Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for ‘Superman’James Gunn‘s Superman is blowing up around the world, as fans of the DC Comics characters have been scrambling to get out to theaters to watch it and see what Gunn does with the Man of Steel as soon as possible. Many comics fans will be thrilled by Gunn’s inclusion of many popular DC Comics characters, who have yet to appear in any live-action form. These include Edi Gathegi as Mr. Terrific, Anthony Carrigan (Barry) as Metamorpho, Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner, and Hawkgirl. A few diehard comic fans might wonder how some of these characters might be connected.
One wouldn’t have to go back too far in DC Comics history to see how two of the characters connect, since both Mr. Terrific and Metamorpho were part of a short-lived team called The Terrifics, who had their own comic series between 2018 and 2020. It only lasted 31 issues because it was a story that was heavily connected to a massive DC crossover, but if you think about it, so were the Guardians of the Galaxy that inspired Gunn’s trilogy of blockbusters. The modern version of that interstellar group was introduced following a massive 2006 Marvel cosmic crossover called “Annihilation,” but none of that mattered since Gunn found a way to use those characters without any mention of their comic origins.
What’s the Deal with ‘The Terrifics’ Anyway?
One thing that DC Comics has always thrived at is its proclivity for creating massive crossovers between its comic titles to regularly bring their superheroes together to fight one crisis or another. One of these crossovers was called “Dark Knight: Metal,” but the only thing you need to know about that is that it introduced a Dark Universe full of supremely evil versions of DC Universe characters. A few of those characters caused problems for DC’s heroes, but a few DC heroes also got stuck in the Dark Universe. That crossover led to DC’s initiative called “The New Age of DC Heroes” that ran between 2018 and 2020, and tried to introduce many new heroes, few of whom have had much life in the comics since then. Have you heard of The Silencer, or Damage, or Sideways, or Brimstone? Probably not.
Amidst all of that, The Terrifics, created by Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth) and DC’s top artist at the time, Ivan Reis, did something different by uniting a number of existing DC characters into the equivalent of a rock supergroup. Besides, Mr. Terrific (aka Michael Holt) and Metamorpho are key members of this group. It also included Plastic Man, a hugely popular DC Comics character whose history goes back to 1941. There was also Phantom Girl AKA Tinya Wazzo, a character best known for her long-time affiliation with the futuristic superteam, the Legion of Superheroes, who many DC fans might like to see brought into Gunn’s DC Universe. She has previously appeared in a few of DC’s animated projects.
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Other regular characters in The Terrifics include Metamorpho’s pet Element Dog – possibly a canine playmate for Krypto– as well as Ms. Terrific, a superhero from another dimension where Michael Holt died, and his wife donned the costume. The group also introduced Plastic Man’s son, Offspring, another obscure character who has barely been mentioned since The Terrifics ended its run. Ultimately, The Terrifics was the only part of the “New Age of DC Heroes” that actually stuck, and that series lasted twice as long as all the others, even if it’s hard to tell whether the comics, while popular at the time, had much impact on anything to follow.
’The Terrifics” Comic Backstory Is Way Too Complicated To Get Into
By introducing Mr. Terrific and Metamorpho in Superman the way that he did — spoiler: They do end up uniting to fight Luthor by the end of the movie — means Gunn can easily avoid the entire Metal storyline, if he decides to do more with these important Superman side characters. Even bringing the Dark Universe and the evil versions of Batman, Joker, and the like into this newly minted DC film universe would just muddle things up further. There’s also the fact that the Terrifics were assembled by Tom Strong, a character created by Alan Moore as part of his 1999 “America’s Best Comics” imprint for Wildstorm, who was later integrated into the DC Comics universe.
It’s undeniable that Mr. Terrific, as played by Gathegi, is one of the more popular characters in Superman, and it would make sense to do more with him. It was mentioned recently in a Wall Street Journal spotlight on DC Studios that “Gunn is considering TV spinoffs for characters like Mister Terrific and cub reporter Jimmy Olsen.” Plastic Man has yet to appear in any sort of live-action form, even though there have been many attempts to try to do just that, including a film being developed in the ’90s. It would be quite a coup for Gunn to finally crack how to bring Plastic Man into his DC vision as a live-action character.
Superman leaves things in a place where any Mr. Terrific series would probably have to at least have cameos by the rest of the “Justice Gang.” Surely, there’s room to further expand that group, and since Mr. Terrific is such a key component–some might even see him as the leader–surely the name “The Terrifics” might come up, even if that annoys Guy Gardner to the point where he leaves the group. Truth be told, only a few of the members of the Terrifics have appeared in a single DC Comic since 2020. It’s doubtful some of them have even been mentioned, and yet, it was such a popular series at the time, it surely could have had an influence on Gunn putting Mr. Terrific and Metamorpho into his Superman movie.
Superman
- Release Date
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July 11, 2025
- Runtime
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130 Minutes
- Director
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James Gunn
- Producers
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Lars P. Winther, Peter Safran