An all new starer is about to make an entrance as DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow‘s latest superhero Zari – a Muslim computer hacktivist from 2042. The character was also created to tackle Islamophobia in the USA, reports The Straits Time.
The character played by Iranian-American actor Tala Ashe is beyond perfect. She is all set to join heroes Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill), Atom (Brandon Routh), Heat Wave (Dominic Purcell) and Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller) as they return in Season 3 of the show, which airs in Singapore on Warner TV (StarHub TV Channel 515).
During a press conference, show-runner Marc Guggenheim said that as he and his team began working on Legends Of Tomorrow, “We all recognised that there weren’t enough women on the bridge of the Waverider”, the team’s time-jumping ship.
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“And it’s something we’d been looking to address. And we were talking about bringing on a female character and what her powers could be,” says the writer and producer of the show. Legends of Tomorrow is a spin-off of the DC Comics-inspired series Arrow and The Flash.
Previously, US President Donald Trump unveiled a ban on travelers from several Muslim countries. So the main reason to get a Muslim hero in the show was a retort to that. “All sort of gravitated towards the idea of the character being Muslim”, says Guggenheim.
Yet he insists the creation of Zari was “not to make a political statement” or to “make it a thing”.
“One of the things that we really pride ourselves on is that someone’s race, religion or sexual orientation is not the only aspect of their character” said the director of the show.
