William Jackson Harper is one of the best things about The Good Place, with his endlessly conflicted moral philosophy professor Chidi the vehicle for most of the show’s big ideas. Since The Good Place ended, he’s appeared in Love Life and The Resort, but like most popular actors many are angling to get him into a superhero suit.
Fans have recently campaigned for Harper to be cast as the MCU’s Reed Richards but he’s revealed that while he’d be flattered to be considered, his ideal superhero would be much more obscure.
In an interview with ComicBook.com, he said:
“There was this comic I did read when I was, I want to say like early middle school, called ShadowHawk that I liked a lot, and it was dark as hell. And I really, really enjoyed it. Look, I’m down to get involved with any of those things, but it’s like, that’s up to those people making those decisions. It’s certainly not the internet. But yeah, I think ShadowHawk would probably be the one that I’m really into.”
ShadowHawk made his debut in Image Comics in 1992 and is the superhero persona of Paul Johnstone, a young black man from Harlem. After excelling academically he became a successful lawyer, though after refusing to bow to blackmail he was brutally assaulted and injected with HIV-infected blood.
The stigma of being HIV+ resulted in him losing his job and he vowed to devote his life to delivering violent justice to those that prey on the weak. Fortunately for Paul, an acquaintance has developed an exoskeleton suit of armor that fits him perfectly and ShadowHawk was born.
Since the ‘90s ShadowHawk has been resurrected a few times, though is definitely something of a D-list superhero. But it’s worth remembering that a hero’s popularity doesn’t necessarily have a bearing on whether their movie will be a hit or not. Get the right script and director and ShadowHawk might be a monster hit – and if it did happen we think William Jackson Harper would be great casting for a talented lawyer driven to vigilante justice.