Netflix drops Jupiter’s Legacy, picks up spin-off Supercrooks

Goodbye Jupiter’s Legacy, hello Supercrooks! After just one season, Netflix appears to have already left its superhero show Jupiter’s Legacy in limbo. A second season has not been ordered, and the cast have been released from their contracts. Instead, the streamer has eyed another Mark Millar comic, Supercrooks, as a potential way to continue to expand this intriguing world.

Based on the comic series first published by Mark Millar in 2013, Jupiter’s Legacy follows the Sampson family, and switches back and forth between two different time periods. The elder Sampsons, who got their powers in the 1930s, were the world’s first superheroes. In the modern-day, their children struggle to live up to their parents’ legacy.

The first season only premiered last month.  While it was a pretty solid superhero show, it’s already proven just how difficult it can be to stand out from the slew of other superhero shows out there — of which there are a lot! Jupiter’s Legacy didn’t create the kind of waves we saw from stuff like WandaVision, The Boys or even Invincible. Considering Netflix’s decision, the numbers couldn’t have been that good, either.

Mark Millar explains why Jupiter’s Legacy season 2 isn’t going forward

Per Deadline, Millar explained the new direction. “Given where we’re going next, we’ve made the tough call of letting our incredible cast out of their show commitment as we continue to thoughtfully develop all realms of the Jupiter’s Legacy saga,” he wrote. He also hints at a possible second season sometime down the line. “We’re confident we’ll return to it later and just want to say thanks to you guys for your continued support and to the cast and crew who made this look so great.”

Rather than Jupiter’s Legacy season 2, Millar is keen to tackle his superhero world from a different angle:

"I’ve been asked a lot about what we’re planning next with this world and the answer is to see what the super-villains are getting up to. I’ve always loved crime stories from Scorsese to Tarantino and super-villains are always the most fun part of any superhero story. To do something exclusively focused on the villains they fight just feels incredibly fresh as we explore what it’s like to be a bad guy in a world crawling with good guys who want to put you in jail. Jupiter’s Legacy is a vast and rich space with lots of characters to mine, and so I’m happy to share that our next step here is a live-action version of the Supercrooks comic I created with Leinil Francis Yu a few years back."

Interestingly, there’s already an anime adaptation of Supercrooks on the way from Studio Bones. Perhaps that will be a good way to test the waters before going all-in with the proposed live-action show.

The fate of Jupiter’s Legacy is definitely a disappointing development. However, Netflix is just beginning with adapting Millarworld comics. They acquired the comic publisher in 2017, and have plans to adapt many of his books.

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