Cyclone is currently being cast and is the newest addition to the upcoming DC Comics’ adaptation of Black Adam for Warner Bros.
With the production start date for Black Adam merely months away, the antihero origin story should be shaping up its cast soon. Dwayne Johnson has long been signed on to play the DC Comics supervillain, but few other details have been dropped in the last year and fans are antsy to learn more.
The Rock himself managed to assuage some curiosity by revealing to Screen Rant that the Justice Society of America would be introduced in the film, confirming the report from Murphy’s Multiverse about appearances from Hawkman, Stargirl, Atom Smasher and and now Hawkgirl.
But now there comes a new twist in the Black Adam saga, and it seems that Cyclone is about to blow her way into the heart of the upcoming DC Comics endeavor. The Illuminerdi recently learned that a casting call has gone out for Cyclone as the lead female of the film, and her description points to her being every bit the cheerful and bubbly ball of joy that fans know her as.
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How Will Cyclone Fit Into Black Adam’s Story?
A relatively new addition to the DC universe, Cyclone in the comics is a 19-year old Harvard student and musical lover named Maxine Hunkel. The production is searching for an actress in her 20s to portray the role, but that still fits with the likelihood of her being a college student in the film. If her last name sounds familiar, it’s because she’s a legacy character and the granddaughter of the Golden Age’s Red Tornado, Abigail “Ma” Hunkel.
Years after being experimented on by the evil T.O. Morrow, who created the second Red Tornado, Maxine begins to develop her own aerokinetic powers. She becomes a Justice Society of America recruit and takes on the mantle of Cyclone, but her story has otherwise not been fully developed yet.
But how does that make her a fit for Black Adam, considering that it’s meant to be an origin story for the corrupted ancient Egyptian? Well, given the presence of the older and also ancient Hawkman, it sounds like the film might show a passing of the torch from the old guard of the JSA to the new. Perhaps the Hawks have been battling Teth-Adam since his hostile takeover of Kahndaq (as depicted in Geoff Johns’ “Black Reign” arc) while the younger generation like Atom Smasher and Cyclone are just getting their feet wet.
Speaking of Atom Smasher: he is often depicted as a love interest for Stargirl, which is why it makes sense for them both to appear in Black Adam. But as of our latest intel, he is being described as a love interest for Cyclone. Either this means a tangled love triangle, made more tragic by the fact that Stargirl is one of Maxine’s heroes, or it suggests that Maxine is replacing the star-spangled superheroine as the movie’s female lead.
DC is notoriously wary about allowing more than one version of a character to exist in live-action at any given time, so that’s an unfortunate possibility. It’s a miracle TV Flash and movie Flash ever met, and one wonders if that would ever have come to pass had the latter’s solo film not been delayed so long. Courtney Whitmore coming to the CW’s Stargirl only months before she appears in Black Adam may be too much for the multiverse to handle, in the minds of executives anyway.
But in the meantime, Cyclone’s presence raises interesting questions about the kind of journey Black Adam will take audiences on. Which route do you hope it will take, and do you think the current JSA line-up works for the film? Let us know in the comments below.
