Diseased Maniacs: The Villains Thread with POLL

[TheScarecrow]

Yeah, my thing has been that just Lex or Zod alone all over again wouldn’t do it for me, but I’d also prefer we avoid Bizarro for the moment.

Our last big screen Superman was a moody ****er with occasional teases at turning bad, we’ve got plenty of evil riffs on Superman in pop culture right now (Invincible, The Boys, Brightburn), and Bizarro was also only recently featured quite prominently on Superman and Lois. Let’s just… do something else.

Unless we’re going with a Bizarro take that’s more dumb than necessarily ill-intentioned, which is certainly something Gunn might do, but even still… let’s start off with someone else.

Agree with this.

Aside from Lex Luthor and Zod, we have seen Superman fight far too many evil versions of himself in live action as well. That's Superman 3 and 4.

Between S:TM, S2, S3, S4, SR, MoS and Legacy we'd have only seen Superman vs Lex Luthor, Zod and an evil derivation of Superman.

 

[The Lazarus Pit]

It will never be not funny to me that we finally get a non Zod or Lex villain in Doomsday, but he was created by Lex from Zod.

78 - Lex
II - Lex and Zod
Returns - Lex
Man of Steel - Zod
BvS - Lex and Zod/Doomsday

God I remember when we learned Zod was the villain for MOS, I was so disappointed. I’m not even a really big fan of the character but I loved Stamp’s portrayal. Shannon was ok but I think his Zod is way overhyped.

 

[Babillygunn]

Apex to me would be Doomsday. Maybe Darkseid sending one of his minions like Kanto or his son to take down or test the man of steel. I always wanted to see Kanto in live action.

I don’t want the Fourth World in this movie. But that said, Kanto is a top-5 villain in all of DC. He is awesome. He is the Boba Fett of DC.

 

[Babillygunn]

I also do not want another evil Superman. Zack Snyder ruined that for me.
And this is a shame because my favorite villain in all of DC is Superboy Prime. I’d love to see him against the Justice League. I would especially love to see James Gunn’s take on him. A recipe of younger Superman + Peter Quill snarkiness + petulant teenage angst = great character

 

[DCDAVE]

Braniac would be a good villain for the movie. I would love for Braniac to try to recruit/befriend Superman by using the knowledge of his krypton heritage. I could see him also trying to seduce Lex with his Universal knowledge. The animated series did Braniac so well. I don’t want Braniac to be the typical comic movie destroy earth big bad. I think Braniac actually would be the perfect villain for the Legacy synopsis. I am probably being to greedy here but maybe have Braniac already have collected the new Kara Zor-El.

 

[Alien Anal]

I did some reading but I think it coming from a fellow nerd would help more... What is exactly Brainiacs deal? If we had him in the film what sort of battles could we possibly see that is different to Zod and Co? Is he first a friend or is a sneaky sonofa-?

Would love to hear anyones idea on how Brainiac in action could be represented and what you imagine it to look like.

 

[FeedOnATreeFrog]

I did some reading but I think it coming from a fellow nerd would help more... What is exactly Brainiacs deal? If we had him in the film what sort of battles could we possibly see that is different to Zod and Co? Is he first a friend or is a sneaky sonofa-?

There’s been many versions of Brainiac, so expect Gunn to do whatever he wants, so long as it’s a smart green dude who shrinks and steals cities (Metropolis, Kandor), which is the most interesting part of Brainiac stories if Supes is trapped inside as well.

Given the code name Apex and Gunn’s comments about the film’s theme of power vs kindness, perhaps Gunn’s Brainiac will be all about ambition, becoming the galactic alpha male, like Lex Luthor taken to its scary AI-driven conclusion (Brainiac usually is an alien who turns himself into a machine). Like Lex, Brainiac was a brilliant scientist, but perhaps he becomes overtaken by ambition and glory, growing his empire, taking to the stars to do so, stealing cities for their knowledge (to feed into his information network, like a galactic google), and/or perhaps for their entertainment value (like galactic reality tv).

When it comes to action, he could be entrenched in Earth’s networks (in Morisson’s run, he was the internet itself), so they could have him hack everything, like Cyborg. I can imagine a third act action scene where he’s gotta stop dozens of nukes around the world, hundreds of drones on his ass, satellites falling outta the sky, etc. And of course, Brainiac could always have a formidable powerful synthetic body himself.

 

[Invader Joker]

Am I the only one that'd rather have Brainiac with no actor whatsoever and have him be an entirely artifically generated thing? I want his voice to sound like a male Siri or something, and for him to be completely expresionless.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

It will never be not funny to me that we finally get a non Zod or Lex villain in Doomsday, but he was created by Lex from Zod.

78 - Lex
II - Lex and Zod
Returns - Lex
Man of Steel - Zod
BvS - Lex and Zod/Doomsday

God I remember when we learned Zod was the villain for MOS, I was so disappointed. I’m not even a really big fan of the character but I loved Stamp’s portrayal. Shannon was ok but I think his Zod is way overhyped.

Oh my god, I never thought of it that way.

I like Shannon's Zod a lot but that is purely because of Michael Shannon and nothing to do with the character on the page. Bad Goyer dialogue benefits a lot from being shrieked by Michael Shannon.

 

[Superchan]

I did some reading but I think it coming from a fellow nerd would help more... What is exactly Brainiacs deal? If we had him in the film what sort of battles could we possibly see that is different to Zod and Co? Is he first a friend or is a sneaky sonofa-?

Would love to hear anyones idea on how Brainiac in action could be represented and what you imagine it to look like.

Brainiac can be (and has been) anything and everything!
In the silver age he was technological, so much so that his refined tech allowed him to challenge and trouble the all powerful silver age/bronze age superman. The STAS Brainiac (my favorite version) followed suit.
In post crisis, Byrne made Brainiac psionic, with vast telepathic and telekenetic powers.
Then Goeff Johns and Gary Frank made Brainiac massive and physical, so much so that he dwarfed and manhandled Superman physically.

To me Brainiac is a cautionary story for Clark, since Brainiac is an all powerful being who is obsessed with control and preservation of history, culture and technology. That ofcourse parallels Superman's journey of defending and preserving human life and culture, and if he's not careful Clark can easily cross the line and starts controlling humanity to protect it (ala Red son and injustice). In confronting Brainiac Superman should be reminded that he should never control people or do everything for them (figuratively bottle the world and control it) but rather trust humanity to take the initiative and fix their problems themselves.

 

[Eddie Dean]

Am I the only one that'd rather have Brainiac with no actor whatsoever and have him be an entirely artifically generated thing? I want his voice to sound like a male Siri or something, and for him to be completely expresionless.

That would be very boring and uncinematic imo

 

[The Lazarus Pit]

If they’re doing that they need to just bring back Corey Burton, no one has topped him.

 

[Lily Adler]

It will never be not funny to me that we finally get a non Zod or Lex villain in Doomsday, but he was created by Lex from Zod.

78 - Lex
II - Lex and Zod
Returns - Lex
Man of Steel - Zod
BvS - Lex and Zod/Doomsday

God I remember when we learned Zod was the villain for MOS, I was so disappointed. I’m not even a really big fan of the character but I loved Stamp’s portrayal. Shannon was ok but I think his Zod is way overhyped.

How dare you ignore Evil Superman and Nuclear Man to fit your warped narrative!

 

[Alien Anal]

Brainiac can be (and has been) anything and everything!
In the silver age he was technological, so much so that his refined tech allowed him to challenge and trouble the all powerful silver age/bronze age superman. The STAS Brainiac (my favorite version) followed suit.
In post crisis, Byrne made Brainiac psionic, with vast telepathic and telekenetic powers.
Then Goeff Johns and Gary Frank made Brainiac massive and physical, so much so that he dwarfed and manhandled Superman physically.

To me Brainiac is a cautionary story for Clark, since Brainiac is an all powerful being who is obsessed with control and preservation of history, culture and technology. That ofcourse parallels Superman's journey of defending and preserving human life and culture, and if he's not careful Clark can easily cross the line and starts controlling humanity to protect it (ala Red son and injustice). In confronting Brainiac Superman should be reminded that he should never control people or do everything for them (figuratively bottle the world and control it) but rather trust humanity to take the initiative and fix their problems themselves.

Thanks for the reply, I still struggle to get a mental image of what all of this would look like, would it be Brainiac causing havoc with traffic? Telekinetic and strong seems like It would just be punching and dodging things being thrown at Supes which doesn't sound that exciting and much like fights we have seen before. I'm interested in his threat more than his ideals or the cautionary tale for Supes.

I'm just curious because people love his character and want to see Supes go up against him but what does he bring to the table in terms of visualising a film with him and Supes battling him.

 

[FeedOnATreeFrog]

Am I the only one that'd rather have Brainiac with no actor whatsoever and have him be an entirely artifically generated thing? I want his voice to sound like a male Siri or something, and for him to be completely expresionless.

That would be an awesome approach and very topical, just an AI voice randomly coming through people’s phones. At least for a part of the film.

 

[GreenKToo]

I could see Brainiac first being a computer virus. Maybe it starts at Lex-corp and spreads from there. I dunno.
But we see the physical form of Brainiac later on.

 

[Alien Anal]

I could see Brainiac first being a computer virus. Maybe it starts at Lex-corp and spreads from there. I dunno.
But we see the physical form of Brainiac later on.

Supes flying around the world installing McAfee. Sounds good.

Later on flies he hears someone cry out, he flies into their room and hangs up their phone. All in days work!

I'm sure he is cool but what's been described still isn't selling me on him. Not trying to be a brat or annoying, i have seen sick illustrations of Brainiac but yeh his threat level so far just sounds like he is an internet troll that can punch Supes.

 

[Sawyer]

This all feels very Galactus Cloud-y to me. And… let’s not.

If you're gonna do Brainiac, do Brainiac.

 

[Alien Anal]

So what I'm getting from some reading is Brainiac in a very basic sense (hate to have to reference this film) the T-Rev from Terminator Dark Fate, he can create multiples of himself, he can control machines and he is also super smart and strong. Zod T800 vs Superman T800 and Brainiac is T1000/T-Rev. If that made any sense.

Im just wondering how unique and cool his fight scenes would be with Supes compared to Zod or Nuclear Man (SFX effects aside)

 

[Gamma Goliath]

I think you can really have fun with brainiac when it comes to the combat aspect. Imagine a fight on his ship and he's controlling all of these tendrils. Or you can even steal a little bit of that doc ock action and have them on his back like the injustice version.

 

[Alien Anal]

I think you can really have fun with brainiac when it comes to the combat aspect. Imagine a fight on his ship and he's controlling all of these tendrils. Or you can even steal a little bit of that doc ock action and have them on his back like the injustice version.

Well I mean we did have tendril dumb thing in MOS and we already watched doc ock action a few times now. I duuno, really not trying to **** on Brainiac but at the moment I feel like a giant gorilla would be different enough.

 

[Sawyer]

You’re allowing tendril similarities to convince you that Brainiac is a no-go and that we should instead go with Superman fighting a gorilla that’ll fall somewhere between King Kong and Planet of the Apes?

We’re really doing this?

 

[Lily Adler]

Can we not just get a movie version of this:

 

[ArmsHeldOut]

Can we not just get a movie version of this:

I like Alice Krige for the role, but that'll never happen for a whole bunch of different reasons.

 

[ArmsHeldOut]

Actually, scratch that. I do like her for the part, but realistically she's too old now and the studio will likely want a higher profile actor.