Superman 2 Might Finally Bring A Long-Awaited DC Villain to the Big Screen

Superman may be still playing in theaters and may have just hit HBO Max, but director and DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn‘s already looking to the future. Not only has he announced a follow-up titled Man of Tomorrow, but he also took to Instagram to share a picture of a draft of the completed script.

On first glance, there’s nothing remarkable about the image. It has the title Man of Tomorrow, an appellation for Superman that can also apply to Lex Luthor, whom, Gunn has stated, will be a co-protagonist of the film. There’s the author credits, one for Gunn and a “Superman created by” credit for Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, reflecting the director’s commitment to the character’s comic book roots. But what does jump out is the picture on the cover, that of an old-timey medical drawing showing the human brain.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by James Gunn (@jamesgunn)

For long-time Superman fans, the picture teases the arrival of a villain that movie fans have long wanted to see: Brainiac.

Brainiac is one of the oldest baddies in Superman’s rogues gallery. He made his first appearance in 1958’s Action Comics #242, written by Otto Binder and penciled by Al Plastino. Although more of a traditional villain in that story, complete with a monkey henchman and a tendency to call Superman “Punyman,” Brainiac already demonstrated scientific genius and a predilection for conducting experiments on sentient beings.

Over the decades, Brainiac would evolve, becoming more of a living computer that sometimes took over human hosts. Those hosts included carnival magician Milton Fine and, in Alan Moore‘s Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, he bonded with Lex Luthor himself.

It’s that last example that leaps to mind when one reads the title for Gunn’s upcoming movie. In Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, Moore pens the final story of the Silver Age Superman, right before the DC Comics company-wide reboot Crisis on Infinite Earths. Although the overall villain is the imp Mister Mxyzptlk, who tires of toying with Superman and decides to become sadistic, Luthor and Brainiac bond after the latter finds the former crashed in the antarctic.

If Gunn does indeed bring Brainiac to the big screen, he’ll reverse a trend that has been running through Superman movies since the Christopher Reeve era. While Lex Luthor has been Superman’s arch-enemy since the 1940s, Brainiac has always been a top-tier threat and one that filmmakers have long wanted to feature in a movie.

Before he was pushed out by producers, Richard Donner intended Brainiac to be the antagonist of a third movie. When Donner was replaced by Richard Lester and Richard Pryor was added to the cast, the villain became a Luthor knock-off with a computer that goes haywire. In 2010, information leaked about Bryan Singer’s intended sequel for Superman Returns, which was to involve an alien invader revealed late in the film to be Brainiac, the being responsible for Krypton’s destruction. And had he not been forced to leap into world-building with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Zack Snyder considered Brainiac as part of a Man of Steel sequel.

As these examples demonstrate, Brainiac looms large in filmmakers’ imagination, and with good reason. Alien invaders always make for cool visuals, especially when their M.O. includes shrinking cities and putting them in bottles. Brainiac can also be a more physical foe for Superman, as his constant need to upgrade allows him to create bigger and more imposing bodies.

For whatever reason, no one has been able to make Brainiac work in a movie. But if there’s anyone who can do it, it’s James Gunn, the guy who has somehow turned Peacemaker into a beloved and emotionally rich character.

Man of Tomorrow is slated for a 2027 release.