The CW Gives TV Pilot Order for DC Comics' NAOMI

 
The biggest new mystery in the DC Universe may be coming to The CW.

Deadline is reporting that The CW has given a pilot order for the superhero drama Naomi, based on the recently-introduced DC Comics superhero.

According to the article, Naomi "follows a teen girl’s journey from her small northwestern town to the heights of the multiverse.  When a supernatural event shakes her hometown to the core, Naomi sets out to uncover its origins, and what she discovers will challenge everything we believe about our heroes."

Naomi, The CW's latest DC Comics adaptation, comes from upcoming The New Gods director Ava DuVernay and Arrow writer and co-executive producer Jill Blankenship.  Blankenship and DuVernay will write the series and serve as executive producers.  The project will be produced by DuVernay’s Array Filmworks in association with Warner Bros Television, with Sarah Bremner and Paul Garnes also set as executive producers.

Reportedly, there had been questions whether the network would go completely straight-to-series for the next broadcast season, given uncertainty around the COVID-19 global pandemic, but CW chairman Mark Pedowitz has decided to stick with the traditional pilot process.

Created in 2019 by Brian Michael Bendis, David F. Walker and Jamal Campbell, Naomi McDuffie first appeared in Naomi #1 as a teenager born on Earth in an alternate universe. Naomi's universe was very similar to the Prime Universe, but with a few distinguishing details.  After years of human environmental abuse, the Earth's ozone layer collapsed.  In the wake of the ozone layer's destruction, undiscovered radiation leaked onto the Earth's surface which had previously been kept at bay.

The radiation didn't harm anyone on planet Earth, but twenty-nine random people across the planet were given access to godlike powers.  Naturally, some of the twenty-nine sought to rule the world with these newfound powers, while others sought to stop them.  After one month of civil war between these two factions, fourteen of the twenty-nine were killed, while an additional seven more of the twenty-nine left the planet in disgust, resulting in only eight remaining.  Eventually, these eight were able to call a truce before the Earth was entirely destroyed.

None of the twenty-nine had been able to procreate, until Naomi's mother miraculously gave birth to her.  Zumbado, the most vile of the twenty-nine, sought to end Naomi's life to prove his superiority among the twenty-nine.  However, Naomi's parents, with the help of a woman called Akira, made preparations for Naomi's escape.  Eventually, her parents' allies brought Naomi to the Prime Universe, where she was discovered and adopted by Greg McDuffie and his wife Jen McDuffie in the small town of Port Oswego, Oregon.  Naomi grew up not knowing anything about her childhood, believing that she was just an ordinary girl.

Naomi’s curiosity about her childhood ultimately forced Greg to confess that he's an alien from the planet Rann who fought alongside Adam Strange and Green Lantern in the Rann/Thanagar War and came to Earth on a mission to track down Dee (the town’s mechanic who happened to be a Thanagarian terrorist soldier).  While on Earth, he fell in love with Jen and took her as his wife.  Naomi also learned she can transform into a superpowered form, giving her golden armor along with several metahuman abilities, including energy projection, flight, increased strength, and increased durability.

Soon after, a portal opened with a large man telling Naomi that he had used her newly-discovered powers to lock onto her location and that Akira had sent him to bring her back to their world.  Eager to see her birth world, Naomi followed the man through the portal.  Naomi was shocked to discover that her birth world had been almost completely ravaged.  The man revealed to Naomi that he was Zumbado, and that her parents had died a long time ago.  Naomi attacked him, determined to claim vengeance for her parents' deaths.  Although she was incredibly powerful, Naomi was no match for Zumbado's greater experience, and she was quickly overwhelmed.  Fortunately, Lady Akira came to Naomi's aid and opened a portal for her escape back to Earth.  Although reluctant to leave Akira in the hands of Zumbado, Naomi eventually headed through the portal back home.  Zumbado attempted to follow her, but Naomi was able to use her powers to send him back through the portal, which subsequently closed.