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House of El
Seg-El
Seg-El
"The story of my family isn't about how we died, it's about how we lived."
Played By: Cameron Cuffe, Nicholas Witham Mueller (as a child)
- "The story of my family is one of triumph and sacrifice, how we led a revolution against tyranny. Now it falls on my shoulders to save my world."
The series' central protagonist. He is the grandson of Val-El, the father of Jor-El, and the grandfather of Kal-El.
- Adaptation Name Change: His name is spelled "Seyg-El" (or in some versions, he's called Jor-El the First) in the comics.
- Amazon Chaser: He explicitly declares that Lyta will never be more attractive than when she’s punched someone out, right after showing more attraction to Nyssa when he sees that she’s also an Action Girl.
- Amicable Exes: He broke up with Lyta, but they still remain on relatively good terms, enough so that Lyta becomes a Friend on the Force for him.
- Arranged Marriage: Daron-Vex wants him to be the husband of his daughter Nyssa.
- Clear My Name: He fights to redeem the honor of House of El after Val-El's actions caused the family to be ostracized and shamed.
- Distressed Dude: Seg seems to require a lot of rescuing. In season one alone Lyta gets him out of being arrested, teams up with Adam to save him from Black Zero and punches out someone holding him at gunpoint, his mother rescues him from the Sagitari and is arrested in his place, Nyssa saves him from the Braniac-controlled voice of Rao... frankly the guy just can’t seem to stay out of trouble.
- Do You Trust Me?: Seg constantly asks/declares this to almost everyone over the course of events. They generally do, at least enough to put aside their differences with others.
- The Heart: Ends up being this for the anti-Brainiac alliance that forms; when the Zods are unable to trust Nyssa, they accept her on Seg’s word. He’s good enough at this that Jayna begins to trust him more than her daughter or grandson.
- Heroic Bystander: He inadvertently helps save the Voice of Rao from a suicide-bombing terrorist, as he was actually trying to save his father who was in the vicinity. This act prompts Daron-Vex to express his gratitude, by integrating him in the guilds (he was an outcast up to this point due to House of El being shamed and deemed rankless).
- Heroic Lineage: Seg is Superman's grandfather and Jor-El's father, and he is a hero himself. And his grandfather Val-El himself is a hero, first for trying to enlighten Kryptonians about civilizations and threats from other worlds, then by becoming the Big Good of the resistance to Dru-Zod's tyranny.
- Homage: Seg-El's name is a modified version of Jerry Siegel, one of Superman's creators.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Pushes Rhom to fight off the will of Brainiac's Sentry while she's about to strangle him. It's enough to release him from the cable-tentacle she was strangling him with and allow him to activate Lyta's EMP grenade.
- Rebellious Spirit: Regularly gets himself in trouble with law enforcement forces, and starts questioning the extreme determinism of Kryptonian society in regards to its Designer Babies. Then he rebels against the attempt of House Vex to integrate (read: control) him.
- Related in the Adaptation: Dru-Zod is his son, meaning that similar to the Alternate Continuity series Superman: Earth One, Zod is Jor-El's half-brother — and Superman's uncle (though there he was Zod-El).
- Shed the Family Name: In Season 1, not out of his own will. He's been forced to drop the use of "El", going by simply "Seg" since his House has been ostracized from Krypton's guilds and deemed Rankless. The dictatorship of Dru-Zod in Season 1 abolishes the Rankless status and reinstates family names for the former Rankless.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: He is in a clandestine love affair with Lyta when the series starts (although it's a poorly-kept secret; their respective families know already), but breaks up with her after her mother Jayna-Zod kills his parents.
- Super-Strength: When he has Brainiac in his body in early Season 2, he can go toe-to-toe with Lobo.
- Undying Loyalty: He ultimately rejects Daron's offer to change his name to Seg-Vex when he marries Nyssa, out of loyalty to what was his family.
Val-El
Val-El
"We are not alone in the universe!"
Played By: Ian McElhinney
Seg's grandfather. He was a staunch believer in space exploration and found out about the existence of other worlds and forms of life in the universe, as well as great threats to Krypton. For simply trying to enlighten Kryptonians about all of this, which meant going against the will of the Voice of Rao, he was condemned to death and his family was ostracized.
- Adaptation Name Change: His name is "Don-El" in the comics.
- Big Good: He serves as Seg's mentor throughout Season One via his Virtual Ghost, and after coming back from the Phantom Zone, he becomes a key figure in Jax-Ur's rebellion against Zod's dictatorship in Season Two; he even winds up wresting control from her after she goes too far by executing Lyta.
- Celebrity Paradox: The Star Wars movies exist on Earth in the series' universe (they're mentioned by Adam Strange). Ian McElhinney played Jan Dodonna in Rogue One.
- Disney Death: He didn't actually die; he managed to hide in the Phantom Zone after jumping.
- The Fettered: After joining the leadership of the Resistance in Season 2, he's appalled by Jax-Ur's The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized behavior, and ends up challenging her because of this.
- Generation Xerox: Prefigures his great-grandson Jor-El, another (and the last) scientist the Kryptonian High Council will ignore, in addition to leaving a Virtual Ghost behind before dying. Also, he's the creator of the original Fortress of Solitude. As if to drive the point home, it turns out late in Season Two that his own father was named Jor-El and was a brilliant scientist devoted to his family; the Jor-El we know is named after him.
- Ignored Expert: His claims about discovering other worlds and threats to Krypton were not only ignored, but also condemned as heresy. It caused the House of El to be ostracized, shamed, and even deprived of its right to have a name.
- Rebel Leader: In Season 2, he joins the Resistance against General Dru-Zod's tyranny, ends up in the highest echelon below Jax-Ur and, being The Fettered, openly challenges her extremist stance after she murdered Lyta (or her clone, unbeknownst to everyone at the time). He ends up overthrowing Jax-Ur and takes her place as leader of the Resistance.
- Older and Wiser: The elder of House El, the boldest Kryptonian scientist in ages and an inspiring Big Good.
- The Smart Guy: Being a Virtual Ghost doesn't prevent him from being helpful to Seg and Adam Strange through his immense technological knowledge and knowledge of Brainiac. It also doesn't prevent him from using the technology inside the Fortress of Solitude, thanks to its interface being virtual as well — Seg and Adam would be pretty clueless with it otherwise.
- Virtual Ghost: His Fortress of Solitude holds an AI hologram patterned after himself in a manner that's very similar to Jor-El in Man of Steel.
- Walk the Plank: He was condemned to the Kryptonian equivalent, that is walking on a bridge which ends at a chasm outside the energy shield of Kandor (which protects the city from the cold environment of that part of the planet), then being dropped in said chasm through the retractable end of said bridge. However, he wound up surviving by opening a portal to the Phantom Zone, from which Zod frees him in the Season One finale.
Charys-El
Charys-El
"Your grandfather was no traitor. He was a hero."
Played By: Paula Malcomson
Seg's mother and the wife of Ter.
- Action Mom: More proactive than her spouse. She saves Seg from pursuing military police after they find he has an illegal House sunstone, which is their key to the Fortress of Solitude.
- Death by Origin Story: Dies in the pilot, committing a Heroic Sacrifice for her son along with her husband.
- Heroic Sacrifice: She dies to protect Seg and the secret of the Fortress of Solitude.
- Hero Stole My Bike: When Seg points out she had to steal a ship, she prefers saying "borrowed".
- Mama Bear: She's not afraid to sacrifice herself to protect her son.
- Secret-Keeper: She keeps the secret of Val-El's Fortress of Solitude, along with her husband. She eventually brings Seg there, and deletes the road data of the ship she stole so the Fortress's location won't be found.
- Suicide by Cop: She very likely knew what was going to happen when she took the blaster gun Ter drew seconds earlier in the court room.
- Taking the Heat: She throws the police off Seg's trail by claiming she's a member of the Black Zero resistance/terrorist group.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: She doesn't make it past the first episode.
Ter-El
Ter-El
Played By: Rupert Graves
Seg's father and the husband of Charys.
- Death by Origin Story: Dies in the pilot, committing a Heroic Sacrifice for his son along with his wife.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Like his wife, he dies to protect Seg and the secret of the Fortress of Solitude.
- Secret-Keeper: He keeps the secret of Val-El's Fortress of Solitude, along with his wife.
- Suicide by Cop: He very likely knew what was going to happen when he drew a blaster gun in the middle of the court room.
- Taking the Heat: When it's pointed out at Charys's trial that there were two people in the ship she stole, he claims to be the other one to protect Seg.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: He doesn't make it past the first episode.
Kal-El
Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman
- "Someone from the future is coming to destroy Krypton, because where I'm from, your grandson becomes the greatest hero of the universe."— Adam Strange, talking to Seg
Seg and Nyssa's future grandson, the greatest hero in the universe, the (future) "Last Son of Krypton".
- The Ghost: He's mentioned a lot by Adam Strange, but doesn't show up, as he couldn't travel in space and time with him since the Zeta Beam doesn't allow passengers.
- Iconic Outfit: His iconic red cape is brought to Seg by Adam Strange.
- Leitmotif: Not so subtly, the first notes of John Williams' Superman theme can be heard twice in the first episode.
- Mythology Gag: His cape is almost exactly the same as the one worn by Christopher Reeve's Superman, down to sporting the yellow S-shield.
- Ret-Gone: His cape is slowly vanishing from existence, which means it's also happening to him. In the Season One finale, the defeat of Brainiac by way of Phantom Zone projector restores it, but Seg-El getting sucked in with him causes Superman's symbol to be replaced by Zod's on the cape.
- Ripple Effect Indicator: The fact that his cape is slowly vanishing from existence serves as a hourglass for Seg now that he's in a Race Against the Clock to save the future.
Wedna-El
Wedna-El
"Administer resurrection protocol."
Played By: Toni O'Rourke
A scientist and El ancestor who, alongside Van-Zod, contributed to the creation of Doomsday a thousand cycles ago.
- Emotionless Girl: She's stone-cold in the face of Dax-Baron's agony.
- Hero's Evil Predecessor: She was a nasty piece of work, to put it mildly. Thankfully, the House of El would later produce brilliant scientists and heroes who have empathy and don't resort to doing horrible things in order to save/better their world.
- Lack of Empathy: What she does to Dax-Baron is essentially torture, by repeatedly bringing him back to life to inflict him more pain and make him more monstrous. She ignores his suffering throughout, something Van-Zod has trouble with very early on.
- Mad Scientist: She doesn't look mad on the outside, but creating a monster by gassing a fellow Kryptonian over 450 times and making him suffer endlessly to the point of madness and Loss of Identity in the process surely qualifies. She even insists to Van-Zod that they must continue "perfecting" Doomsday after the war he was intended to stop is resolved offscreen without any contribution by their project, rather than accept it was All for Nothing, in case of a future war.
House of Zod
Jayna-Zod
Primus Jayna-Zod
"Do not mistake passion for strength."
Played By: Ann Ogbomo, Asiatu Koroma (young)
- "The ability to divorce oneself of emotion during battle is what separates the living from the dead."
The head of the Sagitari and the mother of Lyta-Zod.
- Canon Foreigner: Like her daughter, she's an all-new character who didn't originate in the comics.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: She trains Sagitari cadets herself. She's not above impaling her own daughter's hand to prove a point.
- Heel Realization: Near the end of Season One and going into Season Two, she comes to realize her obsession with honor isn't worth losing her daughter.
- Honor Before Reason: Honor is Serious Business for the House of Zod. She's devastated when Lyta is framed for the killing of a Rankless during the Rankless initiative instead of Kol-Da. Though by Season Two, she doesn't care about honor anymore.
- Freudian Excuse: Her...issues with expressing her love for her daughter and her general Honor Before Reason obsession come from her father not just making her and her brother fight each other ruthlessly to be worthy of the name Zod, but also deliberately arranging their final trial so that one of them would be required to abandon the other to a cruel, cold death.
- Mercy Kill: How she sees the killing of Ter-El and Charys-El by her hand.
- A Mother To Her Troops: It deeply pains her at having to abuse the trust and loyalty of her Sagitari, and is in tears when forced to kill one of them herself.
- Mum Looks Like a Sister: She doesn't look old enough to be Lyta's mother.
- My Greatest Failure: A flashback reveals that years ago she left her brother to certain death in the Outlands for her own survival, which gained her their father's praise as being worthy of a Zod, but has haunted her ever since. Later subverted when she's found by her still-alive brother, who bears her no ill feeling and helps her get safely away from Lyta and Dru-Zod, after Lyta shoots her. Subverted again when it's revealed that she was imagining her brother still alive, rescuing and forgiving her.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: While Daron-Vex and the Council come off as (somewhat fearful) stooges to the Voice of Rao and she comes off as a hardass, she's also the most relatively sympathetic of Krypton's leaders so far.
- The Smart Girl: She's more than just a "blunt instrument", as Daron is quick to call her following the death of Seg's parents by her hand. For instance, she isn't fooled by Daron's claims to find Val-El's Fortress to prevent the Black Zero terrorists from getting their hands on potential weapons. She also figures out Charys and Ter sacrificed themselves to avoid the same punishment as Val and to protect both their son and the fortress's location.
Lyta-Zod
Primus (formerly Commander) Lyta-Zod
"You still got me, Seg..."
Played By: Georgina Campbell
- "The ability to divorce oneself from emotion is what separates a successful mission from failure."
A Sagitari cadet and the daughter of Primus Jayna-Zod. After challenging her squad commander Quex-Ul in a duel and killing him, she succeeds him as commander of the 4th Squad.
- Actually a Doombot: She's killed by Jax-Ur at the end of 2x05, only for Dru-Zod to reveal three episodes later that the real Lyta is being kept in a coma by the Black Mercy. The one Jax-Ur killed was a clone he made who was programmed to not object to his plans.
- Amicable Exes: Seg broke up with her, but they still remain on relatively good terms. Enough so that she becomes a Friend on the Force for Seg.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: It's revealed in "Danger Close" that she's been reconditioned by her own son, though Zod asserts in the following episode that he only put her through it to alleviate her guilt over shooting her mother. Then it turns out in "Mercy" that was actually a clone of Lyta, and the real one is being held in a Black Mercy coma.
- Canon Foreigner: She's a new character who didn't appear in the comics.
- Defiant to the End: Before she was killed by Jax-Ur, she told Zod not to give in to Jax-Ur's demands to save her.
- Face–Heel Turn: Becomes a willing supporter of her future son's regime, going as far as shooting her mother and brutally torturing dissidents. Played with when it turns out she was brainwashed, then subverted when it turns out that wasn't even Lyta, just a clone Zod had made; the real Lyta, upon being freed from the Black Mercy, vows to help stop him.
- Follow in My Footsteps: She became a Sagitari like her mother.
- Friend on the Force: She's this to Seg, helping him while knowing full well her hierarchy would disapprove.
- Internal Reformist: Tells Seg she wants to change things from within as she rises through the ranks, and given her attempts to put a stop to police brutality, she seems as good as her word.
- Ironic Echo: She reprises her mother's "The ability to divorce oneself from emotion" words... and puts her own spin on it when briefing her squad for the Rankless Initiative.Lyta: The ability to divorce oneself from emotion is what separates a successful mission from failure.
- Klingon Promotion: By killing Quex-Ul without mercy in a Kandorian duel, she becomes commander of his Sagitari squad.
- Love Interest: Of Seg, until he breaks up with her because her mother killed his parents.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: What she becomes in her squad after taking Quex-Ul's place. She does her best to ban needless violence against the Rankless.
- The Scapegoat: Following the orders of the Voice of Rao, who wants a higher up scapegoat, Daron-Vex frames her for the killing of a Rankless during the Rankless initiative (while Kol-Da actually did it).
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Her love affair with Seg is forbidden since Seg's family has been shamed and its name deemed to disappear. It is no longer an issue once Seg breaks up with her.
- Took a Level in Badass: She goes from bumbling trainee begging for mercy when subdued to killing her own commander (who's much stronger than she) in a duel to the death, putting her mother's "no mercy" teachings in practice surprisingly fast and efficiently.
Dru-Zod
General Dru-Zod
Played By: Colin Salmon
- "Our existence is at stake, and if you fail to understand that then you are just another idealistic El without the stones to affect real change."
A member of Black Zero who rose fast in their ranks. He takes Seg prisoner and tortures him for information on Brainiac (and to see if Seg was a Sentry). He then reveals himself to be a time-displaced Dru-Zod, the future son of Lyta-Zod, better known as "General Zod" in many Superman works. He takes over Kandor as its ruthless dictator at the end of Season 1.
- Actually Pretty Funny: His reaction to being accused of being aligned with Black Zero is to laugh.Dru-Zod: If Black Zero knew about Brainiac, do you think they'd be wasting time battling that six-faced liar and his unraveling theocracy?
- Antagonistic Offspring: To Seg and Lyta. Particularly the former, since he was raised by Lyta in his original timeline and has more affection for her than for Seg. He's also an antagonistic grandchild to Jayna.
- Arch-Enemy: Adam Strange outright labels him Superman's greatest enemy in "Civil Wars." Later, Zod all but confirms Adam's accusation by explaining to Seg that he simply disapproves of his grandson.
- The Bad Guy Wins: By the end of the Season One finale, Krypton is successfully saved from Brainiac, but Seg ends up trapped in the Phantom Zone and Dru-Zod takes over the planet as a dictator.
- Bald of Evil and Beard of Evil: Gee, I wonder if he's a good guy or not?
- Bald of Authority: As he becomes the dictator of Krypton at the end of Season 1 and in Season 2.
- Big Bad: He is this in Season 2 due to having taken over Krypton in the wake of Brainiac's defeat and apparent death. However, it's more of a Big Bad Ensemble, as Brainiac is still around.
- Canon Character All Along: He's introduced as a mysterious Commander in Black Zero pursuing his own agenda; only at the end of Episode 1x05 and beginning of 1x06 is he revealed to be the General Zod.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Used a particularly nasty parasite that burrowed into Seg's head to see if he was one of Brainiac's Sentries.
- Disappeared Dad: He doesn't know who his father is, only that he died fighting Brainiac in the Battle of Kandor. Then he deduces this was a lie — his father is none other than Seg-El. Even so, Seg hasn't been part of Zod's life growing up.
- Evil Sounds Deep: His voice is a suitably authoritarian and menacing baritone.
- Evil Versus Evil: Not taking into account that he is one of Superman's greatest enemies, Zod had a plan on how to save Krypton from Brainiac. That plan's name is Doomsday. Fortunately, he is convinced by Seg and Adam not to go through with it.
- Kid from the Future: It is revealed in "House of Zod" that he is Lyta's son.
- Knight Templar: He will do anything to protect Krypton, even if it means brainwashing people or unleashing Doomsday to fight his enemies.
- Large and in Charge: He stands at an imposing 6'4 and becomes the leader of Krypton at the end of Season One.
- Luke, You Are My Father: He reveals to Lyta that he is her future son. Then he figures out that Seg is his father.
- Metaphorically True: Everything he tells Seg about his grandson is true, but he conveniently leaves out that he was friends with Jor-El until he attempted a coup, Kal-El was a baby when he was shipped out so of course he knew only a fraction of his Kryptonian heritage, and Zod attempted to conquer Earth.
- Race Lift: The usually white Dru-Zod is played by the Afro-Caribbean Colin Salmon here.
- Related in the Adaptation: He's the son of Seg-El and Lyta-Zod, meaning that similar to the Alternate Continuity series Superman: Earth One, Zod is Jor-El and Zor-El's half-brother—and Superman and (presumably) Supergirl's uncle (though there he was Zod-El).
- Secret Test of Character: He has Seg tortured just to see if he was still Kryptonian because Sentries don't respond to torture. It isn't until he stops torturing Seg that Zod reveals his intent.
- Token Evil Teammate: In the team that forms in the struggle against Brainiac. Even with none of their hands being clean as Seg put it, compared to Seg, Lyta, Jayna, Nyssa and Kem, General Zod is definitely this.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: In the Season One finale, with Brainiac gone and Kandor's leadership splintered, he takes control of Krypton as a dictator, conscripting the Rankless into his army.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Growing up without a father, Zod always wanted his approval from Seg. But seeing what Seg is like (more like Jor-El and Kal-El), he no longer needs anything from him anymore. He later tells Seg that growing up, he didn't resent his father's absence so much as how it had caused Lyta, the strongest person he knew, to become a Broken Bird.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He would happily work with (or perhaps more accurately he is using) a terrorist organization, torture Seg with parasites, and unleash Doomsday if it meant he could stop Brainiac's conquest of Krypton. However, he proves to be a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist when he conquers Krypton and seeks to expand it into a galactic empire, laying waste to the future and ensuring Superman never exists.
- Villains Never Lie: He's quite upfront about his attempted coup and history with the El family when Jayna confronts him about how he survived Krypton's destruction. Though he frames it as rebelling against weak leadership just as she had in the present, she suspects his true motive is to conquer Krypton in the past after saving it from Brainiac. She's right on the money.
Van-Zod
Van-Zod
"No! No more! This... isn't right, Wedna!"
Played By: Dempsey Bovell
A scientist and Zod ancestor who contributed, alongside Wedna-El, to the creation of Doomsday a thousand cycles ago.
- Everyone Has Standards: In stark contrast to Wedna-El, he grows empathic and wants the transformation process to stop when he can't stand seeing and hearing the agony of Dax-Baron anymore after over a hundred tests. Wedna doesn't care, invokes The Needs of the Many and keeps it going.
House of Vex
Daron-Vex
Daron-Vex
Played By: Elliot Cowan
The chief magistrate of Kandor, charged with defending Krypton's oligarchy, and the father of Nyssa.
- Bad Liar:
- Claims he wants to find Val-El's Fortress of Solitude so the terrorists of Black Zero won't find potential weapons to Jayna-Zod. She doesn't buy it.
- Brainiac seems insulted by how bad his alibi for the coup attempt is.
- Dirty Coward: If he wasn't always already one all along, he definitively sinks himself into that abyss when he tries to kill his own daughter to save his own neck.
- Freudian Excuse: Along with his Rags to Riches background, according to his own telling, he came from a family of Cythonnites (worshippers of Cythonna, instead of Rao) and were victims in the religious purges decades past. Hence, supposedly why he's an ambitious, scheming (and secretly atheistic) social and political climber one moment, and a simpering sycophant the next.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: In the Season Two premiere, he's been reduced to scraping out a living as a laborer on Wegthor, far from the powerful position he once held.
- It's All About Me: He admits to Jayna-Zod that he's primarily self-motivated, but insists that he still offers a better future for Krypton than the Voice of Rao, who has no interest in anything other than maintaining the status quo.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: He gets shot in the head by Lyta before he can reveal the truth to Nyssa. Lyta believes he was going to lie to her again.
- Number Two: The main pawn of the Voice of Rao.
- Offing the Offspring: Once he allies with Brainiac, he reluctantly tries to execute his own daughter personally rather than subject her to a public execution. She expected he might try this and tricked him into shooting a hologram.
- Pet the Dog: He decides to reintegrate Seg into Krypton's guilds, albeit by making him a Vex and a Trophy Husband for his daughter, and he only does so to prove that the House of El can be "tamed." Seg ultimately rejects this offer, much to Daron's dismay.
- The Quisling: Once Brainiac foils his coup, Daron is quick to pledge himself to Brainiac, rationalizing that life as his underling is better than death against an implacable foe.
- Rags to Riches: According to Jayna-Zod, he married into the House of Vex and quickly set about turning it into one of the most important houses in Kandor.
- Smug Snake: A self-admitted "selfish bastard" with numerous schemes and plots, but one who clearly lacks the patience and the discipline to adapt to your everyday Spanner in the Works and suffering from some degree of Evil Cannot Comprehend Good. It especially contrasts with his more skilled and moral daughter.
- The Starscream: He's plotting a coup to take power from the Voice of Rao.
- Uncertain Doom: He tries to flee Kandor in a skimmer after losing everything, but Jax-Ur triggers a torture device in his neck that causes him to crash. It's not clear if he survived the crash or found shelter if he did. He is shown to have survived in Season Two, scraping by in his old hometown, until Lyta shoots his head off.
- Villain Respect: He condemned Val-El to death, helping the Voice of Rao to maintain his power over Kryptonian society, but still admired him as he was undoubtedly Krypton's greatest scientist.
- Visionary Villain: He wants to take over so he can broker alliances with the other cities on Krypton, ultimately allowing Kryptonian society to advance beyond the stasis it's currently in.
Nyssa-Vex
Nyssa-Vex
Played By: Wallis Day
- "Everyone in Kandor is a game piece to my father. Including me."
The daughter of Daron-Vex. Superman's grandmother.
- Adaptation Name Change: In the Silver Age comics, she was named "Nimda An-Dor" (with her husband named "Jor-El the First" in that version, and their son was "Jor-El the Second").
- Arranged Marriage: Daron wants her to be Seg's wife.
- The Beautiful Elite: A junior magistrate and thus among Krypton's elite, with the looks to match.
- Guile Hero: Early on, it becomes clear she’s smarter and more adaptable than her father, while surprisingly more moral and compassionate as well.
- Heel–Face Turn: She winds up turning completely against her father's plans in favor of helping Seg, and come The Reveal that she's actually a clone of the original Nyssa-Vex, she becomes so disillusioned with her life that she rejects the Vex name for her son, wanting him to be an El instead.
- Hidden Depths:
- Seemingly manipulative and ambitious at first, she later shows genuine integrity and courage. The opposite of her father.
- She's also a hidden Action Girl, thanks to a former lover who was a combat instructor.
- Lady Macbeth: An inversion; she’s very much a manipulator hiding behind a mask of being an obedient daughter to her father, but she actually tends to try and use pragmatic and idealistic arguments to help others.
- Mama Bear: She's not afraid to stab the Voice of Rao in the head with a sunstone or break into the Genesis Chamber while Kandor is in the middle of being bottled by Brainiac, just to protect her unborn son. And she stops at nothing to protect him post-birth in Season 2 either.
- Ms. Fanservice: She wears alluring dresses and makeup, and has a nude scene.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: How she sees the union between her and Seg that her father planned. She claims that her father thinks it was he who chose Seg to marry her, implying she influenced him for that choice. She also compliments Seg by telling him how he's "not completely repellent".
- Properly Paranoid: She knows her father well enough to know he might sell her out to save his own skin. When the coup fails, she has a hologram set up in her room just in case he might try to blame the coup on her.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: If her actions regarding Seg and Lyta can be taken at face value.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Jax-Ur reveals that she's not the original Nyssa-Vex. The original was mortally wounded in a skimmer crash as a child, and her mind was uploaded into a clone body. This destroys whatever lingering loyalty she had to her father.
- Unlimited Wardrobe: She's the most fashionable character in the series, and the one who changes outfits the most.
- Unrequited Love: Similar to Dev's relationship with Lyta, she is very in love with Seg, who has been in love with Lyta since being a teenager.
Cor-Vex
Cor-Vex (later Jor-El)
The infant son of Seg-El and Nyssa-Vex, artificially conceived as is traditional for the Houses.
- Canon Character All Along: In Episode 7 of Season 2, he ends up being renamed "Jor-El" at the request of his mother, who doesn't want him to be tainted by the corruption of House Vex. He's even named after Val-El's own father, himself a brilliant scientist and loving family man.
- Uterine Replicator: As with all modern Kryptonians, he is created from genetic samples of his parents by Kandor's Genesis Chamber, which then names him, forecasts his lifespan and career, and projects an image of him as an adult. He's bound to be a renowned lawmaker. Or as it turns out, a brilliant scientist.
- Super Breeding Program: Basically why he is conceived, as Daron-Vex believes that the pairing of Seg and Nyssa-Vex would produce superior offspring.
