DC Studios launched a major promotional campaign for Superman last week, but there’s one key detail we still haven’t learned — who is the villain of the movie? We know that Superman will feature Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) and a few other antagonistic characters from DC Comics, but details on the story are still scarce. Read on for some of the biggest clues and the possible villains of this movie.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Considering that Superman is the first movie of the new DC Universe continuity, it has an incredibly full cast list. In addition to Superman, we have Mister Terrific, the Green Lantern Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, Metamorpho the Element Man and The Engineer Angela Spica. There are also strong but unconfirmed rumors that Ultraman may appear in the movie, Sean Gunn is now confirmed to be playing Maxwell Lord, and there are nods to the villain Simon Stagg in the set design.
On top of that, we can take hints from the direction of the DCU story and the material it will be based on. Gunn has said one of his biggest inspirations for this movie is the DC Comics series All-Star Superman — a story that involves numerous villains with an over-arching conflict against Luthor. However, he listed several other comics as well, and animated series, which makes it hard to narrow down the rogues gallery too much.
With over half a year to go until the movie premieres, we’ll likely learn more before it comes out. For now, here’s what we know about the villain(s) in Superman, and the top contending fan theories out there.
Luthor
Obviously, Lex Luthor isn’t going to be best friends with Superman in the DCU with no strings attached. Still, he could be introduced in this movie just to be placed on the back burner, so we can’t assume he is the main villain of this story. In fact, it would great if the DCU took the time to develop Luthor and flesh out his hatred for the Man of Steel over time.
Even if Luthor is an antagonist in the story, there’s a lot going on here to distract from him. In All-Star Superman, Luthor enacts a plot to kill Superman by over-exposing him to solar radiation, which temporarily amplifies Superman’s powers while ensuring he will die within a year. Something like that could be going on here, with Luthor working to weaken Superman before he fights other, more powerful enemies.
Metamorpho the Element Man is typically depicted as a hero in DC Comics, but there are some strong hints that he might start out as an adversary in this movie. Metamorpho has the ability to transmute his body into any element and change its form, but he is unable to return to normal and live a regular life. He is often written as a forlorn outcast, doing his best to use his powers for good while mourning the life he could have had.
Metamorpho could be played as a foil to Superman, since both of them are outsiders but Superman is able to hide behind his mild-mannered visage. The story, then, could be about Clark getting through to Metamorpho and convincing him to team up, as they are not so different.
It’s also worth noting that one of Metamorpho’s greatest enemies, businessman Simon Stagg, is rumored to be appearing in this movie. At the very least, a sign for Stagg Enterprises is visible on the streets of Metropolis. In some versions of the story, Metamorpho was created by Stagg, so perhaps in this movie Stagg will have some amount of power to unleash the Element Man before he regains control of himself.
The Engineer & Ultraman
The Engineer is confirmed to be appearing in Superman, while an appearance by Ultraman has become a very plausible rumor that is difficult to deny. This weekend, an alternate version of the Superman teaser trailer played for audiences that went to see Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in theaters, and many fans believe it features a shot of The Engineer and Ultraman walking alongside Luthor. If the three are working together to some extent, that would make sense.
Ultraman is an evil version of Superman from an alternate dimension, depending on the story you read. Some fans are expecting him to appear as a Bizarro-type character, while others want to see the usual depiction of malicious Kal-El. If he really is here, it means we’ll be jumping right into multi-dimensional travel in the DCU.
Meanwhile, The Engineer is one of the core members of The Authority, a superhero team in DC Comics that is slated to get its own movie in the first arc of the DCU. It makes sense that they’re introducing one of the characters here — and it makes sense that she and Superman might be at odds. Unlike the Justice Leage, The Authority is willing to do absolutely anything necessary to impose their idea of peace and justice on the world.
We can only speculate, but it’s possible that both Ultraman and The Engineer come from an alternate reality and were somehow brought to this earth by Luthor in the hopes that they would kill Superman. It would be a neat way to introduce The Authority without flooding this world with superheroes all at once — after all, The Authority were originally in their own separate universe when they were created in the 1990s, and weren’t brought into the main DC Comics universe until 2011.
Brainiac
Finally, the theory with the least evidence still permeating the fandom is that the artificial intelligence Brainiac will be introduced as the surprise villain of Superman. This seems to be based mostly on a comment from Gunn last year when he said that the 2008 Brainiac storyline from Action Comics was one of his inspirations for this film. Beyond that, there’s not much in the trailer, the cast list, or other material to hint at Brainiac.
Superman his theaters on July 11, 2025. The DCU is officially up and running with the animated series Creature Commandos now streaming on Max.
