By: Russ Burlingame on August 27, 2012
We’ve told you before that Marc Andreyko’s mid-2000s take on DC Comics’ Manhunter deserves a television series all its own–and while Kate Spencer won’t get that yet, it appears she’ll be making her way to the small screen sooner than anyone could have predicted.
Last week, while everyone was distracted by news that the upcoming CW series Arrow had drafted Huntress, everyone but Green Arrow TV missed that Ashley Scott–who played The Huntress herself in the short-lived Birds of Prey TV series–broke the news on Twitter that they were casting for Kate Spencer, the no-nonsense district attorney who eventually became Manhunter in the comics.
“Reading for DC Comics’ show Arrow today,” the actress reportedly tweeted (although it’s been removed from her feed since). “So excited about stepping into Kate Spencer’s shoes.”
Kate Spencer’s Manhunter series, written by Marc Andreyko, have been widely praised not only as entertaining and smart comics, but as one of the best depictions of women to come along in superhero comics in quite some time. The story, which featured single mom and district attorney Spencer as a lethal righter of the justice system’s wrongs, also helped launch the career of fan-favorite artist Jesus Saiz. The title was canceled, and then resurrected by fan demand and a letter-writing campaign, on a couple of occasions before finally dying quietly after being relegated to a backup feature in Batman: Streets of Gotham. Arrow’s Marc Guggenheim later wrote the character in Justice Society Of America.
As Green Arrow TV points out, though, the presence of Kate Spencer doesn’t inherently mean the presence of Manhunter. A number of DC characters have already been introduced into the Arrow universe, some of whom are better known as supporting characters for other heroes, and it’s unlikely many of those heroes will arrive on the set.
“Anyone who comes into his world will be a supporting character. Those characters aren’t supporting characters. Those are leads,” Guggenheim recently said of the Justice League. “We’ll be focusing more on supporting cast in the DC universe. People who come in and complement Oliver, not overtake him.”
