Yes, Legends of Tomorrow’s Zari Was Developed as Isis

On 1970s Saturday morning TV as well as DC Comics including the epic 52 weekly series, Isis was, in many ways, a female counterpart to the Shazam and Black Adam characters. By the time DC’s Legends of Tomorrow got to introducing a version of the character, the name got to be a bit too controversial.

Some backstory, though: When the Zari character was first being cast for Season 3, it was teased that this DC character didn’t first appear in a comic book. That led many to believe that it would be Isis, and then the powers and the medallion came up… but, again, there was the problem of the name, as the name “Isis” became synonymous with ISIS, which by 2014 was viewed as a terrorist militia across the globe. Even though of course the legend of Isis has a much longer life, the show probably did not want to have that association.

So… Zari never really got her code name at that time, and she rarely wore a costume outside of a crossover or two. But, in Marc Guggenheim’s excellent Substack newsletter, he shared concept art, revealing… yep…. it’s the mighty Isis!

Marc also spoke about the casting of Tala Ashe, who we all know ended up being perfect in the role.

“I originally thought that the role would be incredibly difficult to cast on account of the fact that we insisted on a Muslim actor to play this important Muslim character. But as I recall, Tala Ashe came in to audition relatively early in the process and won the role in the room. I think I turned to fellow showrunner Phil Klemmer and was like, ‘That was a lot easier than I expected’,” Marc recalled.

As mentioned before, you can read Marc Guggenheim’s excellent Substack newsletter here.