After a long and bumpy road that potentially involved names like Dan Lin and Greg Berlanti, it was ultimately announced last month that beginning on November 1st, James Gunn and Peter Safran would be the new heads of DC Films. While Safran will lead the financial side, Gunn having the reigns on creative makes complete sense as he was the director and writer on both Guardians of the Galaxy entries, the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy: Holiday Special, and The Suicide Squad. While the news surrounding the executive shakeup was very much seen and heard by every comic book fan in the world, the momentum toward this new and revitalized DCU didn’t stop there.

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In a tweet shared by James Gunn on November 15th, the acclaimed Hollywood filmmaker posted the front cover of Justice Society of America #76. This issue is significant because the artwork solely shows a shadowed portrait of Michael Holt, better known to the DC fandom as the second iteration of Mr. Terrific. Gunn did not include any of his own words with the post, and this has comic book fans in a panicked frenzy, rapidly speculating among each other about the potential big-screen debut of the third-smartest person in the world.

Troubled Beginnings for Mr. Terrific

     DC Comics

Originally premiering in 1997 and within the pages of Spectre #3, Michael Holt is about to commit suicide from the sadness caused by the death of his older brother, wife, and unborn child when the spirit of vengeance, the Spectre, comes upon him. The green-hooded, fearsome antihero inspires Holt to keep living by telling him the tale of the original golden age Mr. Terrific, Terry Sloane. Coincidentally, the image of Mr. Terrific that James Gunn shared shows Mr. Holt wearing a jacket with Sloane’s “Fair Play” slogan emboldened on the arm sleeve, which shows respect to both versions.

Using all the knowledge and technological smarts from the many PhDs he has garnered as well as utilizing all the devices that his high-tech company, Cyberware, has made over the years, the once self-made millionaire and Olympic decathlete decides to become a superhero as well.

Even though Holt wields no superpowers of his own, he creates little flying T-spheres that stay around his person at all times and are used in a variety of ways, such as creating holograms, recording the environment, becoming hostile drones, and sensing any type of scientific danger. There are many paths that Mr. Terrific could follow if Gunn decides to pull him from print to motion picture.

Tying Mr. Terrific to the DCU

Two obvious connections that currently tie Mr. Terrific’s expansive comic book history to the DCU lie within one of the biggest names of DC Comics, Batman, as well as an already mentioned super-powered team that recently made their live-action debut in the newly released Black Adam, The Justice Society of America.

At one point, Mr. Terrific becomes the team’s interim leader after former chairman Hawkman and current chairman Sand (son of the Sandman) clash over leadership ideals. Given that Hawkman is also present in the Dwayne Johnson-led movie, Mr. Terrific could show up wherever the JSA sprouts up next. Exploring the Batman thread, the Caped Crusader created a team with Michael Holt at the helm to take out Brother Eye. This AI-controlled satellite was responsible for creating cyborgs tasked solely with killing all metahumans. Even though the historic Infinite Crisis has not yet occurred in the DCU, the day could very well come with James Gunn and Peter Safran leading the charge.

While Alan Moore, the creator of Watchmen, says that he disowns the award-winning miniseries and is also supposedly done with the comic industry as a whole, seeing the memorable characters from that story reappear for a live-action sequel is not out of the question. Given the fact that there was already a printed sequel for Watchmen called Doomsday Clock in 2017 (as well as an HBO spinoff series called Watchmen in 2019) where JSA members were brought back into existence to fight off rampaging villains, the hypothetical situation should remain on the table for a Mr. Terrific appearance in a second Watchmen movie. Moore is not gate-keeping the franchise, and new faces are running the show over at DC Studios, so why not?

Non-canon material is sometimes the best material to work with. Exploding off the pages of DCeased in 2019, which placed beloved DC heroes into a zombie apocalypse, a derivative miniseries called DCeased: A Good Day To Die was born. This side story featured the likes of Mr. Terrific, Blue Beetle, Constantine, Booster Gold, and Big Barda teaming up to try and find a way to reverse the effects of the corrupted Anti-Life Equation.

With Mr. Terrific being teased, a Blue Beetle movie on the way, and a Constantine revival being recently confirmed, a similar scenario could be on the way. Since Marvel already pulled the trigger on reanimated corpses in Doctor Strange 2, DCU wouldn’t be the first ones to dip their toes into the horror genre.

Considering the news that has been recently circulating about both James Gunn and Peter Safran laying out new plans for the DCU that would last the next eight to ten years, this vague post by Gunn could very well be a teaser regarding what’s to come. Besides being a spokesperson for Hourman’s chemical robotics company and being a member of the intelligence agency, Checkmate, Mr. Terrific has had a long and remarkable history in DC comic book lore, and it will surely be exciting to witness DC’s Iron Man finally come to the live-action world.