'Helstrom' Trailer: Wait, This Is A Marvel Show?

Since Black Widow has now officially moved into 2021, Marvel fans will have to take what they can get when it comes to filmed entertainment. All eyes are on WandaVision, which hits Disney+ later this year – but it turns out you don't have to wait that long to see the next entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The company's new series Helstrom debuts on Hulu this October, but surprisingly, based on this newly released trailer, you wouldn't even know it had any connection at all to Marvel. That's a bold strategy, Cotton – let's see if it pays off for 'em.

Welp! That looks a lot like something that would have aired on The CW circa 2006. Which, sadly, means it looks kinda terrible. (Apologies to my fellow Smallville watchers out there, but we all know that wasn't the best period for that network.) I mean, it has some good actors in it: any show that casts Robert Wisdom, AKA Bunny Colvin from The Wire, and Elizabeth Marvel (House of Cards, Fargo, Homeland) is going to have its bright spots. But woof, this show looks super cheap, and nothing about what I've seen from Tom Austen and Sydney Lemmon as the Helstrom siblings makes me lean forward and want to know the truth about the mysteries they encounter. It's all so...bland. That's not something I should be thinking about a series which contains "a demon so powerful it could wipe out all of mankind."

In August of 2019, Marvel Television announced that Helstrom would be one of the shows under the company's Adventure Into Fear initiative, along with Ghost Rider and two more unannounced shows. But as Marvel Television dissolved, Jeph Loeb went by the wayside, and the branch was absorbed into the control of Marvel Studios, Ghost Rider was abandoned and those two other shows were never announced. But somehow, Helstrom survived through it all, and now it sort of feels like a weird New Mutants-style holdover from a different era.

Anyway, here's the show's official synopsis:

As the son and daughter of a mysterious and powerful serial killer, Helstrom follows Daimon (Tom Austen) and Ana Helstrom (Sydney Lemmon), and their complicated dynamic, as they track down the worst of humanity — each with their own attitude and skills.

The entire first season of Helstrom will debut on Hulu on October 16, 2020, just in time for Halloween.