The pair, played by actors Ciara Renee and Falk Hentschel, will debut on the already-running Flash and Arrow shows this fall, before taking up their more permanent residence as co-stars of DC’s upcoming Legends of Tomorrow series, also slated to open this season.
Hawkman and Hawkgirl will be joined by a slew of supporting castmates from the DC universe, who too will be spun out of the Arrow and Flash TV universes. Already-planned additions will include The Atom (Brandon Routh), Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller), White Canary (Caity Lotz), and Firestorm (Robbie Amell and Victor Garber).
The show will be the third from DC and The CW in an ongoing bid to use the airwaves — instead of Marvel’s much-favored silver screen — to conquer audiences via a cross-pollinated superhero universe. Given the overwhelming success of Marvel’s most recent film crossovers, it makes sense that DC and The CW would expand their bid to cash in on this growing trend. But so far, DC only seems willing to extend that bid to the smaller screen, as the latest Batman and Superman films show no sign of a desire for a more overarching co-habitation of characters between the studio’s TV shows and movies.
The Superhawks’ costumes appear very similar to their comic-book counterparts, with Hawkman’s signature mace and Thanagarian headgear included, and Hawkgirl’s mask resembling her previous animated portraits. It does remain to be seen how much the pair will fly on a cable TV budget — and the heroes’ typically large wings are notably absent in the press photograph.
Then again, when Hawkman previously made an appearance on TV, via The CW’s long-running Superman show Smallville, his wings were virtually impossible to see until he spread them in all their massive, feathered, glory.
