Joe Manganiello has vowed to make fans proud of his performance in the forthcoming Batman film.

Joe Manganiello

Joe Manganiello

The 40-year-old actor will play nefarious super soldier Deathstroke in Ben Affleck's stand-alone movie and Joe is thrilled at getting the chance to take on a comic book character.

Speaking about the reaction to his casting, he told Entertainment Tonight: "I'm glad everybody's happy. I'm just gonna put my head down and just really show up as prepared as any supervillain ever has.

"Growing up an avid comic book fan, and then there were a lot of superhero roles, and supervillain roles, that came my way that I said no to, or wasn't allowed to do, because of other commitments. It's just really exciting to think that this is the one."

Deathstroke was created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez and first appeared in DC Comic 'The New Teen Titans' #2 in 1980.

The character has a grudge against Green Arrow but his original enemy was the Teen Titans.

He has also gone up against Batman on several occasions in DC Comics following their first duel in 1991's 'City of Assassins' story, in which Deathstroke badly beat up the Dark Knight.

Slade/Deathstroke has also appeared on The CW's TV series 'Arrow', and creator Marc Guggenheim recently revealed the character was involved in "another DC project".

When asked why the villain hadn't returned to 'Arrow', he wrote on tumblr: "The character of Slade Wilson is currently tied up in another DC project. Walter is more likely."