‘Krypton’: Who Are the Red Shard?

Tonight’s episode of Krypton upped the stakes quite a bit, but even as the plot thickened, the show still offered up a reference to an interesting piece of DC Comics mythos.

Spoilers for tonight’s episode of Krypton, “Transformation”, below.

The episode saw Seg (Cameron Cuffe), Lyta (Georgina Cambpell) and others dealing with a new and troubling challenge. Brainiac (Blake Ritson) who had previously possessed the Voice of Rao, had now possessed several members of the Sagitari and revealed himself to Daron-Vex (Elliot Cowan) who quickly bowed to Brainiac to save himself — and sold out his daughter in the process.

While Daron-Vex knows some of what Brainiac plans, he also suggests that in order to keep up appearances that Brainiac should have the Voice close out the Nova Cycle celebration. That’s when Brainiac reveals that he has put together his own security team that he calls Red Shard.

It’s a name that may be familiar to some DC Comics fans, particularly those familiar with the Superman: World of New Krypton series. In that series, Superman saves around 100,000 Kryptonians and the city of Kandor from Brainiac. After some time on Earth, the Kryptonians raise their city into space and form the planet New Krypton. In World of New Krypton, the Red Shard was a tactical response unit within the military guild. They were charged with law enforcement maintenance and civil defense and was commanded by Superman (Kal-El) himself as assigned by General Zod. You see, Superman wasn’t exactly comfortable with the idea of Zod and others having free reign in a star system that would give them powers. Superman was troubled by how things were playing out on New Krypton, but his aunt Alura placed him in the military guild — which led to Superman commanding Red Shard.

In comics, Superman’s first mission with Red Shard was a civic defense issue. They were dispatched to deal with a herd of wild Thought-Beasts that would have destroyed New Krypton’s atmospheric generator plants. Instead of killing the creatures as Zod would have preferred, Superman used the crisis as a training session for those wanting to become part of Red Shard, teaching them to use their powers without killing.

On Krypton, Brainiac’s Red Shard is no doubt very different. The squad is made up of those under Brainiac’s control. The red and black disk on their foreheads indicate that they have been taken over by Brainiac which means that while they may be a defense force, the only being they are defending is Brainiac — and that may be a huge issue for Seg and the others as they try to save Kandor and Krypton itself.

Krypton airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on SyFy.