Smallville enjoyed a decade-long run as the face of DC Comics on television, and since it ended last season, Warner Bros. and The CW have evidently been looking for another DC property to take its place on the idiot box.  Just over two weeks ago, we learned about Arrow, a potential pilot that would make use of Green Arrow, the bow and arrow wielding protector of fictitious Star City created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp in 1941.  Well, it's going to pilot, and it has found a leading man, as Stephen Amell has been cast as Oliver Queen.

A few weeks ago we learned that The CW was on the verge of ordering a pilot for a potential series based on Green Arrow, the DC Comics hero created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp way back in 1941.  Last week, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the network ordered the pilot to a series that would be entitled Arrow, along with pilots for a Sex and the City prequel, and a contemporary Beauty and the Beast.  Though the character, Oliver Queen, played a major recurring role on the long-lived but recently closed-out DC series Smallville, actor Justin Hartley will not be returning, and a newly-revealed casting breakdown gives a good idea of this new Arrow, along with his supporting characters.

Marvel's psychopathic, gun-toting vigilante The Punisher served as the basis for three unconnected feature films, starring, in chronological order, Dolph Lundgren (The Punisher), Thomas Jane (also The Punisher), and Ray Stevenson (Punisher: War Zone).  The character is seriously messed up, a war veteran who cracked after the murder of his family's brutal murder and dedicated his life to wiping out bad guys with extreme prejudice and absolutely no moral ambiguity.  Well, audiences may not have been too keen on the character in any of his theatrical adventures, but Fox is hoping he can anchor a police procedural television series, as the network has just ordered a pilot for The Punisher, which tweaks the sociopathic formula a bit.

On Monday, we learned that British actress Lucy Punch will play Detective Deena Pilgrim in the FX pilot Powers, which will adapt the comic book series written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Michael Avon Oeming.  Since Pilgrim is one of two leads – partners in a homicide division tasked with investigating deaths involving "powers" or relatively common people with superpowers – the natural question became just who would play her male counterpart, Detective Christian Walker.  That question has been answered: Deadline reports that Jason Patric is taking up his first regular series role as Walker.

While comic book adaptations have been inescapably prevalent at multiplexes everywhere for the last decade, they haven't had the same cachet on television.  With The Walking Dead proving successful for AMC, though, televised comic book takes could very well get their chance to shine.  FX is currently prepping a pilot of Powers, the superheroic riff on police procedurals from writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Michael Avon Oeming.  According to Deadline, British actress Lucy Punch has signed on to play female lead Detective Deena Pilgrim.

Since Darren Aronofsky abruptly departed the X-Men spin-off/sequel The Wolverine back in March, his next project has been a big question mark.  He's been trying to find financing for an expensive interpretation of the Old Testament story of Noah and the Flood, but he's not sitting still while waiting for that would-be film to come together.  Instead, THR's Heat Vision reports that he'll direct the pilot episode of Hobgoblin, the HBO series from literary power-couple Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman.