Hawkgirl in Superman

Wings, a mace, and a very old soul — the DC hero who put Merced in the Justice Gang.

In James Gunn's Superman (2025), Merced plays Kendra Saunders, also known as Hawkgirl — a winged warrior with a mace, a reincarnated past, and no patience for diplomacy. She appears as part of the Justice Gang, the film's working superhero team, and reprised the role in the Peacemaker series the same year. It is a physical, effects-heavy role, and a long way from the Nickelodeon sets where her screen career began.

Why the role matters

Hawkgirl is a legacy DC character, and Gunn's DC Universe is built for the long term: a character introduced in Superman is a character the studio can return to. Merced is expected to reprise Hawkgirl in the announced follow-up Man of Tomorrow (see the upcoming page), which makes this role a franchise anchor rather than a cameo — the same kind of career step that Dora was in 2019, at a much larger scale.