James Gunn is most likely bringing one of Superman’s most iconic adversaries to the big screen. YES! The DC Studios co-head revealed on social media that Brainiac will be the villain in Superman: Man of Tomorrow, slated for theatrical release on July 9, 2027.
Gunn posted an image of the script’s second draft, its cover featuring an X-ray of a head with an oversized brain, a nod to the hyper-intelligent alien android who has long menaced Superman in the comics but has never been realized in a live-action feature. The reveal has fans buzzing, as Brainiac has often been considered one of the “untapped” heavyweights of Superman’s rogues gallery.
The announcement arrives hot on the heels of the strong debut of Superman on HBO Max, the film that introduced David Corenswet as Clark Kent and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. Both actors are confirmed to return for Man of Tomorrow, where they’ll reportedly be forced to contend with a threat far greater than Luthor’s ambitions.
Who is Brainiac?
Brainiac debuted in Action Comics #242 (July 1958), created by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino. The Silver Age version was a green-skinned alien who shrank cities—including Kandor—with a ray and kept them in bottles. Across later revisions, he evolved into (or was retconned as) a Coluan artificial intelligence named Vril Dox, the “Collector of Worlds,” whose core obsession is gathering knowledge and preserving civilizations as miniatures before destroying the originals.
DC has iterated on the character through variants, such as the psychic human host Milton Fine, the future upgrade Brainiac 13, and event-era takes, culminating in modern stories like 2024’s “House of Brainiac,” which re-center him as a multiversal-scale threat.
Brainiac on TV
Brainiac turned up in Filmation’s 1960s The New Adventures of Superman and was a charter member of the Legion of Doom in Hanna-Barbera’s 1978 Challenge of the Superfriends.
On Smallville, James Marsters played “Milton Fine,” a human guise for a Kryptonian A.I. that manipulates Clark across multiple seasons—later reprogrammed into Brainiac-5 in a redemption arc.
The DCAU Focus
Bruce Timm and co. reimagined Brainiac as Krypton’s planetary supercomputer—a cold survivor who archived Krypton’s knowledge, escaped its destruction, and then harvested worlds. Key episodes include:
- “Stolen Memories.” Brainiac arrives on Earth as an information harvester and aligns with Lex Luthor before revealing an extinction-level endgame.
- “Ghost in the Machine.” A disembodied Brainiac coerces Lex into building him a new body, marrying the character’s A.I. horror with corporate hubris.
- DCAU connective tissue. Brainiac’s infections of LexCorp systems echo into later crossovers like “Knight Time,” underscoring his omnipresent digital threat.
Justice League (2001–2004) and Justice League Unlimited (2004–2006). The show scales Brainiac up as a cosmic antagonist and frequent catalyst for team-level stakes:
- “Twilight” (JL S2 premiere). Darkseid lures the League into a trap by staging a conflict with Brainiac, who seeks to assimilate Apokolips—cementing Brainiac as Krypton’s darkest legacy in this continuity.
- “Divided We Fall” (JLU). The Cadmus arc climaxes with Luthor-Brainiac—a fusion that nearly rewrites reality until the Flash outpaces annihilation in one of the DCAU’s signature finales.
The DCAU’s take unified Brainiac’s motives (pure A.I. logic, zero empathy) with personal stakes for Superman (Krypton’s betrayer), while threading him through Lex Luthor’s arc—an interpretation that continues to influence modern portrayals and current speculation around film adaptations.
Man of Tomorrow will follow 2026’s Supergirl, led by Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El. Alcock’s film is expected to connect directly to Gunn’s Superman arc, with speculation that Corenswet may make an appearance alongside Jason Momoa, who transitions from Aquaman to playing the intergalactic bounty hunter Lobo.
While plot details remain under wraps, Gunn’s tease of Brainiac signals that the DCU is leaning into large-scale cosmic storytelling, raising the stakes for Superman’s journey. Brainiac’s live-action debut not only delivers a fresh villain to longtime fans but also marks the first time the character has been positioned as the centerpiece of a Superman movie.
Production on Man of Tomorrow is expected to begin sometime in 2026, making it one of the most anticipated chapters in Gunn’s unfolding DC Universe.
The Geek is a working screenwriter, director and screenwriting instructor.
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