Movies / Comics To Film News

Desperate Housewives – Desperate Super Heroes

By Hervé St-Louis
May 15, 2012 - 00:50

The eighth season of the popular ABC television comedy and night drama Desperate Housewives aired on Sunday May 13, 2012 for one last time. Desperate Housewives was popular for many years and introduced several characters and plots in an age of reality television. It’s serial and unending story has a lot to share with the typical long running super hero comic  book serial, including tricks such as deaths, five-year jumps and crazy plot twists lifted straight out of a comic book.

Desperate Housewives might have been a drama created mostly for a female audience, the alleged opposite of a comic book reading audience, but I’m sure many comic book fans were closeted fans of the series that had so much in common with comic books. First of all, many of the actors that played on the series also played comic book characters over the years. Some of them we wish would actually land a contract to play some of these characters we like to see in comics.

Teri Hatcher as Lois lane

Teri Hatcher, better known as the ditzy and clumsy Susan Mayer played Lois Lane in the popular 1990s series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. In terms of comic book-related roles playing Superman’s girl must have been her biggest role ever and endeared her to an entire generation of comic book fans. Although she’s dabbled in other sci-fi-related roles in Star Trek and James Bond, her career break was to play a comic book character in a decade when it was career suicide to play such roles, unlike today.

Speaking of career suicide playing a comic book character, fellow actress Eva Longoria, another short tantrum housewife on Misteria Lane was rumoured for years to be playing another super heroine, the Avengers’s Wasp. Personally, I hate the fact that Marvel Studios broke with tradition by not including the Wasp or Ant-man as part of the original founding team of the Avengers in favour of Hawkeye and Black Widow who had always been early characters, but certainly not core founders. Longoria, while older, would have brought a lot of screen friction playing against Robert Downey Junior’s Iron Man and Tony Stark. For readers unfamiliar with the history between the Wasp and Iron Man, they dated a few times, but nothing serious ever came out of their relationship. However, the Wasp, as a member of the American glamour elite was one of the few Avengers as comfortable as Tony Stark on a glitzy party filled with socialites and the battlefield. Eva Longoria’s character, Gabrielle Solis in Desperate Housewives showed as much taste for extravagant costumes and a rare flair for fashion that was unequaled by all. She also had cunning instincts and deductive abilities allowing to figure out the many secrets of her neighbours that is only challenged by the similar skills displayed by the Wasp in the Avengers. If an actress was ever destined to play the Wasp, it’s Eva Longoria. The role was written just for her and I’m sure the Avengers movie would have been much better with her playing the Wasp instead of Scarlett Johansson playing the Black Widow.

Eva Longoria

To play Ant-man, the Wasp’s husband, another Desperate Housewives alumni had been cast in the past. Nathan Fillion who played one of the husbands on the show -  Dr Adam Mayfair one season on Desperate Housewives. He’s better known as the voice of Green Lantern in several animated film and cartoon series although he’s played Steve Trevor – Wonder Woman’s beau and several sci-fi-related characters in the past. I can’t say if he would have been a great Ant-man, but again, he would have brought a lot more to the screen than Jeremy Renner who played Hawkeye on the new Avengers’ film.

Desperate Housewives has several more actors and actress that have played many comic book characters in video games and cartoons in the past, such as Maria Cross better known a red heads Bree Van De Kamp and Jean Grey. James Denton who played Mike Delfino, Susan Mayer’s husband on Desperate Housewives also played Superman on Super All-Star. That’s interesting as Hatcher played Lois Lane as mentioned above!

Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern

In the end Desperate Housewives with its eight seasons ran as long as many current comic book series, although it hardly beat any longevity records in both comics and night time soap operas. But the end of the series may release a few comic book fans from this guilty pleasure once and for all. I know I’m grateful for that.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12