Superman: Is That Baby Brainiac In the New Trailer?

The latest trailer for James Gunn’s highly anticipated Superman movie delivers a fresh look at David Corenswet’s Man of Steel in action and teases a multitude of heroes and villains that populate the new DC Universe. Amidst the high-octane sequences and character reveals, one particular frame has sparked considerable online discussion. The frame in question features Superman holding a small, green-skinned infant with a noticeably large head. For many, these distinct visual characteristics immediately evoke one of Superman’s most iconic adversaries: Brainiac. However, a closer look, coupled with other contextual clues within the same shot, points towards a completely different DC character.

While the infant’s green skin and enlarged cranium understandably evoke Brainiac’s features, this initial assumption overlooks crucial details. The definitive identifier confirming the baby’s true identity is the clear presence of Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan) alongside Superman and the child. In DC Comics lore, Metamorpho, also known as Rex Mason, is the father of an infant named Joseph “Joey” Mason, who’s also green. Consequently, this revelation shifts the focus from a potential origin story for a major Superman antagonist to the introduction of a significant family dynamic for Metamorpho.

Who Is Superman‘s Baby Joey?

In DC Comics, Baby Joey is the infant son of Rex Mason, the hero Metamorpho, and Sapphire Stagg, the daughter of the unscrupulous industrialist Simon Stagg. First appearing in Justice League Europe #11 in 1990, Joey’s introduction brought a challenging new dimension to Metamorpho’s life. Unlike his father, whose powers allow him to transmute his own body into various elements, Baby Joey possessed the inverse ability: he could transmute other people and objects with a mere touch. This power was initially uncontrollable, making him dangerous and leading his grandfather, Simon Stagg, to isolate him in a specialized crib within Stagg Industries, all while attempting to exploit the infant’s unique metamorphic capabilities for his own corporate gain, specifically to produce a new fuel substitute.

Simon Stagg’s machinations naturally put Metamorpho at odds with his father-in-law. The comics depicted Metamorpho going to great lengths to protect and free Joey, even clashing with other heroes, such as Green Lantern Guy Gardner and the Metal Men, in his desperate attempts to rescue his son, a storyline that seems to inspire part of Gunn’s upcoming Superman movie. The movie’s toys featuring Baby Joey even detail a “slime-filled rescue mission” where Superman is involved in freeing Krypto and Baby Joey, strongly implying that Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) may use the infant as leverage against Metamorpho.

What Does Baby Joey’s Addition Mean for Superman?

The appearance of Superman holding Baby Joey, with Metamorpho present, carries significant implications for the narrative of James Gunn’s film, particularly concerning Metamorpho’s arc. Previous trailers showed Metamorpho confined in a high-tech glass cell, which he appears to be sharing with Superman. In that scene, Metamorpho’s hand is also transformed into a green stone, most likely kryptonyte, indicating the hero is helping subdue Superman. By tying all these clues together, we can infer that Metamorpho will initially work for the bad guys as a way to secure his child’s well-being. Superman, however, will eventually help Metamorpho break free, which is likely the frame we saw in the latest trailer.

Since Superman is packed with different set pieces, including iconic characters such as María Gabriela de Faría’s Engineer and original creations like the Hammer of Boravia, the latest Baby Joey reveal gives credit to the rumors that Gunn’s movie would follow an anthology structure of sorts. During an interview with Daily Planet colleague and lover Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), Superman could revisit key moments of his DC Universe career. That would allow the movie to explore all the different threads introduced by the trailer without risking a convoluted continuity. Plus, since Superman also features Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), Green Lantern Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), who form part of the Justice Gang, an anthology structure could also explain why the trailers sometimes show other heroes being antagonistic towards the Man of Steel, only to help him in different moments.

Superman is scheduled to fly into theaters on July 11th.

How do you think Baby Joey will factor into Metamorpho’s decisions and alliances in James Gunn’s Superman? Share your theories in the comments!

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