Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Mercy Graves And Otis On Supergirl Show



I continue to catch up on old news that had been pushed onto the back burner by reviews and conventions.

Despite the show being about 2 months away from premiering, the news continues to come out fast and furious. Wednesdays have remained a sort of 'show news' day.

The most recent news was the announcement that Mercy Graves and Otis Graves have been cast as characters on the show. Rhona Mitra will play Mercy. Robert Baker will be Otis. Here is a link:
https://deadline.com/2018/07/supergirl-rhona-mitra-mercy-graves-on-the-cw-series-robert-baker-also-cast-1202435472/

And a blurb from the brief article:
Based on the iconic DC character, Mercy Graves (Mitra) is an ex-CADMUS agent who has always believed in human exceptionalism. But with both Lex and Lillian in prison, Mercy is stepping out of the Luthor shadow and running her own show. With her biting wit and lethal brawn, Mercy steadily becomes a key figure in National City’s growing “human-first” movement.

Baker’s Otis Graves is Mercy’s defacto right hand man. What he lacks in brains, he makes up for with his savant-like abilities to assassinate aliens. Otis is a character from the Superman movies with Christopher Reeve and has not been featured in comic books.

My brief thoughts next!



I absolutely love the casting of Mitra as Mercy. I loved the Mercy character on Superman:The Animated Series as a loyal to a fault, deadly fighter, body guard. And while there wasn't much to like about Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Mitra was one of them. She has the physical presence to be imposing like Mercy.

And given her ties to Lex (which I hope are kept here), I am not surprised to see she is a 'humans first' advocate. Interesting to see how she acts as her own boss. Will she try to woo Lena to the dark side? She also is another candidate for the 'masked Supergirl' now. Although if she is running her own syndicate, I doubt that she would enter the field and get her hands dirty.

 Seeing Mercy and Harley Quinn tussle in the crossover animated movie with Superman and Batman is probably my favorite Mercy moment so far.

As for Otis?

Well it is another nod to the Donner movies, something the show loves referencing back too. Otis is usually seen as bumbling. There have been hints at some nascent intelligence. So having him lack brains but be an effective killer is an interesting take.

I will say that Otis has appeared in comics before, in the Bryan Q. Miller Smallville Series. For example in Smallville Alien #4:
http://comicboxcommentary.blogspot.com/2014/03/review-smallvillealien-4.html

I am pretty excited for these two additions.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've seen Rhona Mitra in many other roles, but always think of her as the model for Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider video game. She looked, shall we say, very capable and very dangerous.

Anonymous said...

Man Berlanti et al just draw inspiration from every source don't they? The Donnerverse, STAS, I'm seriously waiting for "Mister Zero", "The Spider Lady" and "Mr.McTavish" to show up at some point.


:)

JF

Heath Edwards said...

Otis showed up in Jeph Loeb's run, during the President Lex storyline. Though, it turned out to be the Martian Manhunter in disguise