The first trailer for Josh Duhamel as Sheldon Sampson/The Utopian, Lesley Bibb as Grace Sampson/Lady Liberty and Ben Daniels as Walter Sampson/Brainwave, a group of superheroes who have been protecting earth for over a century.
Jupiter's Legacy also features Elena Kampouris and Andrew Horton as the next generation of superheroes, and the children of Sheldon and Grace. Millar, who serves as an executive producer on the show, has previously teased the epic scope of the series, calling it "part-2001, part-Avengers, part-Godfather II", adding that it is essentially a story that takes place across a time span that runs until the end of time. He's also teased the huge character roster, saying that around 50 or 60 superheroes appear in Jupiter's Legacy. Early teaser footage released in February only gave glimpses of the characters in still images and voiceover, but now a full trailer has finally arrived.
The full traile from Netflix teases an epic multi-generational superhero tale, which sees both the original superheroes as well as their children struggling to live up to the ideals they espouse. The narrative focus is on the characters, and the family conflict, rather than the superhero action, though there's enough of that to satisfy fans of traditional superhero stories. But the angle here seems to skew more towards stories like Watchmen than a simple beat-em-up superhero story. The footage also provides a look at how The Union, the original superheroes gain their powers, and hints that all may not be as it seems with the characters. You can watch the trailer below:
While the story does seem epic in scope, there are some scenes which look worryingly like a CW superhero show rather than a high-budget effort like The Boys or HBO's Watchmen, but the overall impression is that Jupiter's Legacy is an intriguing new entry into the superhero canon. Reflecting the current pop culture obsession with superheroes, it seems to take a more nuanced approach to the concept of superheroes, and will hopefully provide complex characters battling to live up to their potential.
While much of the trailer focuses on the original generation, it seems as though the children will also play a large role, potentially presenting the biggest challenge to their parent's legacy, rather some standard villains. So far, Jupiter's Legacy looks like it could be a worthy addition to the superhero genre, and it seems to have overcome the difficulties which led to original showrunner Steven S. Deknight exiting over creative differences. It will debut on Netflix May 7.
Source: Netflix