'V Wars' Season 1: Ian Somerhalder's Dr. Luther Swann is quite different from the bloodthirsty Damon Salvatore on 'The Vampire Diaries'
When it was announced that Ian Somerhalder would star in Netflix's 'V Wars', a single thought probably went through everybody's minds -- Damon Salvatore in another vampire show?
Though Somerhalder began acting long before he appeared on The CW's 'V Wars', it was his role as Damon Salvatore on 'The Vampire Diaries' that catapulted him to star status. It's been ten years since the teen vampire show debuted on its network and has resulted in two successful spinoffs, 'The Originals' and 'Legacies'.
Now, Somerhalder will be seen on a vampire show that will be very different from 'The Vampire Diaries'. Based on Jonathan Maberry's comic series of the same name, 'V Wars' is a horror sci-fi thriller, where the world is divided into two factions after a virus that causes vampirism is released when polar ice caps melted. In it, Somerhalder plays Dr. Luther Swann, a scientist working to find a cure for the vampirism virus to save his best friend, Michael Fayne (Adrian Holmes) who is Patient Zero.
While the shows both revolve around vampires, it is easy to see why Ian Somerhalder has chosen to appear in 'V Wars'. Luther Swann is a very different man compared to Damon Salvatore -- for one, he's not a vampire (yet) and two, he does not share Damon's taste for blood or violence.
When Damon Salvatore first appeared on 'The Vampire Diaries', he was a suave, yet dangerous man -- clearly willing to do whatever it took to achieve his goals, which in the first season was to free Elena's ancestor doppelganger, Katherine Petrova, from a tomb. Damon was selfish, manipulative, and had no qualms about taking lives. Over the course of the eight seasons of the show, Damon changes from that to become someone who is more empathetic, thoughtful, and human, for lack of a better word.
In 'V Wars', Dr. Luther Swann is simply put, a pacifist. He does not like guns and he does not like violence. He is the foremost expert on vampires, having written many books about it and he becomes an advisor for "V-8", federal special operations force of the Homeland security service that specifically targets vampires. But Luther does so in order to make sure that his views are also heard -- that the majority of vampires are peaceful -- and try to ensure that the two factions of humans and vampires have peace talks.
There is one thing that is common between 'V Wars' and 'The Vampire Diaries' is that both Luther Swann and Damon Salvatore's "brotherhood" with Michael Fayne and Stefan Salvatore respectively is an important theme in each show.
In 'The Vampire Diaries', it's Damon's relationships with Elena and his brother, Stefan, that primarily help to restore his humanity. Stefan sacrifices his own life so that Damon can live out his life with Elena as humans as the show ended.
In 'V Wars', in the beginning, there is no friendship between Michael Fayne and Dr. Luther Swann -- they just happen to be a vampire and a human in the comics. Moreover, Fayne is more violent than the show's trailer portrays him to be. It will also seem that in the show, there is a brotherhood that exists between Luther and Michael, a deep friendship that prompts Luther to keep working to find a cure for vampirism and save his friend.
We will have to watch 'V Wars' when it comes out soon to fully understand how different Dr. Luther Swann will be from Damon Salvatore. But one question remains in our minds -- will Luther Swann manage to capture fans' hearts the way Damon did?
'V Wars' will be released on Netflix on December 5th.