One of the Biggest MCU Stars Had a Cameo on Smallville Everyone Forgot About
Remember Aldar, the giant alien that fed on bone marrow?
When it comes to fame, Dave Bautista was a late bloomer. As a professional wrestler, he won his first championship at the age of 36. And as an actor, he landed his first big role as Drax the Destroyer when he was well into his 40s.
However, age doesn't seem to bother the actor or his huge fan base, who have been happy to see Bautista's face in such popular projects as Spectre, Blade Runner 2049, Dune, and The Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.
Dave's road to success was not short and easy and had its ups and downs. Interestingly, the MCU star actually started his acting career with a hit series based on DC Comics.
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In the Season 6 episode Static, Bautista played a memorable super strong and durable alien Aldar who escaped the Phantom Zone, landed on Earth, and ripped out the spinal cords of his victims to feed on their bone marrow.
When Clark Kent asks Aldar why he murders people, the giant alien replies, "Hey, a man's got to eat."
The bone marrow-sucking villain didn't last more than one episode but became part of the Smallville canon as one of its strongest characters. Though the project was huge, Bautista didn't seem to think it would take him very far.
"Smallville' gig was another one of those things I got through WWE," he explained. "At that point, I had absolutely no aspirations to pursue acting."
The idea of becoming a full-time actor came to Dave when he starred in the action movie Wrong Side of Town. That's when he realized he really enjoyed acting. And four years later, the actor landed his breakout role in Guardians of the Galaxy.
With fame, the actor, who admits to being a "true blue geek at heart," hasn't forgotten his very first comic book character. Many fans don't know that there was a reference to Aldar in Guardians of the Galaxy. Remember when Rhomann Dey tells the gang that their criminal records have been wiped clean, but warns them not to break the law again? Drax then has a hilarious response that is actually a Smallville Easter egg.
"What if someone does something irksome and I decide to remove his spine?" the fan-favorite character says, giving a nod to Aldar's method of killing his victims.