Jason Momoa cast as DCU’s Lobo in new Supergirl movie

Who needs YouTube videos of people arranging objects in pleasingly symmetrical formations when Jason Momoa has been cast as Lobo in the upcoming Supergirl movie? Deadline reports that Momoa has been tapped to play the DC Comics antihero alongside Milly Alcock’s Supergirl in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.

Momoa confirmed in an Instagram post that Warner Bros. has reached out, alluding to his long-held ambition to play Lobo, one of the most bombastic characters that DC Comics has to offer:

And who could blame him? Resemblance is not enough to make good superhero casting, but Momoa and Lobo have it spades. But it’s also undeniable that Lobo is also a match for the sorts of roles Momoa clearly favors: Big personalities, strong physicality, and healthy amounts of humor.

Lobo — yes, just “Lobo” — began his editorial life in 1983 as a little used alien villain created by Keith Giffen and Roger Slifer, but hit his stride in the 1990s, when Giffen, artist Simon Bisley, and other creators significantly revamped him as a parody character. In the ’90s, Lobo became a huge-haired, Kiss-look-alike, cigar-chomping, space-motorcycle riding, hooked-chain swinging intergalactic bounty hunter; a rude, crude, murdering dude manufactured as a send-up of the Punisher, Wolverine, Judge Dredd, and every other ’90s comic leaning into x-treem violence and grit.

But, to paraphrase another DC Comics movie, you either die a parody or live long enough to see yourself become a character everybody loves for exactly the parts of you that were supposed to be over the top. Lobo abides, with his trademark sci-fi minced oaths (bastich, fraggin’), his space chopper, his insistence on referring to himself as “the Main Man,” and his ability to somehow smoke cigars in the vacuum of space. He’s totally self-interested and strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Superman but so annoying that even low-powered heroes find him as infuriating as he is frighting.

One place you won’t find him, however, is the actual comic book Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow — but he fits right in with the series’ format, a travelogue of the strangest parts of DC Comics’ interstellar landscape, either as a supporting character or as a swap-in for the comic’s main villain, a space outlaw that a space farmgirl hires Supergirl to enact vengeance upon.

Momoa, of course, made quite a meal out of playing Arthur Curry/Aquaman in the Justice League and Aquaman movies — and it’s nice that that hasn’t prevented this particular confluence of perfect casting. Momoa’s perfect for Lobo, and hopefully Lobo will be perfect for Supergirl.