STARGIRL Casts Jonathan Cake as The Shade & Nick Tarabay as Eclipso

 
Get ready for more injustice in Blue Valley.

Deadline has revealed that the CW series Stargirl has cast actors Jonathan Cake and Nick Tarabay as DC Comics supervillains The Shade and Eclipso.  Tarabay will be a series regular as Eclipso, while Cake will recur as The Shade.

According to the article, Eclipso is described as "one of the main antagonists set to clash with Stargirl’s Justice Society of America in Season 2.  Eclipso is a life essence trapped inside a blue diamond. Once owned by the Injustice Society of America, that diamond was stolen in Season 1 by (Meg) DeLacy’s Cindy (Burman), which will result in problems for the JSA going forward.  Eclipso is an ancient entity of corruption and vengeance.  Brimming with a cold, terrifying darkness, he exploits the flaws of others, reveling in the impure and sinful, sadistically feeding off the dark side of humanity."

The Shade's description states he's "an English immortal, a classic antihero from DC Comics who wields magical shadow powers.  Tall and slim with an elegant 19th century way to his speech and manners, he masks the horrors he’s experienced and people he’s lost in all the time alive with wry, witty retorts and a false sense that nothing really matters."

Cake, 53, is an English actor who recently appeared as Edward "Blackbeard" Teach on Legends of Tomorrow, and has appeared in episodes of Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, The Affair, Chuck, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Criminal Minds, and Death in Paradise.

Tarabay, 45, is a Lebanon-born American actor best known as Captain Boomerang on Arrow, Ashur on Spartacus and Cotyar Ghazi on The Expanse.  His other roles include the films Star Trek Into Darkness and Pacific Rim: Uprising, and episodes of Castle, Longmire, Person of Interest, Burn Notice, Moonlight, and The Sopranos.

Created in 1942 by Gardner Fox and Harold Wilson Sharp, the Shade first appeared in Flash Comics #33 as a villain for the original Flash, Jay Garrick.  He was portrayed as a thief who could manipulate the shadows with a magical cane and fought both Garrick and the second Flash, Barry Allen.  He was a member of several supervillain teams, including the Injustice Society.  The Shade was one of three villains used for the first meeting of the two heroes in the famous "Flash of Two Worlds" story, which reintroduced the Golden Age Flash to the Silver Age.  He was jailed along with the Thinker and the Fiddler.

In 1994, the character was changed drastically by writer James Robinson and artist Tony Harris in the DC Comics series Starman.  The Shade was retconned to an English gentleman named Richard Swift, a young man from the year 1838.  One night in London, Swift was trapped amidst an unexplained mystical tragedy, which killed 104 people.  The most immediate effect on him was the permanent loss of his memories prior to the incident.  Coincidentally, a passerby named Piers Ludlow offers to take in Swift while he recovers. The whole affair was a setup, with the Ludlow family being a band of killers and swindlers, who grew wealthy killing their wealthy business partners and then killing a vagrant in the vicinity to give the impression of a failed robbery/homicide.  Before they could make Swift their next scapegoat, he reflexively unleashed his shadows, killing all the present Ludlows.  Only a young pair of twins, absent from the excursion, survived.

Decades later, Swift was ambushed by Rupert Ludlow, one of the surviving twins.  Rupert and his sister had plotted revenge for years, going so far as to raise their children as future assassins.  Though grievously injured, Swift managed to kill Ludlow, as his shadow power made him both immortal and resistant to injury.  Afterward, he left England and started a career as an adventurer/assassin/observer on life, which spanned whole continents and led him to many adventures.  During World War II, the Shade arrived in Keystone City and chose Jay Garrick, the first Flash, as his adversary.  After several decades, he established himself in Opal City and became a mentor for Jack Knight, the son of the Golden Age Starman, Ted Knight, another hero the Shade had fought.

Cake will be the second actor to portray The Shade in live-action, after Mike McLeod on The Flash (2014).  The character has also appeared in various animated projects, including Justice League and Justice League Unlimited (voiced by Stephen McHattie), and Young Justice: Outsiders (voiced by Joel Swetow).

Eclipso was created in 1963 by Bob Haney and Lee Elias, first appearing in House of Secrets #61 as Bruce Gordon, a scientist specializing in solar energy.  While in the jungle to view a solar eclipse, Gordon was attacked by a tribal sorcerer named Mophir.  Before plunging to his death off a cliff, Mophir wounded Gordon with a black diamond.  Afterwards, Gordon transformed into the villainous Eclipso whenever an eclipse occurred.  A blue-gray or purple circle covered the rightmost two-thirds of his face, resembling a partial eclipse.

During this period, Eclipso was portrayed as a conventional villain, possessing super strength, partial invulnerability, and eye blasts (aided by his black diamond).  Eclipso's transformations were later altered so that any type of natural eclipse, lunar or solar, would cause Eclipso and Gordon to split from one another, while an "artificial eclipse" -- an object blocking out a light source -- would merely transform Gordon to Eclipso.  Any bright flash of light would banish Eclipso back into Bruce Gordon's body or reverse the change.

In the early 1990s, DC Comics retconned Eclipso in a company-wide crossover built around the miniseries Eclipso: The Darkness Within.  Eclipso was revealed not simply to be Bruce Gordon's dark half, but a vengeance demon who had possessed Gordon.  Eclipso's soul had originally been bound inside a giant black diamond called the "Heart of Darkness" in Africa.  A treasure hunter found it in the late nineteenth century and brought it to London in 1891, where he had a jeweler cut it into one thousand shards.  This weakened the binding spell, allowing Eclipso to possess anyone who became angry while in contact with one of the shards.  He was no longer limited to possessing Gordon during an eclipse, but pretended otherwise so that Gordon would not know the truth about the black diamonds.

Tarabay will be the first actor to portray Eclipso in live-action.  The character has appeared in animated projects, however, including Justice League (voiced by Bruce McGill) and Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.

Stargirl is expected to return to The CW for Season 2 sometime in 2021.