New Superman Footage Features One of DC’s Weirdest Heroes
“We love getting to play with the incredible DC library of characters and stories,” declares DC Studios co-head Peter Safran. “And we really want to do justice for them.” Safran’s comments come as part of a new Superman clip focused on James Gunn‘s process of discovering the story and the actors’ passion for the characters in the director’s reinterpretation of the Kal-El mythos.
The producer’s observation also shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone following his and Gunn’s work in the DC Universe. After all, The Suicide Squad pitted Z-Listers like Javelin and Bloodsport against Starro the Conqueror. Meanwhile Peacemaker referenced Matter-Eater Lad of the Legion of Super-Heroes. So yes, Superman has some surprising pulls, including Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern Guy Gardner. But the weirdest inclusion just got his first big reveal in the below sizzle reel…
In Superman, Metamorpho the Element Man, played by Barry breakout Anthony Carrigan, is a whole new breed of strange. And while we’ve seen a glimpse of Metamorpho’s face in previous Superman teasers, this new Superman Day footage gives fans their first full-look at Carrigan’s Metamorpho in action, which somehow manages to be even weirder in live action than on the page.
Of course Metamorpho was made to be weird. Originally the idea of DC editor George Kashdan, who wanted to see a science based hero, Metamorpho was developed by writer Bob Haney and pioneering illustrator Ramona Fradon. Fradon wanted to go beyond the traditional superhero look for the character, eschewing the full-body tights for skin of four different colors and textures, one for each of the four elements.
Kashdan, Haney, and Fradon introduced Metamorpho to the world in 1965’s The Brave and the Bold #57. More swingin’ ’60s adventure than standard superhero tale, the story followed adventurer Rex Mason to Egypt where he sought the Orb of Ra for his employer Simon Stagg. On their boss’ orders, Stagg’s henchman Java, an unfrozen caveman, traps Rex in a pyramid and leaves him there for dead. However, a meteorite trapped within the pyramid emits cosmic rays which transform Stagg’s body, giving him the ability to assume the form of any element. Thus Metamorpho was born.
Metamorpho’s initial adventures played like wacky takes on James Bond stories, complete with secret lairs, globetrotting capers, and a best girl in the form of Sapphire Stagg, Simon’s daughter. Eventually, Metamorpho moved more into the mainline superhero world of the DC Universe, most notably in the Outsiders, a team of misfits that Batman put together upon leaving the Justice League.
Placing him alongside characters like Katana and Black Lightning, Outsiders writer Mike W. Barr and artist Jim Aparo made Metamorpho more of a crusty, blue-collar guy in the vein of the Thing of the Fantastic Four. He still had his beautiful girlfriend and her duplicitous father, but Metamorpho seemed more like a regular guy who had a stroke of bad luck compared to his teammates.
That characterization has continued on since the mid-1980s in the pages of Justice League Europe, in the edgier reboot of the Outsiders in the 2000s (where he acquired the facial swirls used for Carrigan’s version), and especially in The Terrifics, a DC comics take on the Fantastic Four. Recently, writer Al Ewing and artist Steve Lieber have brought the character back to his ’60s mod roots with a delightful new ongoing about Metamorpho’s strange adventures.
The black and white pants that Carrigan’s Metamorpho sports in Superman certainly recall his costume in The Terrifics, as do those worn by other side heroes in the movie, including Guy Gardner, Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl, and, of course, Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific. Moreover, a scene featured heavily in the promotional material shows Gardner and Hawkgirl coming to confront Superman in a building with Stagg Enterprises signage.
It seems likely, then, that Mr. Terrific, Gardner, and Hawkgirl all serve with Metamorpho on a variation of the Terrifics, one run by Mr. Terrific, but supported in some way by Simon Stagg. Then again, DC hasn’t announced an actor to play Stagg yet, and they have announced that Sean Gunn will appear as Maxwell Lord, a character who often finances the Justice League. Will Superman‘s Metamorpho be connected somehow to the major threats that Superman must face? Will he be a shagadelic adventurer? Will he be a blue-collar everyman? We can’t tell yet, but we can be sure of one thing. However Metamorpho appears in Superman, he will be weird.
Superman flies into theaters on July 11, 2025.
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