There’s more to the legend than a big green Brainiac.
The House of El is in danger. Set two generations before Kal-El is packed up into a space shuttle and rocketed to Earth while his planet erupts around him, Krypton looks to expand on Superman’s well-established mythology by digging deep into his past. Starring Cameron Cuffe as the Man of Steel’s grandfather, Seyg-El (yeah — not so sure on that name), as the patriarch looking to hold down the fort before everything goes kablooey. The latest trailer gives us our first look at the big bad, Brainiac (Blake Ritson), but it also packs in several treats for comic book fans.
On the live-action front, we’ve seen WB’s Smallville attempt a watered-down version of Superman’s nemesis, but we’ve been waiting a long time to see a proper take on Krypton’s most diabolical super computer. Based on this trailer, it looks like SyFy might have the tyrant locked down. Name-checked as “The Collector Of Worlds,” Brainiac is known for harvesting a planet’s information system and vaporizing it from existence. His endgame will finally be realized as the catalyst for Superman’s origin.
However, there’s more to be excited about here than the jolly green demon. The serialized premise appears to revolve around the surprise appearance of Adam Strange (Shaun Sipos). In the comics, Strange was a human archaeologist who was mysteriously transported to an alien planet during a dig. He’s basically DC’s answer to John Carter. For Krypton’s purposes, his alien location has been shifted to Seyg-El’s neighborhood.
It appears that we’ve got some Back to the Future shenanigans at play. Strange is from Superman’s timeline and he’s tugging his cape along with him. Don’t tell Jim Croce. Strange tells Seyg-El that his grandson is going to be the greatest warrior in the universe, and if they don’t stop….well, we’ll just have to wait and see how they’re going to relate this all back to Brainiac as well as the evil Zod clan. Strange does explain at one point that Superman’s cape is slowly vanishing from existence and once it’s completely gone then “our time is up.”
Accompanying today’s trailer release, SyFy also uploaded their first look of Brainiac. Show creator David S. Goyer is a self proclaimed geek that prides himself on rummaging through comic book continuity. Brainiac might make absolute sense for Krypton’s big bad, but he’s going to seal the deal by sticking closely to Geoff Johns and Gary Frank’s recent reinvention of the character. He’s a cold, ancient creature who looks down upon Kryptons with the fascination of a child frying ants with a magnifying glass. Their promise of finally revealing Brainiac’s skull ship design is enough alone to gain my viewership.
Adding extra terror will be Lyta Zod (Georgina Campbell), the great-great ancestor of Michael Shannon’s general (or Terence Stamp’s, depending on your favor) — “I WILL FIND HIM!” Their Klingon-like obsession with honor will drive the clan against the House of El for sure, but is there a place for a Zod/Brainiac team-up? At the very least, I’m expecting their cooperative siege of Kandor before the infamous city is torn from the ground and bottled up for further Superman adventures.
DC television has been on fire recently. Whatever ups and downs they had in the Arrowverse were forgiven when they came together in last season’s multi-show epic, “Crisis on Earth-X.” Don’t expect to see Seyg-El or Adam Strange knocking on The Flash’s laboratory door anytime soon, but it’s thrilling to see DC’s TV properties getting so geeky with their material while Marvel’s Netflix rage-fests bury their origins in gritty real-world violence.
Related Topics: DC Comics, Superman
