Marvel's current crop of TV show villains ranges from the Harlem crime lords of Luke Cage to the A.I. of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the future will soon see a truly evil batch of new Marvel villains: parents. Hulu's upcoming drama Runaways recently cast its first wave of actors that will be playing the titular teenaged superheroes, and today brought another batch of talent that will play the Runaways' devious parental villains. Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans will be jazzed that James Marsters, who played fan favorite sometimes-villain Spike, will now become a (presumably charming) comic book baddie, along with nine others.
Runaways centers on six teenagers from different backgrounds who join forces to take down their parents, who have joined together to form a super-team called The Pride. James Marsters, who can currently be seen in the web series Vidiots, will play Victor Stein an engineer/scientist who sounds a bit like Nikolai Tesla in that he has all the answers that could save the world, but he's particularly harsh when it comes to his son Chase, an athlete who prefers his friends over his father's demanding wishes. Victor is married to Janet Stein, an equally brilliant scientist who strives for more out of life, and one who will be played by Major Crimes actress Ever Carradine.
There are lots of others to discuss as well. Fathering and mothering initial lead hero Alex are The Wire's Ryan Sands as the strategic and domineering Geoffrey Wilder and The People v. O.J. Simpson's Angel Parker as the calculating and loyal lawyer Catherine Wilder. This Is Us' Brittany Ishibashi will play the guarded perfectionist CEO Tina Minoru, mother to the magic-leaning Nico, whose emotionally open father Robert will be portrayed by James Yaegashi, who most recently appeared in Daredevil Season 2. Not a crossover!
Marvel also reports that 24 and Vampire Diaries actress Annie Wersching was cast to play the focused and beyond charming Leslie Dean, while Ray Donovan's Kip Pardue will play an insecure actor with secrets named Frank Dean; their daughter is Karolina. Hello Ladies' Kevin Weisman will play Gert's father Dale Yorkes, a bioengineer who is much better with science than conversations, while Army Wives' Brigid Brannagh will portray Stacey Yorkes, who is also a bioengineer, but one whose mind wanders.
Hulu's Runaways is based on the Marvel comic series created by the mastermind Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona, and is being developed for the small screen by Gossip Girl co-creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage. To see who was cast as all the kids, head to our updated casting list.
Runaways is currently putting its production together, thus the mass casting announcements, but it's unclear just when we can expect to see it debuting on Hulu. One would hope for a fall/winter premiere, but we'll have to wait and see what Hulu decides. In the meantime, check out what else is hitting streaming platforms and TV networks with our midseason premiere schedule.
