This text comprises spoilers for “Superman.”
Superman’s archenemy is, certainly, Lex Luthor. However the issue the flicks have all the time run into is that Luthor is a standard man; one punch from Superman and he is mud. So how do you make Lex stand toe-to-toe with the Man of Metal? Historically, there have been two choices: Both put Lex in a go well with of armor, or give him a superpowered enforcer.
Superman films have all the time gone with the latter, and James Gunn’s new “Superman” isn’t any totally different. Lex’s (Nicholas Hoult) muscle is Ultraman. Sure, the rumors had been true, Ultraman does seem in “Superman” as a key villain. Nonetheless, he is a bit totally different than the comedian e-book model.
Throughout “Superman,” Ultraman stays silent and wears a full physique black go well with, with a goggled masks resembling Doomsday’s.
Warner Bros./DC Comics
However the hints to his true self aren’t delicate. He has the identical powers as Superman (David Corenswet); flight, energy, warmth imaginative and prescient, and many others. He additionally wears a “U” insignia on his chest, mirroring the “S” adorning Superman’s costume. Lex can be one way or the other capable of get into the Fortress of Solitude with Ultraman, although it solely opens for Superman’s DNA signature. Within the third act, Ultraman and Superman crash into the bottom collectively. Ultraman tears off his ruined masks, revealing Superman’s personal face staring again on the hero.
See, Lex managed to get his fingers on a strand of Superman’s hair from a battle scene. He used it to make a (a lot much less clever) clone of the hero. To not fear, although, as a result of by the tip of the movie, Ultraman is thrown right into a black gap; arduous to image even somebody as robust as him getting back from that.
There’s precedent for an evil Superman known as Ultraman in DC Comics. Nonetheless, within the comics, Ultraman is the Clark Kent from a parallel universe (“Earth-3”) the place the Justice League are villains known as the Crime Syndicate. That Ultraman has appeared in another DC films and TV, resembling the 2010 animated movie “Justice League: Disaster on Two Earths,” the place he was voiced by Brian Bloom and characterised as a mob boss with superpowers. (“Superman by way of Tony Soprano,” the film’s script says.)
This Ultraman is as a substitute a part of a protracted development of evil mirrors to Superman in “Superman” films.
