Supergirl: Who Is Adam Foster?
12/14/2015 09:01 pm EST
Spoilers follow for tonight's episode of Supergirl.
Additional reporting by Ashley Robinson
Tonight saw Supergirl star Melissa Benoist's real-life husband Blake Jenner officially name-dropped (but not yet shown) as Adam Foster.
...But, who the heck is Adam Foster?
Well, according to his official character bio, Adam Foster is a handsome stranger from Cat Grant's (Calista Flockhart) past whose arrival in National City tests Kara and Cat's relationship like never before. At the same time, Adam and Kara form a very unexpected connection.
"I like to think that sometimes the better Supergirl gets at her job, Kara's personal life, kind of, suffers. You can't juggle everything and be good at everything all at once, so when she meets Adam that's definitely a wrench in the machine of her life, in terms of CatCo," said Benoist in a recent interview. "He is really attractive. Also, you know, I think there's a mystery about him and there's a connection because of their pasts and what they've both been through, in terms of family and loss."
None of that tells us a heck of a lot...
...But as fans just discovered, Adam is actually the biological son of Cat Grant.
Which makes things a little more interesting.
So far, we don't know very much about Adam Foster, but Adam Morgan (sometimes called Grant)? That's another thing entirely.
If you've been following our coverage of Supergirl, you'll know that we've talked about Adam Morgan/Grant on more than one occasion. The son of Cat Grant and business mogul Joe Morgan, Adam was a major motivator for Cat Grant when she was struggling with a drinking problem. As a society columnist, she had a reputation for being a drunk and somewhat promiscuous -- a reputation Cat wasn't particularly ashamed of, it should be noted, except when Morgan used it in court to get full custody of their son.
Not a "bad seed" or anything, many readers still didn't particularly like Adam, who was written as...well, a bratty rich kid. After overhearing Superman lecture his father about sharing custody with Cat, Adam was scared of the Man of Steel. He also didn't care for Cat's on-again, off-again boyfriend Jose "Gangbuster" Delgado, a fan favorite.
Thanks in part to Superman's words, Morgan saw that Cat had changed since he knew her and they worked out more visitation for Adam. Following the death of Superman, Cat broke up with her then-boyfriend and whenever we saw her outside the office, she was with Adam.
Tragedy struck when, after being kidnapped along with a number of other children by a demented supervillain called the Toyman, Adam freed his fellow captives, only to get himself and the others murdered for his bravery.
Toyman, who had previously been nothing but kind to children (in spite of creating homicidal traps for adults who he believed had wronged him) had justified his kidnappings because the kids in question had parents who didn't pay them enough attention -- certainly something that seems like it could apply to Cat on TV, since she seems to have no real relationship with Adam.
And, yes, we've got Toyman coming to the series relatively soon, which should probably raise some alarm bells for anybody who fell instantly in love with Adam's character tonight.
Mission: Impossible and Revenge star Henry Czerny will be joining the cast of Supergirl in the guest star role of "Winslow Schott," better known to comic book fans as the Toyman in an episode in 2016.
In the comics, the character has gone through a number of iterations over the years, with a latter day version written by DC Entertainment Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns which aimed to bring all the various takes into line. In Supergirl Warner Bros. says, "Winslow Schott, Sr. is a classic D.C. supervillain, a mad criminal genius known as Toyman – and Winn's estranged father. Toyman weaponizes toys to wreak destruction and revenge but is ultimately driven by one thing – the obsessive desire to reunite with his beloved son."
So...how worried should fans be?
Not too too worried, if remarks by Flockhart are any indication.
"I know. He dies. Is it Adam that dies?" Flockhart said when asked whether she knew the character's fate in the source material. "Yeah. See, now, I think that's pretty awesome. He was little, though, this version Adam is a grown man. He's probably 24, but yeah, that's very sad. I love though, that Cat in the comic books - correct me if I'm wrong - but, I believe that she was an alcoholic and, then she got married and sobered up and, then her son died and she got divorced and, then she became an alcoholic again. That's pretty dark. It's pretty sad, I know. I asked Greg [Berlanti] I said, 'Kill him! Kill him!' [Laughs] It's great stuff. That's great stuff, but he said, 'No.'"
Supergirl is on hiatus after tonight's episode, so expect to find out much more about both of these characters in early 2016.
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