‘Krypton’: First Look at Brainiac

Brainiac is coming to Krypton and we now have our first look at the classic Superman villain.

The villain is played by Blake Ritson on the SyFy’s Superman prequel series, which is set ot premiere this March.

You can take a look at the first photo fo the villain below. The character is further introduced in the video above, where you can also catch a glimpse of Brainiac‘s iconic skull-shaped spaceship.

“I’ve played characters who’ve objectively committed monstrous actions, but feel entirely justified, as they’ve acted from a misplaced sense of a noble cause,” Ritson tells USA Today. “Generally speaking, people cast themselves as the hero in their own narrative.

“Yes, he traverses the universe in a gigantic skull ship, ripping cities out of planets, miniaturizing them and placing them on board. But he does so in the spirit of conservation. In his mind, he’s committed to the ultimate philanthropic act: saving all of creation. In many ways it’s analogous to Noah plucking out two of every animal to ensure their survival, even while knowing that others must perish.”

Krypton is set 200 years before Kal-El’s fateful journey to earth. The series follows Superman’s grandfather, Seg-El, forced to wade into the politics of Kandor City – notably, a city that is later bottled up by Brainiac – in order to restore honor to his disgraced House of El. His attention is drawn towards more dire matters when the time traveler Adam Strange from Earth pays a visit and warns him Seg-el about the coming of the “Collector of Worlds.”

“It’s something of a blank canvas that has allowed a lot of freedom for the writers to world-build,” Ritson says of this ear in Superman’s history. “This is a major expansion of the Superman universe and mythology and the civilization that fostered the greatest hero that ever lived.”

Despite this setting and the fact that Krypton is not a part of any of the other DC television universes, Krypton is still quite connected to the larger DC mythology. Characters like the Green Lanterns and the Omega Men may very well appear sooner or later in the series.

Krypton premieres March 21st on SyFy.