The collective gasp / groan you hear is Avengelyne fans realizing that Goldsman wrote the 1998 Lost in Space reboot and Batman and Robin (I keed, I keed.)

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for comic book fans, as Netflix confirmed the Punisher will be coming out 2017 along with Iron Fist and the Defenders, followed by first Deadpool 2 and then The Flash losing their directors, the second trailer for Wonder Woman dropping, and now the Avengelyne movie finally moving forward again … under the watch of Akiva Goldsman. More on that in a moment, but for those who aren’t familiar with the Avengelyne comic, let’s take a quick look at the plot.

What is Avengelyne About?

Avengelyne is a badass angel warrior. The badass angel warrior, you could say, who by herself broke into Pandemonium (one of the Devil’s hangouts) to confront the Devil himself. However, even that kind of bad-assery can’t save you when it comes to questioning God, so after being tricked into questioning God on the topic of his love for humans, He tosses her out of Heaven, and strips her of her angelic powers. Well, except for her super-strength, and blood, which apparently can be weaponized (or used to perform miracles) after it’s drawn from Avengelyne’s body and activated by quoting Bible verses.

Now, as this sort of thing often does, it turns out this was a sort of test, and God is trying to prepare Avengelyne fro the coming Armageddon. Until, that is, she’s seduced by a demon in order to bring forth Magog. Which isn’t cool with God, so He sends Passover, the Angel of Death, to kill her, but they reach an understanding, and team up to kick demon ass instead. And, well there’s a whole lot more. Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld and Cathy Christian launched the comic in 1995 with Maximum Press, and after bouncing around for a while between publishers and having occasional runs or one-shots, it finally landed at Image Comics in 2011, where writer Mark Poulton and artist Owen Gieni worked on relaunching it.

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Wait, Haven’t They Been Talking Avengelyne Movie for a While Now?

Yes, they have. Back in July of 2013, Liefeld announced he was working on an adaptation, with MMA fighter turned actor Gina Carano to play the title role. However, not much was said since then. Which brings us to now, with Paramount and Goldsman.

Paramount has made a deal for the film rights and brought on Goldsman as a producer. He hasn’t been tapped as the director yet, but Deadline is saying that he has “an eye toward directing” which would mark his third feature film, after 2014’s Winter’s Tale, and the upcoming fantasy / horror Stephanie.

Now, OK, yes, Goldsman did write Batman and Robin and Lost in Space, and I was being slightly snarky. But he also wrote the movie adaptation for A Beautiful Mind and co-wrote Cinderella Man, both excellent movies, and great writing. And he spent some time producing, directing and writing for the excellent sci-fi tv series Fringe. So he’s definitely got much talent, and it’ll be interesting to see what he brings to this project.

Deadline’s also saying that Goldsman is currently heading up a search for a screenwriter to handle scripting duties, which is interesting for a couple of reasons.

First, because it means they’re not (yet, anyway) looking to Goldsman to write it as well, and second, because writer James Coyne had reportedly already been tapped to write the screenplay. There’s no word whether he’s still in the mix, or whether they’ll use any material he produced.

Featured Image: Image Comics / Avengelyne Cover