While there are some reservations on the part of fans that have watched the original animated series on Cartoon Network a few decades ago, The CW is now at full steam where production for “Powerpuff” is concerned. The upcoming new series, based on the Cartoon Network original animation, will focus on three women who have outgrown their past as child superheroes but must come together to face new challenges and redefine themselves as people. Some top-caliber young talents with action TV credits are headlining this series; and not only has The CW teased a first look at them in character (costume), but has also announced new additions to the cast.

Variety tells us that The CW has release the first official images of the main trio of the upcoming “Powerpuff” superhero series. They comprise photos of “Agents of SHIELD” veterans Chloe Bennet, Dove Cameron and stage actress Yana Perrault dressed up as the now-grown-up Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup Utonium, the former Powerpuff Girls that protected Townsville from crime and the forces of evil. The way they look in character drops hints at where the characters are mentally and emotionally from their past as super-powered children.

Bennet’s Blossom, the onetime Powerpuff Girls leader, looks professional in her pink blazer, with necklace and earrings, but also displays a hidden ruggedness underneath judging from her denim pants. Cameron’s Bubbles channels wholesome innocence with her uniformly blue shirt and skirt, but her glamorous pose and backwards glance indicate a celebrity attitude playing up on her childhood sweetness. Finally, Perrault as Buttercup has traded her young self’s bowl cut for a closer crop. At first blush it could be a step up in her toughness, but the less mean-looking eyes tell a different story from her surliness as a girl.

If the casting of comedy actor Donald Faison from ABC’s “Scrubs” is a preliminary indicator of how much reimagining “Powerpuff” has gone through from the animated franchise (him being an African-American portraying the animated-Caucasian creator-father figure of the Powerpuffs), then the newest casting announcements from The CW only serve to take things even further. Veterans like actress Robyn Lively (1991 “Doogie Howser MD”) and voice talent Tom Kenny join relative newcomer Nicholas Podany on the show. Lively is Miss Bellum the (former) Mayor’s assistant. Kenny, who voiced the Narrator and Townsville Mayor in the cartoons, reprises his role as the former. Podany plays Joseph “Jojo” Mondel Jr., son of the Powerpuff’s childhood nemesis Mojo Jojo.

“Powerpuff” is being written for The CW by Heather Regnier and Diablo Cody, who also serves as executive producers alongside series director Margaret Kiley and Greg Berlanti of Berlanti Productions.

Image: Screen Rant and SuperHeroHype.com