Tuesday, August 13, 2013

"Batman Vs Superman" Updates



There is talk of  DC Comics character 'Lex Luthor' possibly appearing in the developing feature "Batman Vs Superman", with Emmy award-winning "Breaking Bad" actor Bryan Cranston the flavour of the moment, but other 'super-villains' are also being considered.


Previous actors playing Lex Luthor included Michael Rosenbaum  in 154 episodes of "Smallville", Gene Hackman playing him in two Richard Donner-directed movies and Kevin Spacey finally burying the character in Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns". 


But maybe its time for Warners to start developing other classic DC comics super-villains for "Batman Vs Superman"  including 'Brainiac' and 'Bizarro'.


'Brainiac' first appeared in DC's "Action Comics" #242 (July 1958), created by writer Otto Binder and illustrator Al Plastino, as an extraterrestrial android, responsible for shrinking and stealing 'Kandor', capital city of Superman's beloved home planet 'Krypton'. 


Due to complex storylines involving time travel, cloning and revisions of DC's continuity, several variations of Brainiac have appeared, with most incarnations depicting him as a green-skinned being in humanoid form, with a set of diodes protruding from his skull.


His name itself is a combination of the words 'brain' and 'maniac', which squares him nicely into the super-villain category.


'Bizarro'  was created by writer Otto Binder and illustrator George Papp as a 'mirror image' of Superman debuting in "Superboy" #68 (1958). Since then, various iterations of Bizarro have appeared in which he is often, but not always, portrayed as an antagonist to Superman.


His origins started with a scientist demonstrating a newly invented 'duplicating ray' to Superboy, but an accident causes the ray to duplicate the teen hero, as a flawed imitation with chalky white skin and childlike erratic behavior.


Bizarro is depicted as having all the abilities of Superman, although in some incarnations several of these traits have been reversed.


These powers include 'freeze vision' instead of heat vision, 'flame breath' instead of freeze breath, 'vacuum breath' instead of super breath, 'telescopic vision' which allows Bizarro to see a "short distance behind his head" rather than a "long distance in front of his head", etc.


Click the images to enlarge...