TV's Batman, Adam West, Passes Away

Television's (and to a whole generation of us) Batman, Adam West passed away Friday night in Los Angeles at the age of 88.
A representative said that he died after a short battle with leukemia.

"Our dad always saw himself as The Bright Knight, and aspired to make a positive impact on his fans’ lives. He was and always will be our hero." his family said in a statement.

Well said.

Zatanna - Smallville

Although she is not a hugely popular comic book character, Zatanna Zatara is hugely popular with the fans. Everybody loves her. She was created by Gardner Fox and Murphy Anderson and first showed up in Hawkman #4 way back in 1964. Zatanna fought crime in a classic magician's outfit (top hat, tails etc) and spoke words backwards to create magic spells. Yeah I know, original but really....what?

Zatanna was brought to picture perfect life on the CW TV series "Smallville" played by Canadian actress Serinda Swan. She seriously looked like she just stepped out of the comic book. Which was kinda odd for Smallville and their sometimes very broad interpretations of DC characters.

She first appeared in season eight, in the episode titled "Hex", then appeared in season nine in the episode "Warrior". In season ten in "Warrior" Zatanna is in the background but is played by a stand in dressed in her outfit.

They tried to launch a standalone Zatanna movie back in 2005 as an action comedy, but nothing ever came of it.

Now here is Zatanna's possibly very cool future..... Guillermo del Toro is working on a Justice League Dark film titled "Dark Universe". Since John Constantine is a member of JLD and has his own series coming up on NBC, del Toro has said that the film will exist in the same universe as the TV show, and that he might get the actor from the series to play Constantine in the movie, unlike the main DC Universe that wont be doing such cross-overs. Now...Zatanna is already set to appear in the film...so will we get Zatanna showing up on the Constantine TV series as well since the two were an item in the comics? It could happen...

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Supergirl - Laura Vandervoort on Smallville

In 2007, the CW TV show Smallville gave us an incredibly hot version of Supergirl played by the gorgeous Laura Vandervoort.
This Supergirl had Helen Slater's naivety at first, but slowly developed a personality that was sweet...but she knew she could punch you through a wall if she had to.
They played around a LOT with her story, as they did with every storyline on Smallville. But they did work in a few things from the comics like her going to to the 31st century to join the Legion and using glasses and a wig to hide her secret identity. In some of the odder things they did, she could fly and Clark couldn't and she even kind of "became" Supergirl at one point before Clark became Superman.
It was messed up yeah, but it was Smallville. They really didn’t try to reign into the DC mythos until the last couple of seasons.
And it's no secret that I would have loved to see Laura Vandervoort get her own "Supergirl" spin-off show. But that didn’t happen.

Jessica De Gouw as the Huntress from Arrow

Jessica De Gouw as the Helena Bertinelli version of the Huntress from the CW's "Arrow".
While not as Gothic as Ashley Scott as The Huntress in "Birds of Prey", this one is a bit closer to the comics.
As you can see she has her crossbow, and there is just a hint of purple on her outfit.

This Huntress is the Helena Bertinelli version of the Huntress.
That is the version that is NOT the daughter of Batman and Catwoman.
Her father is mob boss Frank Bertinelli and Huntress is out to kill him for ordering the death of her fiance.
She shows up in the episodes "Muse of Fire", "Vendetta", "The Huntress Returns" and the episode "Birds of Prey" where she has a run-in with, you guessed it, Black Canary.
This Huntress does wear a costume and carries a crossbow.
Although she is dressed in black, in a nod to her comic book incarnation, her jacket is trimmed/lined in purple.
Unlike other incarnations of Huntress, this one starts out as kind of an anti-hero then pretty much turns full-fledged bad guy.
Bad enough that at the end of “Birds of Prey” she is hauled off to jail.
So that wraps up Huntress.
I will mention though that in addition to her live action appearances, she also appeared in animated form in Justice League Unlimited (which was very well done) and in Batman: The Brave and the Bold (not as well done but fun nonetheless).