Sharlto Copley And Michelle Forbes Cast In 'Powers' TV Show

Late last week it was announced that Eddie Izzard, Noah Taylor, and Olesya Rulin have joined the cast of Sony's Powers TV show as Wolfe, Johnny Royale, and Calista, respectively -- but that left two major roles unaccounted for in the adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming's creator-owned superhero detective series.

Now we finally have names for those roles. Sharlto Copley will play the male lead, Detective Christian Walker, while Michelle Forbes will play Retro Girl, the hero whose murder triggers the first Powers storyline in the comics. (The story is called "Who Killed Retro Girl," so we're going to say that's not a spoiler.)

Both actors are genre vets, with Copley's credits including sci-fi movies District 9 and Elysium, while Michelle Forbes' has had major roles in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Battlestar Galactica, True Blood, Orphan Black... she's basically in everything. 24, True Detective, Lost, Homicide, the unaired Global Frequency pilot. One day she and Supernatural actor Mark Sheppard are going to have to fight to the death over who has been in more of everything, and one of them will take the other's power. (Ironically neither Forbes nor Sheppard has been in anything Highlander-related.)

In the comics, Christian Walker is a former superhero who quit to go into policing, while Retro Girl is his former teammate and lover. Though the comics story begins with her character's death, Forbes is likely to recur in flashbacks if the show is a direct adaptation of the first arc. As previously announced, the other lead role of Detective Deena Pilgrim is played by relative TV newcomer Susan Heyward.

The casting so far suggests the TV show will follow the comics fairly closely, in which case the other major roles still to be cast include heroes Triphammer and Zora.

Powers is the first original TV production for the Sony Playstation network. The first episode is expected to air free to Playstation owners in December, with nine subsequent episodes only available to PlayStation Plus subscribers. The pilot is written by Charlie Huston and will be directed by David Slade.