Man of Steel. Nolan Superman Reboot.

He's fun and I've read stories where I like him(I'm not a big superman person though), I just don't think it'd work in the Movie, He's just not menacing really hardly a suitable Nemesis for THE MAN OF STEEL plus he kinda reminds me of the alien from The Flinstones

It'd be like if The Ventriloquist,Bat-Mite or The Mad Hatter were to be the next Batman Villain

edited 4th Apr '11 8:54:09 AM by faradayangel

Lex was never an effective Big Bad, now that I think of it. In the movies, he usually reverts to a flunky for the Supervillain of the Week. Even in the comics, he relies on an committee to get anything done (see: Kingdom Come).

The reason we keep coming back to Lex is, like, it's either gonna be him, Zod, or Darkseid. Superman doesn't have many intimidating foes.

^ Or Brainiac. The point still stands, though.

If they ever bring Darkseid to the big screen, they had better not screw him up.

^

Which kind of rules out using him as a mere Superman villain.

edited 4th Apr '11 9:21:49 AM by eX

^ Darkseid can be used very effectively as a Superman villain, as in Superman The Animated Series, where he's essentially the Big Bad (though Lex is the recurring Arch-Enemy). However, you do pretty much have to bring in the whole New Gods mythology at least to a degree to give some feel to the scope of the character's power and the depth of his evil.

Lex Luthor can be in it he just shouldn't be the Big bad at least for now, because he always descend into being an ineffectual villain

edited 4th Apr '11 9:50:24 AM by faradayangel

I've always felt the best way to use Darkseid in a cinematic way would be either a Justice League movie or build him up over multiple movies as simply a Superman foe. Much like Unicron is Transformers or Galactus in Fantastic Four, he's just too big of a character to fit into one movie effectively.

Thing is that Lex is pretty much all brain, with most incarnations having little-to-no ability to face Superman in a head-to-head fight. But this movie will hopefully have at least one epic fight scene involving Superman, so it's gonna need a superpowered villain as well. So, if Lex is in this movie, he'll probably either be the Big Bad with the other supervillain being The Dragon, or he won't be an antagonist at all, maybe serving as a supporting character or having an Enemy Mine situation with Superman.

That's assuming a traditional depiction of Lex Luthor, of course. Personally, I've always thought it would be neat if Lex and Metallo were the same character. If you're a Mad Scientist with a serious hate-on for Superman, turning yourself into a kryptonite-powered cyborg seems like the natural way to go.

It would certainly be the ultimate expression of Lex's hatred of Superman if he was willing to wreck his ability to feel physical pleasure just to kill him, but I doubt it's consistent with the rest of his character.

My favourite Luthor was in all star superman I don't see them doing that though

The implication that he's not creepy as all hell is kind of... well...

The problem is that all viable physical threats (other than Darkseid, of course) to Superman are basically just superpowered thugs. Or Mxy, but we'll never see him in a movie.

Actually, Metallo would be kinda cool if they tweaked him a bit. Or even a Metallo/Brainiac teamup.

I want Brainiac. In my opnion, Darkseid is too good for just a movie, and Doomsday, while powerful, is quite a boring villain to be the Big Bad. And they can definitely build up the animosity between Lex and Superman for later movies in the franchise. Let him be an amoral but well-meaning corporate executive who has a distrust for Superman.

Eh, there are a decent number of physical threats available, especially if you tone down the power levels to post-Crisis levels ( ie, no turning time back for the planet ). That said, a lot of them are basically super mooks. The quality physical threats with decent story behind them, IMO, are:

-Zod -Brainiac -Bizarro ( yes, I said Bizarro )

Which is why I am a big advocate of Brainiac as a first movie Big Bad, preferably by way of tying him into Krypton's destruction. It worked for Superman TAS, it'd work for a movie.

I think Brainiac is the number one contender, Luthor has just been overdone in the movies to be the main threat and Zod has also already been done. Brainiac is the kind of larger-than-life threat to challenge Superman, hasn't been depicted cinematically before but also not just be the "superpowered thug" as a lot of others are. Characters like Bizzaro and Metallo probably won't work as their own villains, although connecting Lex to them can work as he is trying to figure out Superman's upper limit.

I think it would be neat to have a shake-up of the typical origin story, not necessarily Anachronic Order but don't start the movie on Krypton and go sequentially. Everyone knows Superman's origin, so start off in Smallville and have Clark learn his identity along with the audience.

edited 4th Apr '11 6:50:46 PM by KJMackley

If I had my druthers, I'd make the movies go something like this:

1. Origin story. Villain is Brainiac, who came from Krypton. Introduces Luther towards the end as a 'neutral' character.

2. Luther attempts to control Superman. As this effort fails, he turns to plots to destroy Superman. Metallo, Bizarro, or both figure in, serving as muscle for Luther's schemes.

3. Zod escapes the Phantom Zone, and intends to conquer Earth. Superman and Lex Luther end up having to team up to defeat the brilliant general who suddenly also has godlike power.

Yeah, I'm glad Luthor isn't the villain, because he's been in all the other movies.

No Lex Luthor?

Well, that puts me on the "It could be worth it" list because he is over-exposed.

They could work in Mongul though. I wouldn't suggest him for a first movie, but imagine a set-up for the sequel, with Superman having some mission in space?

I'm mixed on Mongul. On one hand, he is a recurring classic Superman rogue. OTOH, he doesn't really have any ties *to* Superman. He's a Superman rogue only because he happened to fight Superman primarily.

I'd rather use him as a Superman villain than Darkseid, though. Darkseid should be reserved for bigger uses, like "all JLA and then some" rogue.

I think that's why I'd prefer him. Mongul is sorta Darkseid without a need to worry about a backstory. Just have Superman in a spaceship that gets pulled into a wormhole, then wake him up in a cage.

Nitpick: I don't think Doomsday is actually a Big Bad.

He is the source of the conflict, being its only cog. He isn't anyone's minion.

You don't get much bigger than killing Superman.

Big Bad isn't about how "big" you are. If Doomsday had been, for example, Darkseid's most powerful minion, then Darkseid would have been the Big Bad because he's the source of the conflict.