There have been six Superman movies released since 1978, and so far we’ve just seen two villains from the comics in them: Lex Luthor (four times, soon to be five) and General Zod and his Kryptonian minions (twice.) Meanwhile, Brainiac, one of Superman’s greatest villains, and arguably one of the greatest villains in the entire DC Universe, has been passed over again and again for the big screen.
Well, it looks like that might finally be changing soon, as Batman Vs. Superman director Zack Snyder has confirmed that Brainiac is indeed on his way. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Snyder, in reference to who the bad guy would be in a Man of Steel follow-up film, said “I remember talking about, ‘What’s the next villain? ‘We can’t do another alien invasion.’ Brainiac was definitely down the road.”
While that implies that Brainiac might show up in a proper Man of Steel sequel, rumor has it that instead, Brainiac would be the main villain of Justice League, Part One (with Darkseid following him in Part Two.) Of all the Superman villains, Brainiac makes sense as a big enough global threat that the superhero would need the help of the League to stop him. So don’t be surprised if we see Brainiac sooner rather than later, even before a second solo Superman film.
In the comics, Brainiac has long been considered Superman’s #2 villain, right behind Luthor. There have been several versions of him, but he’s almost always an alien artificial intelligence, usually from the planet Colu, who roams the universe gathering knowledge from different worlds, and then ‘deleting’ that world, so as to make that knowledge even more valuable and rare. In recent years, Superman writer Geoff Johns gave Brainiac a proper  aesthetic and narrative upgrade, and so the character is perectly primed for the big screen. Just as long as he’s got that cool looking skull ship, I think fans will be happy.
