The Flash Movie Is Bringing Back A Main Superman Villain, Our Scoop Confirmed
Our scoop that one of Superman's greatest adversaries is returning in The Flash solo movie has just been confirmed and we are excited!
One of Superman’s greatest adversaries is about to return to the DCEU. Our scoop that Michael Shannon will be reprising his role as the Kryptonian General Zod in the upcoming Flash movie has been confirmed. The current CinemaCon event in Las Vegas is releasing the first looks and trailers at some of the most anticipated new films of 2022, including a whole slew of DCEU films. DiscussingFilm confirmed on Twitter that The Flash trailer featured Shannon as General Zod; the character first appeared in the Superman reboot film Man of Steel in 2013 as one of Henry Cavill’s original foes. It looks like Michael Shannon will be threatening Earth with reborn Kryptonian domination in some fashion or other once more. Here is DiscussingFilm’s Tweet:
General Zod has been one of Superman’s greatest enemies since his first appearance in Adventure Comics #283 in 1961. Michael Shannon (and his truly unfortunate goatee) is the most recent actor to play the character. Zod is traditionally portrayed as a Kryptonian military leader and zealot who is condemned to imprisonment in the extra-dimensional Phantom Zone for rebellion. Man of Steel largely mirrored this backstory, adding in the detail of Zod personally killing Superman’s father Jor-El, played by Russell Crowe. Shannon next appeared as the character in 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, albeit as a corpse after being killed by Henry Cavill’s character. It is not currently known how Michael Shannon’s version of Zod will return to the DCEU, but he will certainly be a welcome addition.
It is also being currently reported that the trailer for The Flash also features an appearance by a “young Superman,” implicitly meaning a version of the character not being played by Henry Cavill. The Flash will be the DCEU’s big leap in a multiverse, so it is probable that both Superman and Michael Shannon as Zod may be some parallel reality variants of the established characters. Ezra Miller’s version of The Flash/Barry Allen has already met with another Flash (played by Grant Gustin) in the CW’s crossover event Crisis on Infinite Earths. The DCEU speedster appears to be the key to which we will see different versions of Superman, Batman (in both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton flavors), and now, Zod.
General Zod has also previously been played by Terence Stamp in 1978’s Superman: The Movie and its 1980 sequel. On television and in animation, he has been played by many actors (including Callum Blue in Smallville and Mark Gibbon in Supergirl), but Michael Shannon’s trademark intensity lent the part an added sense of danger. It will remain to be seen how Michael Shannon is used in The Flash, though if we are playing around in the multiverse, we vote for a Good Zod/Evil Superman appearance. There is no release date for the trailer for the film, but the movie itself is currently scheduled for July 23, 2023. However, the erratic behavior of Ezra Miller has caused some worry as to the fate of The Flash series, but we will have to leave that for another day. We have Michael Shannon for now.
