Here's Your First Image of Peter Sarsgaard as the Elephant Man in The Green Lantern

Remember when Peter Sarsgaard told Movieline not to expect him in any comic-book villain roles? And how we kind of laughed when, a few months later, the actor was confirmed to star as the evil Dr. Hector Hammond in The Green Lantern? Well, nobody's laughing anymore, because the first image of Sarsgaard has emerged from the set -- and he looks horrifying.

While hardly a hi-def close-up or anything, the photo making the rounds today suggests that the filmmakers are going for something a little more intense than the illustrated mad scientist whom Lantern fans have come to know and revile over the years. Hammond's swollen skull follows his exposure to alien matter that turns him both psychic and evil.

But massively disfigured? I don't remember that from the DC Comics stable:

One (completely random, self-generated) theory about the John Merrick-esque grotesquerie stems from Sarsgaard's earlier apprehensions that a film like Lantern might "'be a lot of time for not very much reward,' or 'The rewards in this are purely financial.' It's OK for that to be the reason to do something, but then I start to look at time, and I go, 'Oh, but it's three years of my life.'" But! Make him a tragic figure with roots in the cinema of deformity, and maybe now you're talking. In any case: Are you taking notes, Marvel?

· Pic of the Day [Sky Showbiz via Film School Rejects]