Man Of Steel: Four Theories On The Kryptonian Corpse

As we discussed briefly last night, there's some disagreement among fans as to just whose apparently-mummified remains we see wearing Kryptonian armor in the latest trailer for Man of Steel. The sequence of images implies that it isn't Zod, who seems to be looking at the corpse and then looking away--but beyond that it's unclear. Who might be the body in question? Well, there are four key candidates--and we've got a definite favorite, but we'll get to that. Here's a note, though; Andrew Darling, a bioengineering professor at Syracuse University, took a look at the photo of the Kryptonian corpse and guessed that it's probably male. It's difficult to say with any certainty on account of being alien, not properly cleaned or positioned...and fictional...but he told ComicBook.com that it sure looked that way to him. Asked whether he could tell by the jaw or parts of the exposed face whether it was a male or female, Darling replied, "Male. While I suppose that could just be burnt flesh, the masseter and mentalis seem awfully large for a woman. That would be an exceptional woman to have a jaw and chin line like that. So, I'm going to go with male." He added, "But I grant you that the collar flair looks a lot like pics of Faora's outfit." So, with that in mind, who are the popular candidates online, and why?

Kara Zor-El The star of the Man of Steel Prequel comic book by the film's writer, director, DC Entertainment's Chief Creative Officer and a legendary Superman artist, Kara is presumed by most to be Kara Zor-El, the cousin of Superman who eventually becomes Supergirl in the comics. She wears the shield of the House of El and her parents' names match up, so it seems like a safe bet, even if her full name is never uttered on the page. So why would it be her? Well, many folks are going with our theory and assuming that the corpse, because it looks mummified and dusty, not just "burned," is probably that of one of those aboard Kara's craft, which crashed in the Prequel and which ultimately becomes Superman's Fortress of Solitude in the film. And since the design of her costume looks decidedly like Faora's, people trying to suss out who it could be from any clues available jumped on Kara as a candidate since she's female. There were only two females aboard Kara's ship in the prequel--and one of the two never got out of her cryo-chamber and thus wouldn't have been dressed in armor.

As a side note, there's a photo of Clark Kent looking at what appears to be one of the cryo-chambers from the Prequel. It's closed, whereas the rest of them are open, and that has some fans speculating that either Kara (who could have climbed in around the time of the crash) or her navigator (the other female, and the only person not removed from their cryo-sleep as far as we can tell) might have survived the crash. That seems pretty unlikely, frankly, but stranger things have happened and one has to wonder what purpose the Prequel serves if not to set something specific up that could pay off later. That acknowledged, Dev-Em specifically wanted to kill Kara, who caught him committing murder and them bested him in a fight to put him in custody. SOMEBODY escaped from the craft in the Prequel, and if it was Kara, seeing her in cryo-sleep wouldn't make sense. If it was Dev-Em, why would he have run away and allowed Kara to simply put herself to sleep and wait for help? Why not damage her unit and let her die as he did the other members of the crew? Faora More or less, Faora is offered as a choice because the armor looks so much like hers. it's theoretically possible that she could appear mummified if she were cooked by heat vision, and/or the energy drill attached to the Black Zero (Zod's prison/ship), but it doesn't seem likely to us simply because the body looks aged.

Jor-El The sequencing of the shots in the trailer seems to have a lot of people convinced that the body will be on Earth--likely in the Fortress of Solitude. But that's certainly no guarantee and, if it weren't true, it wouldn't be the first time a movie trailer has "lied" to the audience. From that perspective, Jor-El and Lara seem as good candidates as any of the others listed here, simply because we'll be watching them and presumable will see them right up until Krypton is destroyed. Could this be a quick flash of what happens to Superman's birth parents as the rocket takes off and Krypton is destroyed? It seems unnecessarily gruesome for that, but stranger things have happened. It's the item the body is grasping--which is taken by some to be a Kryptonian gun of some kind--that has a lot of people convinced it's Jor-El, but we're not buying it. If nothing else, look at the shoulders and collar on his armor as compared to the one above.

Dev-Em This boy right here is our favorite. A strong candidate to appear only in flashback and/or on a video monitor, Krypton's first murderer would likely have wiped out humanity if it was he and not Kara who survived the crash in the Man of Steel Prequel. After all, it was his plan to wipe out his own people and then use the growth codex aboard the ship to repopulate so that they could terraform the planet below. Who's to say that isn't what all those skulls in the trailer were about? Perhaps Dev-Em tried to use the growth codex to build a race of subservient Kryptonians and it didn't take--or it did take, but they weren't properly subservient to the killer, whose powers had already started to develop, as we saw in the Prequel? Those skulls could be the site of a mass grave--or a mass murder.