Angela Bassett is stepping into the world of comics as she's signed up for a role in Martin Campbell's 'The Green Lantern,' which is slated to hit theaters on June 17, 2011.

The Hollywood Reporter said that the Harlem, New York native is playing Dr. Amanda Waller, a government agent -- who in comics lore became charged with overseeing the Suicide Squad, a government-run group of captured supervillains performing tasks in exchange for eventual freedom.

It is unclear if that group will pop up in 'Lantern' or if that mythology is being set up.

The actress will co-star with Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Mark Strong, and Peter Sarsgaard.

The 'Green Lantern' was created in 1940 by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell. Introduced in 1959, Hal Jordan is a second-generation test pilot, an ordinary man who was given the power ring and battery (lantern) by a dying alien named Abin Sur. When Abin Sur's spaceship crashed on Earth, the alien used his ring to seek out an individual to take his place as Green Lantern: someone who was "utterly honest and born without fear."

Last seen on the big screen playing Christopher 'The Notorious B.I.G.' Wallace's mother Voletta Wallace in the film 'Notorious,' and on the last season of NBC's long running series 'ER,' Bassett's also planning to make her feature directorial debut with 'United States,' an adaptation of Percival Everett's novel 'Erasure,' about a black literary figure who writes a faux autobiography that becomes a sensation.