A recent interview confirmed that James Gunn's Darkseid is in the process of getting cast. The terrifying New God has been brought to the screen before, most notably appearing in the now-defunct DCEU in Zack Snyder's Justice League. With Gunn now at the helm of the blue brand, fans have been inundated with a wave of new DC-tinged projects, bringing their own unique casts, characters, and unseen comic book stories.
One of these new projects is the upcoming Mister Miracle series based on the acclaimed comic run from Tom King and Mitch Gerads. The new animated series will spotlight the world of DC's New Gods, including Darkseid. Colloquially known as DC's answer to Marvel's Thanos, Darkseid's emergence in any DC-based media is a big deal, as it puts one of the brand's biggest villains on the board.
According to King, casting the next Darkseid actor has already begun. Speaking with ComicPop Returns about the upcoming Mister Miracle project, the beloved comic creators posited that "We're doing casting," and there are "a thousand roles to cast:"
"The big announcement, like who was cast, that hasn't come yet, and it's going to come, and I can't wait to do it. But that's what we've been working on...We're doing casting. I'm the executive producer, so there's a thousand roles to cast."
One of these roles, given that we know Darkseid will be a part of the upcoming animated series, has to be the iconic DC big bad. This will mark the first time the tyrannical ruler of the planet Apokolips will appear under James Gunn's watch at DC.
In King's Mister Miracle comic run, the story's titular hero is actually traded to Darkseid in exchange for the New God's son, with Mister Miracle himself (also known as Scott Free) raised by the iconic antagonist. This space-faring narrative follows a war between Scott's homeworld, New Genesis, and Darkseid's Apokolips after the villain captures the all-powerful Anti-Life Equation (read more about the Mister Miracle story here).
No release information for Mister Miracle has been announced as of yet. The new animated project is a joint venture between Warner Bros. Animation and James Gunn's DC Studios. It is set to take place out of Gunn's new DCU canon, being one of the executive's planned Elseworld titles.
James Gunn's Plans for Darkseid
Of course, there are more powerful villains than Darkseid in the DC universe. However, in the same way that Thanos represents a certain level of threat for Marvel, Darkseid is about as big a name as there is in the DC canon.
Because of this, fans hoping this news would be for a DCU Darkseid set to square off against David Corenswet's Superman and Gunn's other stable of interconnected heroes will be sorely disappointed. At this point, no plans have been announced for Darkseid to appear in the DCU anytime soon.
Gunn's new narrative tapestry is just getting started at the blue brand, so to introduce a character as substantial as Darksied this early on would almost surely be a mistake. Instead, Gunn and the DCU brain trust will focus on 'smaller' villains (that is entirely relative, considering names like Brainiac have already been confirmed to appear) for the first few years of the new franchise.
That will not stop Gunn and the various creatives that report to him from pursuing these larger-than-life DC figures in the meantime, outside the DCU canon. An Elseworlds story like Mister Miracle is the perfect place for Darkseid to make himself known without shaking too much of the narrative core of the ongoing DCU story.
It could also hint at where Gunn may eventually take his version of the character within his DC universe. If the DCU is successful, it will ultimately have to get to Darkseid, so Mister Miracle could be the place where, at least from a very top level, Gunn and company lay the foundation of what the character could look, sound, and feel like in an eventual DCU adaptation.
