While the big bad of James Gunn’s forthcoming Superman sequel, Man of Tomorrow, has yet to be revealed, fans already know Lex Luthor will return in the next installment, this time as an unlikely ally of Superman’s as they take on a much bigger threat.
But Lex isn’t the only Superman 2025 villain set to make his on-screen return in the new DC Universe.
The Engineer will also return in Man of Tomorrow, though it’s unknown if she will be friend or foe this time around.
Gunn confirms her upcoming return in his official commentary for the film.
“...[Superman knocks] the Engineer unconscious. She’s out of the movie. Where does she go? Well, you’re gonna find that out in the next movie,” Gunn says in the commentary, referring to the scene in which Superman and Mister Terrific battle Lex’s superpowered henchmen in Metropolis toward the end of the film.
Played by María Gabriela de Faría, the Engineer, formerly known as Angela Spica, is a technologically advanced metahuman and villain who uses the nanites infused in her bloodstream to shape shift and create various weapons.
In the film, she is Lex’s right-hand woman who follows Superman to the Fortress of Solitude, and later nearly kills him by suffocating his lungs with her microscopic nanobots. The formidable metahuman is last seen left unconscious after battling the Kryptonian.
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As for Ultraman, the antagonistic Superman clone who is puppeted by Lex, it’s unclear if he will ever be seen again after getting sucked into a black hole during his battle with Superman in Metropolis.
“...You might ask yourself, ‘Where does Ultraman go at the end of the movie?’ He [Superman] sends him up into the black hole. Is this the end of Ultraman? I don’t know,” Gunn says in the commentary.
However, when it comes to the major villain in Man of Tomorrow, Brainiac, who has yet to be included in a live-action Superman movie, appears to be the most likely culprit according to fan theories online.
But it’s not just fan theories that have us convinced: Gunn himself appeared to tease the supervillain’s potential inclusion in the upcoming sequel just days ago when he shared a very telling image of the film’s script, which features an anatomical head with a large brain.
Coincidence? Maybe, but probably not knowing Gunn.
Man of Tomorrow is set to begin filming in April 2026, just a little over a year ahead of the sequel’s scheduled July 9, 2027 theatrical release date.
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