Who the hell is Lobo?
Well ya ever-lovin' bastich, he's an almost unkillable, bloodthirsty, over-the-top space biker bounty hunter with a foul mouth and a love for a fine cigar. And if you're part of the cosmic criminal underworld in the DC Universe, you know him as the Main Man, the Last Czarnian, and the guy who's either gonna frag you or turn you in for a bounty at the first chance he gets.
And right now, he's the topic of hot goss among DC movie fans, with rumors circulating through Hollywood trades that Jason Momoa could be recast as Lobo in the DC movie universe, leaving Aquaman behind.
So what's the big deal with Lobo, and what's so interesting about him that DC might sacrifice one movie franchise for another?
For one thing, he's kinda like DC's answer to both Deadpool and Wolverine rolled into one (which is probably exactly what James Gunn said when pitching the movie, if it is indeed on the table). By which we mean he's got an almost indestructible healing factor and a willingness to shred through his enemies with vicious fervor, and he's also got a kinda hilarious potty mouth (with spacey terms like 'bastich' often used to replace actual curse words) and a very non-superheroic appetite for vice.
Lobo was created by Roger Sifer and Keith Giffen back in 1983's Omega Men #3, and first hit the scene as more of a straightforward villain (though his sorta resemblance to Wolverine was already in place right away).
At first Lobo made the rounds as a guest star, introducing his origin as the last member of a warrior race known as the Czarnians who are supposedly able to regenerate their entire body from a single drop of blood.
Fans took to Lobo quickly, and he soon evolved into a fan favorite anti-hero, developing the badass space biker aesthetic that's been his calling card since - along with his satirical take on the X-Treme '90s anti-heroes that became popular throughout the decade.
In recent years, Lobo has been an unlikely member of the Justice League of America, and has even discovered he's got a half-Czarnian daughter named Crush who is also a bounty hunter as well as a former member of the Teen Titans. The pair recently co-starred in a comic appropriately titled Crush and Lobo in which the father and daughter reconnect.
If a hard-edged space bounty hunter reconnecting with his bounty hunter daughter sounds exactly like it's up James Gunn's alley, Lobo is one of the first characters we thought of when Gunn's new position as co-CEO of DC Films was announced. And if rumors are true, Gunn seems to know exactly what he's got on his hands.
Lobo had his heyday in the '90s, when Marvel and DC went 'EXTREME'.
