"American Gods," the TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman's 2001 novel of the same name, is slated to premiere on Starz in April 2017. As part of the advance promotion, Entertainment Weekly has debuted a new image from the series, centered on TV veteran Corbin Bernsen as Vulcan, a character based on the Roman god of fire of the same name and an interpretation created for the television series -- but an addition made by Gaiman himself.

In fact, it turns out there was an upsetting real-life inspiration behind the creation of Vulcan, as related to EW by "American Gods" co-showrunner Michael Green.

"[Vulcan is] a brand-new addition who came from an experience Neil had," Green said. "He was going through a small town in Alabama where he saw a statue of Vulcan. It was a steel town and, as he told the story, there was a factory that had a series of accidents where people were killed on the job and they kept happening because an actuarial had done the numbers and realized that it was cheaper to pay out the damages to the families of people who lost people, rather than to shut down the factory long enough to repair, and that occurred to him as modern a definition of sacrifice as there might be."

Since Vulcan was the Roman god of volcanoes and metalworking, the show's contemporary setting interprets that as a god of guns, something that the series plans to use to comment on the pressing issue of rampant gun violence. "We started talking about America's obsession with guns and gun control and, really, if you’re holding a gun in your hand, it’s a mini volcano, and perhaps, through this character, there's a conversation to be had," co-showrunner Bryan Fuller told EW.

Featuring a large cast also including Ricky Whittle, Ian McShane, Emily Browning, Crispin Glover, Peter Stormare, Gillian Anderson, Orlando Jones, Dane Cook and Kristin Chenoweth, "American Gods" is set to premiere in April 2017 on Starz. An "American Gods" comic book adaptation is scheduled to debut in March from Dark Horse Comics, starting with "American Gods: Shadows" #1 from the creative team of writers Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell, artist Scott Hampton and cover artist Glenn Fabry.