The Superman mythos is about to get a massive overhaul. Krypton is coming to Syfy later this season, and it will bring a ton of excellent DC deep cuts along with it. One such comic book icon entering the fray is the rogue artificial intelligence known as Brainiac, as portrayed by Blake Ritson. A newly released promo video for the upcoming Superman prequel series has officially offered up our first and best look at the villain yet. Check out the creepy introduction below.
Right off the bat, it's pretty clear that Krypton is aiming for a reasonably faithful portrayal of latter-day Brainiac. From the villain's dulled green skin to his dark and lifeless eyes, the Krypton team looked to Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's comic book source material in creating his overall appearance. (Or at least the parts we can see.) Beyond that, the quick shots of the interior of his ship seem to show cities that he has presumably captured from all over the cosmos. If that's the case, then we can guess that Kandor (among others) might be his primary target if Seyg-El (Cameron Cuffe) cannot stop him.
For those who are less in-tune with the DC lore, Brainiac is a longtime bad guy from the Superman corner of the comics, and one who has frequently been rumored to finally debut in the DCEU as well (although that hasn't happened yet). He's widely regarded as the most intelligent being in the universe, and he's often depicted as traveling from planet to planet, stealing cities and destroying redundancies. The version of Brainiac portrayed in Krypton seems to draw quite a bit of inspiration from Geoff Johns' work on the character, as hinted at by Johns himself, which means he will should a very distant, cold, and inhuman sensibility to his personality.
The glimpses of Brainiac in that trailer are pretty quick, so relive his big reveal again and again below.
While this first look at Brainiac is obviously exciting, it's also far from the only major DC entity that we can look forward to when the show debuts. In fact, the team behind Krypton have already made it abundantly clear that the show will focus on many elements outside of Superman's lore. Specifically, Geoff Johns recently opened up and admitted that Krypton might potentially help pave the way for story elements like the New Gods and the Green Lantern Corps to appear (although neither was confirmed), and it was even revealed that The Omega Men would appear on the show as well. All things considered, it looks like Brainiac, while certainly the big bad of the show, is just the tip of the iceberg.
Krypton will finally debut on Syfy on Wednesday, March 21 at 10:00 p.m. ET. That's far from the only show set to debut on the small screen this season, however, so make sure to hop over to our spring premiere guide to see everything else that's coming!
