Though he has yet to officially make his grand entrance in season 2 of Krypton, but the intergalactic bastich known as Lobo is already set to star in his very own spinoff series. The last Czarnian is a mercenary and bounty hunter who found a second wind in the ‘90s after being reimagined as a space-faring biker/antihero and essentially a parody of the excessively violent and dark comic book characters who were increasingly popular at the time. As is turns out, parody or not, Lobo became incredibly popular, hence his placement in the new season of SYFY’s Superman prequel series.
The character of Lobo, created by Keith Giffen and Roger Slifer, has long been on many fans’ wish list to get his own feature film. And while there have been various developments on that front, including the hiring of Jason Fuchs (Wonder Woman) to write a new script after a planned movie with director Brad Peyton (Rampage) fell through, it seems fans will have to settle for the character on television for the time being. And fans won’t have to wait long for his arrival, as Emmett J. Scanlan’s take on the character — complete with thick Irish accent — will appear in the season 2 premiere of Krypton before playing a significant part in the series afterward.
The news that a Lobo spinoff series was in the works came as an official release from SYFY, which stated that Krypton executive producer Cameron Welsh will serve as producer and writer on the series. The announcement also stated that “LOBO…joins previously-announced or confirmed SYFY scripted Development projects including CHUCKY, THE WOODS, NIGHT GALLERY, WAYWARD CHILDREN, THE RAVEN CYCLE and DEATH IS MY BFF – along with current pilots (FUTURE) CULT CLASSIC and CIPHER, both from UCP.”
That the network would put a Lobo spinoff into development ahead of the character’s actual debut speaks to the faith SYFY apparently has in both Scanlan’s performance and Welsh’s handling of Krypton and its newest standout character. It still remains to be seen whether or not fans will dig this interpretation of Lobo as much as the folks at the network do, but there’s always time to tweak the character in advance of his own show should the need arise.
There’s little else to go on in terms of what viewers might expect from the series, but given the wealth of Lobo-centric comic books and stories available to readers, it stands to reason that anyone who’s familiar with the character’s exploits in the funny books will have a pretty good understanding of what the series aims to accomplish.
Krypton season 2 premiers Wednesday, June 12 @10pm on SYFY.