James Gunn’s Superman will include Ultraman as one of the movie’s antagonists, and there could be a very surprising twist attached to the Kryptonian villain. As the first big-screen entry in Gunn’s DCU (following the animated series opening act of Creature Commandos), Superman focuses on the Man of Steel (David Corenswet) facing public backlash over some of his recent heroic acts. Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor takes the opportunity to strike against Superman, with a mysterious masked figure bearing a “U” on his chest as one of Luthor’s key henchmen against the Kryptonian hero. Ultraman remains arguably the biggest question mark hanging over Superman, as the identity of the actor portraying the villain is still a mystery.
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Combined with some apparent multiverse elements seen in Superman‘s trailers has led to a growing amount of theorizing that none other than Corenswet’s Superman predecessor, Henry Cavill, is playing Ultraman. However, there could also be an even bigger twist on this possibility – namely, that Ultraman himself is actually Henry Cavill’s Superman from Zack Snyder’s “Knightmare” timeline of the DCEU.
Ultraman Being a Masked Villain Indicates His Identity Is Meant To Be a Surprise
In the comics, Ultraman does not wear a mask. His suit is a fairly close facsimile of Superman’s own, with the biggest change being a “U” emblem on his chest. By contrast, the Ultraman seen in Superman‘s marketing only resembles his comic book counterpart via the inclusion of a “U” on his chest. Simply having an evil version of Superman from another universe is a concept very easy to grasp, even for those who have never touched a Superman comic or seen a Superman movie; however, Gunn’s Superman movie is clearly doing something significantly different.
The fact that Ultraman can be so easily summed as “Evil Superman” begs the question of why Gunn has gone to such lengths to keep Ultraman’s identity a secret. Indeed, Ultraman has not been featured on any of Superman‘s posters, with both the character and the identity of his portrayer omitted altogether from the movie’s IMDB and Wikipedia pages at writing. That strongly suggests that Ultraman is being set up to be something far more significant than simply David Corenswet in a dual role. This is where the idea of Henry Cavill returning in a very specific context starts to look like the exact kind of curveball that a masked character like Ultraman could embody.
Why Ultraman Could Be Knightmare Superman
While Henry Cavill’s Superman is a selfless hero with a heart of gold in Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Zack Snyder’s Justice League, there is one area where his Kal-El sheds all of those qualities and becomes a rage-filled killing machine, that being the Knightmare future. Shown in glimpses in Batman v Superman and Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the Knightmare is a post-apocalyptic future in which Darkseid (Ray Porter) has led Apokolips to conquer Earth. Darkseid has also turned Superman into his mind-controlled weapon of destruction after using the Anti-Life Equation to bring Superman under his control.
Cavill’s Superman, as seen in the Knightmare timeline, is a strangely close approximation of everything Ultraman is: a Superman from another universe, and one who, while not “evil,” nonetheless wreaks havoc upon the world as the unwilling servant of Darkseid. Moreover, even the latest image of Ultraman released by Gunn (see above), looks like something pulled right out of Snyder’s Knightmare timeline. Additionally, Gunn’s DCU plans and the marketing material for Superman may have provided an answer for how Cavill’s Superman could get from the Knightmare timeline into the DCU.
How Knightmare Superman Could Appear In Gunn’s Superman Movie
One thing that has become increasingly clear about Gunn’s vision for the DCU is that the doorways of DC’s infinite multiverse are absolutely going to be in play. Peacemaker season 2 is set to dive right into that, with Gunn himself stating that the show will tackle the overlapping continuity elements and characters from the DCEU and DCU. Then there’s Superman‘s most recent trailers, which show a chasm being opened in the heart of Metropolis that appears to be some kind of interdimensional portal. These open plenty of doorways for DC characters from other worlds to make the jump into the DCU, and it might be Lex Luthor who is the culprit in bringing Ultraman into the Superman’s reality.
With Lex paying a visit to the Fortress of Solitude in Superman‘s trailers, one tool he might stumble across is a Phantom Zone port or some other kind of Kryptonian device that enables him to peer into alternate realities. Lex might deduce that his best shot at defeating Superman is to get another Superman, and Cavill’s Knightmare Superman would be especially appealing, since he’s already under mind control through the Anti-Life Equation. Lex might make the mistake of thinking he can leverage this to make Cavill’s Knightmare Superman his ally, perhaps by erroneously presenting himself as Darkseid’s ally. Of course, tampering with Kryptonian tech to create a Kryptonian henchman of his own would likely backfire on Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor as much as it did for Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex, and his creation of Doomsday, thereby making it a job for Superman to send Knightmare Superman back to his original timeline.
Even with a new DC cinematic future on the verge of beginning with James Gunn’s Superman, Zack Snyder’s DCEU movies and Henry Cavill’s Superman both cast long shadow over all things DC. If Ultraman indeed proves to be Henry Cavill behind the mask, not only would it be a masterful twist – there might be no more unexpectedly definitive testimony to the long-term impact of the Snyderverse than for the mind-controlled Superman of Snyder’s Knightmare timeline to become a force of nature in not one but two DC cinematic universes.
Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Zack Snyder’s Justice League are available to stream on HBO Max, and James Gunn’s Superman will be released in theaters on July 11th.
