The CW has released a new image featuring Wayne Brady as Gravedigger, his character from next week’s episode of Black Lightning. Wearing fatigues rather than a costume, Brady’s face is a mask of creepiness unfamiliar to fans who mostly know him as a comedian and game show personality. Gravedigger — also known as Tyson Sykes — is described as a World War II-era member of the U.S. military who became a “super-soldier” after a secret experiment gifted him with enhanced strength, agility, tactical genius and hand-to-hand combat expertise. After the war, Sykes defected to the country of Markovia rather than return to a segregated America. His aim to create a sovereign land for metahumans within Markovia sets him on a collision course with the ASA and Black Lightning.
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Tyson first made his debut in the comics in 2008’s Checkmate vol. 2 #24, and was co-created by Greg Rucka, Eric Trautmann, and Joe Bennett. He is the second character to hold the mantle of Gravedigger after Ulysses Hazard initially held the name since 1977.
You can check it out below.
Brady has a storied career in film and television, including How I Met Your Mother, Colony, and The Bold and the Beautiful. He also hosts Let’s Make a Deal and regularly appears on The CW‘s Whose Line Is It Anyway?. This is just his latest appearance in a DC Comics adaptation, after voicing Micron on Batman Beyond and guest-starring in the “The Sons of Icarus” episode of the 1990s Superboy series.
Brady’s role comes as Black Lightning prepares to deal with the coming Markovia conflict head-on, leading to a bit of a division amongst the Pierce family.
“The family is probably the most disjointed we’ve ever had it,” series star Cress Williams said in an interview last month. “It’s the whole Markovian conflict. It’s pulled everyone in different directions because they’ve gotten a little bit divided, in the sense there are just different focuses that they have and different motivations that they have.”
You can check out the synopsis for “The Book of Markovia: Chapter Four” below!
“WAYNE BRADY (“WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY?”) GUEST STARS IN THE EPISODE – Black Lightning (Cress Williams) and his team descend upon Markovia on a mission to rescue Lynn (Christine Adams) who finds herself in even more trouble when she meets Gravedigger (guest star Wayne Brady, “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”), a metahuman on the Markovian side.
Nafessa Williams, China Anne McClain, James Remar, Damon Gupton, Marvin Jones III and Jordan Calloway also star. Salim Akil directed the episode written by Charles D. Holland & Asheleigh O. Conley.”
