how to build it out and build it out in a way that's innovative."