The media landscape is currently filled to the brim with superhero content. Massive brands like Marvel and DC are constantly churning out new material that’s starting to make its way to the small screen. Of course, there are fans who may be looking for different kinds of superhero fare, not unlike Amazon’s The Boys. Well, Netflix is poised to give viewers alternative kinds of stories as well with its stable of Milllarworld adaptations, starting with Jupiter’s Legacy. The show should be a fresh addition to the genre, especially since the creator has even described the main family as a mixture of The Incredibles… and the Kardashians?
Jupiter’s Legacy centers on the Sampsons, a family of heroes headed by the world’s very first superheroes. While the three elder Sampsons (Sheldon, his wife Grace and brother Walter) have carved out major legacies for themselves, Sheldon and Grace’s kids aren’t quite living up to their family name. In a recent interview, original Jupiter’s Legacy writer Mark Millar discussed the show’s sci-fi roots and explained how these heroes will differ from others:
It all ties into this big science-fiction concept. But then you can knuckle it down to something even simpler: what if the world's coolest guy, like Superman, married the world's coolest woman, like Wonder Woman, and they had these fucking awful children who would be like the Kardashians?
One can’t help but be intrigued when hearing a premise like this. The Kardashians are some of the most well known people on the planet and have a huge following as a result. Though anyone who’s seen their reality show knows they have a tendency to get involved in drama. Adding this kind of over-the-top dynamic to a family of superpowered beings could make for some fun (and messy) situations.
Unfortunately, this is going to weigh heavily on Josh Duhamel’s Sheldon Sampson, who must own up to the fact that his kids are “a nightmare.” Mark Millar continued to tell EW that this stress causes the present-day Sampson to differ greatly from his younger self:
Imagine The Incredibles, but the kids were a nightmare… We're cutting back and forth between this naive optimism of a guy [Sheldon] who utterly believes he's going to save America by finding this island that doesn't exist and this man [in the present] who ultimately knows he's failed. He's failed the country, he's failed the world, and he's failed his own family because the kids have ended up a mess.
The family drama and major generation gap are some of the elements that drew readers to the original Jupiter’s Legacy comic books. It’ll be interesting to see just how showrunner Steven S. DeKnight manages to translate the material for the new show.
Jupiter’s Legacy hits Netflix on May 7th.
