Tosin Cole, who played Ryan Sinclair in series 11 and 12 of Doctor Who, recently made his debut as Michael Lasaki-Brown in the 2024 superhero series Supa Cell. This role fits a common trend with actors from the Whoniverse who often find themselves becoming superheroes and villains after their time on the sci-fi giant.
While Supa Cell is not tied to either the Marvel or DC universe, it's hard to talk about superheroes without thinking of the vast comic book multiverses both franchises have created. Many people immediately think of Marvel, as it has some of the most prominent Doctor Who actors in its movies, but there are actually just as many in DC projects.
To be completely fair, if the Sandman series were counted, DC would actually have far more crossovers with Doctor Who than Marvel does. After all, the comics were originally published under DC's Vertigo imprint, and there are crossovers with main-universe characters like John (or Johanna) Constantine. However, there's so much crossover with that series that it's worth being discussed in more depth in the future.
Sticking with more traditional DC media, there's still a lot of crossovers to find. After all, the movie universes have been rebooted repeatedly, and there have been multiple successful television series, both on the CW network and beyond. Here are the seven most prominent Doctor Who actors who have appeared in a DC movie or TV show, and what roles they played there.
Jo Martin: Police Prison Official (Batman Begins)
Jo Martin portrays the Fugitive Doctor in Doctor Who, a role which helped introduce the idea of Doctors pre-dating William Hartnell. While the Timeless Child arc as a whole has been contentious, Martin’s version is intriguing. She may have only been in four episodes of the show, but there are already two Big Finish productions about her escapades while running from the Division.
Jo Martin has one of the smallest connections to the DC universe, but that doesn’t make it insignificant. She played a prison official in 2005’s Batman Begins, the earliest DC production to have a Doctor Who star in it. Although this was a minor role, the movie was important enough to remain one of her “Known For” credits on IMDb, which surely helped keep her career going strong in the 2000s.
Matt Lucas: Aleister Crowley (DC's Legends of Tomorrow)
Doctor Who fans will know Matt Lucas as Nardole, River Song’s assistant who became a companion for the Twelfth Doctor in Series 10. The Doctor saved him after he was beheaded by King Hydroflax, and River tasked him with making sure the Doctor didn’t let Missy die. Although guarding Missy was his primary task, he did travel with the Doctor and Bill, serving as the only non-human companion since the 2005 revival.
Lucas was in two episodes of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, where he played Aleister Crowley. In the Arrowverse, John Constantine trapped Crowley’s soul in a painting, which he locked up in his attic. However, he had the opportunity to escape when Astra Logue was looking for a magic teacher. Although he was only on the show for a short time, Lucas’s version of Crowley wreaked havoc on the Legends and was an ideal example of what happens when a craving for power goes too far.
Alex Kingston: Dinah Lance (Arrow)
Alex Kingston plays one of the most important recurring characters in modern Doctor Who. River Song is the daughter of companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams, but it’s her connections to the Doctor that are most significant. Born and raised to kill him, River Song instead turns into one of the Doctor’s greatest allies (and his wife).
Amy says that Melody Pond is a superhero, and while Alex Kingston has yet to play a superhero in the DC universe, she is the mother of two of them. Kingston played Dinah Lance on Arrow, mother to Laurel and Sara Lance. She primarily showed up when tragedy struck the Lance family, as she had separated from her husband after the seeming death of their daughter. Her profession in the show, as a professor of Greek and medieval history, might be a reference to her role on Doctor Who.
Peter Capaldi: The Thinker (The Suicide Squad)
Peter Capaldi played the Twelfth Doctor from 2013 through 2017, along with his previous appearance as Caecilius in “The Fires of Pompeii.” His version of the character began as a much darker version, conflicted over his morality. By the end of his run, he became a version of the character many people consider to be the best.
After his time on Doctor Who, Capaldi took on the role of the Thinker in 2021’s The Suicide Squad. The Thinker was in charge of Project Starfish, which used the people of Corto Maltese as lab rats for experiments involving the alien Starro. He was an overtly cruel character, and while he never displayed any power beyond hyper-intelligence, there’s no doubt that the Thinker was uniquely villainous in a cast full of villains.
Arthur Darvill: Rip Hunter (DC's Legends of Tomorrow)
Arthur Darvill first joined Doctor Who as Amy Pond’s fiance, which seemed like it would be a comparable recurring role to Mickey Smith in the first two seasons. However, he eventually became a companion in his own right, having a unique relationship with the Doctor and earning the title of the Last Centurion.
When he was cast as Rip Hunter for DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, it seemed as though the show really was looking to be a Doctor Who knock-off. Rip Hunter was a trenchcoat-wearing time traveler from the 22nd century, whose people were called the Time Masters. He created a team of superheroes the present day could survive without, who eventually became the titular Legends. However, the show frankly got much better once his character switched into a slightly more antagonistic role, which allowed it to develop its own dynamic outside of Doctor Who.
Hunter had originally recruited the team to help save his wife and child from Vandal Savage, but he failed in that task. Afterward, he intended to protect the timeline, since the previous guardians had been destroyed. He created the Time Bureau, an organization that kept the timeline safe from anachronisms and frequently clashed with his former team for their unorthodox methods.
John Barrowman: Malcolm Merlyn (Arrowverse)
The early years of the Arrowverse were good times for Doctor Who fans, who got to see many of their favorites appearing. John Barrowman was best known for his role as Captain Jack Harkness, who had debuted on Doctor Who before leading his own team in Torchwood. The flirtatious time traveler was made immortal in the series one finale, which gave him a lot of potential moving forward.
John Barrowman played Malcolm Merlyn in Arrow, the father of Oliver Queen’s best friend Tommy, and (secretly) his sister, Thea. He began as a villain, and though his love for his daughter was real, he repeatedly gave in to his darker impulses. Barrowman played the role in the first five seasons of Arrow, briefly crossed over with The Flash, and became a main villain in season two of Legends of Tomorrow, making him one of the Arrowverse’s most prominent non-heroes.
Michelle Gomez: The Lady (Gotham) and Madame Rouge (Doom Patrol)
Michelle Gomez is the queen of DC/Doctor Who crossovers, which is no surprise given her impressive ability to play larger-than-life characters. On Doctor Who, she played the most complex version of the Master yet, Missy, who was incredibly chaotic and villainous at the beginning but underwent an impressive redemption arc along the way.
She has two major DC roles, which are worth discussing in turn. First, she joined season two of the Fox Batman prequel Gotham as the Lady. The Lady was a mysterious fixer, who Tabitha Galavan hired to kill Jim Gordon. When her team failed to get the job done, she was put out of business and eventually imprisoned for her crimes.
Her role on Doom Patrol was much more prominent, as a series regular in seasons three and four. Gomez played Laura De Mille, AKA Madame Rouge, a time-traveler who lost her memories before joining the team. Her morality shifted a few times over her time with the Doom Patrol, but that didn’t stop her from being one of the most compelling additions the show ever had.
Doctor Who can feel a bit like a superhero show at times, with superhuman abilities, larger-than-life circumstances, and ultimate battles between good and evil. Perhaps that's why so many of its former cast members find a place in comic book adaptations. Whether they spent their next roles as heroes or villains, it's fascinating to see fan-favorite Who actors try out new characters and display just how versatile they can be.