By: Russ Burlingame on December 12, 2012
One of the things widely missed in the discussion so far of today’s Man of Steel trailer is that it seems to have confirmed long-standing rumors that Metallo will appear in the film.
It’s a quick shot, and it’s from far away; when we first saw the trailer, our first instinct was to wonder whether Superman was colliding with a villain, or catching someone who had just fallen.
In fact, if you look closely, it appears to be a bulky suit of armor or cybernetic shell, with a human head revealed or mostly revealed. This matches up closely with the look of Metallo in the New 52.
Creators have said that the film people at Warner Brothers have much more input into the comics than in the past, with intimations being made that, especially in the case of Superman (because of Man of Steel coming so soon), it’s Burbank who are making a lot of the important creative decisions.
According to the Internet Movie Database, Tahmoh Penikett, who has made guest appearance on Arrow and Smallville, will appear in the film as Henry Ackerdson, which is suspiciously similar to the name of Henry Ackerson, a character from the direct-to-video animated film Justice League Doom. In that film, the character turned out to be Metallo and used a Kryptonite bullet to make an attempt on Superman’s life. Penikett confirmed his involvement via Twitter but has refused to identify the character he’s portraying.
The character of Metallo recently appeared in an Action Comics arc which, when collected into a hardcover, was titled “Superman and the Men of Steel.”
