'Krypton' Is Not Part of the Arrowverse

The world of Syfy's Krypton is not 200 years in the past of Supergirl, any more than it is 200 years in the past of Man of Steel, a new report asserts; Krypton is a stand-alone story.

While The Tracking Board does not have a direct quote from today's Television Critics Association presentation to back up the idea, it fits contextually with everything producers said at TCA -- that Krypton is pleased that it is not beholden to any fixed version of the "future," and so anything can happen.

"The time travel element does give us some unpredictability and to do stories that you don't know and stories that could play out differently than what people may assume," executive producer David S. Goyer, who wrote Man of Steel, said during the presentation. The always-looming implication is that, somehow, the events of Krypton could result in its heroes saving the titular world and Superman never coming to Earth.

There had never really been any indicator that Krypton would share a universe with the Arrowverse shows, but fan speculation on the question started to increase after ComicBook.com reported that Syfy had ruled out a connection to DC's blockbuster movies.

Since it was announced more than a year ago, the question of whether or not it would be explicitly tied to the feature films has been debated by fans. The look and feel of Krypton -- what little fans have seen -- seems to fit with the Krypton of the movies, but given that both were strongly influenced by John Byrne and Mike Mignola's World of Krypton, that was not an entirely compelling argument for the two being connected.

Somewhat more compelling? Executive producer David S. Goyer, who wrote Man of Steel and in that film designed a Krypton that felt very much like the one seen in the earliest footage for the show, had previously referred to the series as taking place "200 years before Man of Steel."

Of course, in Man of Steel, the audience was introduced to General Zod, known in the comics as Dru-Zod, played in the film by Michael Shannon. Dru-Zod's mother, Lyta Zod, is played by Georgina Campbell on Krypton while his grandmother, Alura Zod, is played by Wonder Woman veteran Ann Ogbomo.

Explaining how Philippus could have been on Krypton 200 years ago would have been difficult enough, but the relatively obvious fact that both Ogbomo and Campbell are women of color confirmed for most fans that Shannon, who is white, was unlikely to represent the first post-Krypton generation of Zods.

The Kryptonian mythology of the series is likely to be diferent from what fans have seen in Supergirl so far, too...although since Krypton takes place 200 years in the world's past that might not be saying much.

One obvious example is likely the story of Doomsday, which played out very differently in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice than it had in the comics.

"We get to do our own iteration of Doomsday, untethered to anything else, so we get to explore Doomsday in a way that hasn't been done and is kinda more true to the comics," DC Chief creative officer Geoff Johns said of the series.

In the comics, Doomsday has a centuries-long history involving Kryptonian super-science that has never been explored onscreen.

Krypton will premiere on March 21 on Syfy.