It took James Gunn close to a decade to get Kevin Bacon into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, and we’re hoping that as he begins his reign as chief of rival DC Studios, he manages to get the Tremors and They/Them star into the mix a little sooner this time around. The prolific Bacon, who also starred in the 2010 superhero parody Super from Gunn, played himself in the Guardians holiday special, so there isn’t exactly a 1:1 comparison to be made here. That said, he did play Sebastian Shaw in X-Men: First Class.
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Bacon is a beloved character actor, so prolific in his work that somebody literally created a “six degrees of Kevin Bacon” game to prove that he was just a few connections away from any actor or creative in Hollywood.
“I didn’t really read the script,” said in a recent interview about the Guardians special. “I just said, ‘Oh yeah, that sounds great.’ In fact, I don’t even know initially if I knew if I was playing myself. I’m trying to remember, because it’s been quite a few years since the idea first arrived. It took some time to get it off the ground because of COVID and other kinds of things. But yeah, I was thrilled when I read the script and then when he later on told me that I was also going to sing, I was like, ‘This is really fun.’”
Obviously, then, it sounds like if Gunn comes calling, Bacon will likely pick up the phone. So we cooked up (no bacon pun intended there) a little list of DC characters we think the star could play in Gunn’s new DC Universe.
Sinestro
Sinestro needs to be introduced as a villain next time around, and it’s easy to see Bacon passionately and wrong-headedly leading an army of yellow ring-slingers. It’s kind of a super-powered riff on what he did in They/Them, honestly.
Max Mercury
Bacon is not old enough to be the white-haired and aged Max Mercury, but we love the idea of him stepping in as a mentor figure to The Flash, splitting time between earnest, character-driven moments and a little time in the super-suit.
Travis Morgan
It isn’t entirely clear whether DC would be able to use Warlord without getting Mike Grell involved, but either way, we would love to see Bacon take on the role of the Air Force pilot who crash-lands in a magical land in the center of the Earth. He could totally pull off Morgan’s presence and his scowl…even if he might have to spend some time in the gym to pull off the loincloth.
Maxwell Lord
If there’s anything that can probably be discounted in the new continuity, we wouldn’t mind seeing the Maxwell Lord of Wonder Woman 1984 got retconned. Max Lord as he originally was — a glad-handing conman with motives related to greed — would be a fun character to see someone with Bacon’s inherent likability (but ability to go dark quickly) tackle.
Jonar Carter/Supernova
This one is kind of perfect, since James Gunn recently said that an informal social media poll had revealed Booster Gold to be a character with a ton of fan support.
Jonar Jon Carter, a habitual gambler, drinker, and generally terrible role model for his kids, is the father of Booster Gold (who later became the villain Supernova). He was often referred to but never appeared on the page until Booster Gold‘s second volume in 2006. When audiences finally met the elder Carter in person, he had been recruited into the Time Stealers, a group of supervillains who wanted to bend time to their own ends, and who found themselves regularly butting heads with Rip Hunter, Time Master, and his father Booster Gold.
John Lynch
It feels likely that the DC Universe will include characters from Jim Lee’s WildStorm publishing line. After all, the comics side has been trying to incorporate imprints like Vertigo, WildStorm, and Milestone for years. The biggest problem is that there hasn’t been a clean break form old continuity that would make those things fit. On the movie side, there isn’t a ton of continuity yet, and some or all of it appears headed for a reboot anyway.
As the head of Team 7 and the guardian of Gen 13, Lynch could be a cool character to include in the universe and an interesting counterpoint to Amanda Waller in the DCU.
Will Magnus
With Gunn seemingly taking the DC Universe in a younger direction, casting Bacon as an aging Bruce Wayne or something similar feels like a non-starter. But characters who are already over thirty years old seem like they’d be totally fair play. One such character we think Bacon could nail is Will Magnus, the genius inventor (and sometimes unhinged fugitive) behind the Metal Men.
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Image courtesy of The CW
