Fixing Our Laser Eyes on the “Superman” Trailer Easter Eggs, Character Glimpses, and Krypto
The first trailer for James Gunn’s Superman soared into view yesterday, with Superman himself, played by David Corenswet, starting the trailer in a nose-dive into the arctic ice. It was an intriguing way for Gunn to re-introduce the Man of Steel, banged up and clearly in pain (when Superman is having trouble breathing, you know things are serious), in need of assistance from his super-pup, Krypto. While there’s little doubt that Krypto will be a major star, what Gunn’s Superman also promises is the very first time the Man of Steel will be launched into a DC Universe with dozens of super-powered beings and metahumans in play. Gunn and his DC Studios co-chief Peter Safran have completely retooled the studio, with a chaptered rollout plan that soft-launched with Gunn’s animated Creature Commandos on Max and comes fully alive with his live-action Superman. This film, arguably the most hotly-anticipated film on the entire 2025 film slate, kicks off the feature film portion of “Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters,” the first phase of Gunn and Safran’s unified DC Universe.
As Gunn said at a press preview for the trailer, he wanted to make a new Superman that not only embodied the titular character’s essential goodness but also gave proper due to the other super-powered beings that have co-existed for generations on the pages of DC Comics alongside Superman himself.
“Superhero movies have taken these characters and said, ‘Okay, it’s Batman [or] it’s Superman, but it’s not any of the other stuff,’” Gunn said at the press preview. “We’re embracing all of the Superman mythology. He has friends who are other superheroes. He has people he doesn’t get along as well with who are other superheroes. He has a lot of the things that we love from the Superman comics that we haven’t been able to see as much of in filmed media, and definitely haven’t been able to see in a grounded way, which is what I hope we’ve created.”
To that end, the trailer revealed not only Superman cinematic franchise stalwarts Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), two indelible characters who have been portrayed on the big screen before, from Richard Donner’s seminal 1978 classic to Zack Snyder’s DC Studios films, but also characters like Green Lantern member Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi). Instead of simply rolling out Superman and having him fight a single villain, say Lex Luthor, Gunn has populated his film with a baseball dugout’s worth of meta-humans and super-beings, giving Superman equals, something that was previously unthinkable until Marvel started filling the screen with more supes than we could count.
To that end, let’s take a quick flight through the trailer to ID the characters who will be mixing it up with Superman, Lois, and Lex.
The Stalwarts – Lois Lane & Lex Luthor
You can’t really have Superman without Lois Lane, and Gunn has said that one of the best filmmaking experiences of his life was seeing the chemistry pop between Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Corenswet as Superman. Lois is not just a swashbuckling reporter at The Daily Planet; she’s the apple of Clark’s eye. Brosnahan follows Amy Adams, Margot Kidder, Teri Hatcher, Kate Bosworth, and, going way back, Phyllis Coates in the second live-action Superman (a TV show called Superman and the Mole Men), and Noel Neill, the very first actress to play Lois in live-action, in Columbia Pictures’ 1948 Superman serials.
Nicholas Hoult plays the iconic Lex Luthor, a savvy, brilliant, power-made business titn and head of LuthorCorp. Hoult joins a list of Luthors that include Jesse Eisenberg, Gene Hackman (arguably the Lex Luthor), Kevin Spacey, Jon Cryer, and Michael Cudlitz. Hoult was in the running to play Superman himself, making it to the final round with Corenswet. That makes his Luthor casting all the more appealing, as we see these two legendary foes face off and imagine a world in which Luthor was the hero himself.
Krypto
The first trailer was a thrilling two minutes and change of re-introducing Superman to a world that will need to remember what it was like to look up to pure goodness—considering the scene where Superman’s being jeered and pelted in the head by an angry mob, it doesn’t appear to be going all that well. Yet it was Superman’s dog, Krypto, who stole the show when he appeared at the end of the trailer to drag a battered Superman home. Gunn has long been a major animal fan in his films, centering the third and final Guardians film around Rocket the Racoon and a storyline that gave us Rocket’s origins in what was essentially an animal shelter turned experimental lab. Gunn has said his adopted dog Ozu inspired him to put Krypto in the Superman script.
Hawkgirl
Isabel Merced swooped into the trailer as the winged superhero Hawkgirl, swinging her indestructible mace and providing Superman with some serious support. In the previous era of DC Studios, Aldis Hodge played Hawkman in Black Adam, which was centered on Dwayne Johnson’s titular antihero.
Guy Gardner
Gunn’s longtime collaborator, Nathan Fillion, plays the bowl-cut Green Lantern member Guy Gardner, part of the galactic space police force known as the Green Lantern Corps. Guy has some special skills, including flight and all sorts of nifty powers with his green ring. He’s also known as a little bit of a hard-headed dude, and we can expect him to mix it up in Superman and DC Studios’ upcoming Lanterns series on HBO.
Mister Terrific
Edi Gathegi’s Mister Terrific might be the one character here who’s even smarter than Lex Luthor. Mister Terrific is a bonafide genius, capable of inventing (or should we call it conjuring) just about anything. Terrific marshalls his vast intelligence to create bespoke, extremely powerful technologies, and he appeared in the trailer in a distinctive T-shaped mask that covered his eyes, nose, and mouth.
Jonathan and Martha Kent
While Superman is inherently good, major props must be given to his adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, played here by Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell, for being the wholly decent, loving human beings Clark could fashion his view of humanity around. While Superman might have turned out to be a good guy no matter what, there’s little doubt that it was the Kents who showed him how equally good non-superpowered humans could be. In the last live-action, stand-alone Superman movie, Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, the Kents were played by Kevin Costner and Diane Lane.
Metamorpho
Anthony Carrigan, who pulled off the nearly impossible by stealing scenes of Bill Hader’s Barry from Hader himself, plays Metamorpho. As his name suggests, Metamorpho can change his body into all sorts of shapes and elements, having shown off incredible abilities in the comics, like becoming as strong and sturdy as a boulder or as liquid as a river.
Kelex
The trailer includes a brief but compelling shot of Superman kneeling over what is clearly a fallen robot and looking devastated by it. The speculation is that this robot is Kelex, a Kryptonian servant droid who becomes the caretaker of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. Considering Kelex would be one of the few connections Superman retains to his home planet, here’s hoping he’s not completely destroyed, as the trailer suggests he is.
Jimmy Olsen, Cat Grant, and Steve Lombard
The Daily Planet isn’t just the Clark, Lois, and Perry White show (Perry is the editor-in-chief and is played in Superman by Wendell Pierce). Skylar Gisondo plays the photographer, Jimmy Olsen, with Mikaela Hoover and SNL alum Beck Bennett playing reporters Cat Grant and Steve Lombard, respectively.
For more on Superman, check out these stories:
The First “Superman” Teaser Reveals James Gunn’s Epic Man of Steel Reboot
“Superman” Reborn: The First Trailer for James Gunn’s Reboot Soars
James Gunn’s “Superman” Takes Flight With First Motion Poster
James Gunn Teases “Superman” Star David Corenswet’s Freakishly Great Performance
Featured image: Caption: DAVID CORENSWET as Superman in “SUPERMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
