Superman's Opening Text Perfectly Sets Up The Debut Of A Classic DC Comics Villain

Mild spoilers follow.

James Gunn's "Superman" is the movie fans have been waiting for. This is a brilliant, corny, unapologetically earnest and sincere superhero movie that genuinely values niceness above brawn, the first movie in decades that understands every aspect of the character.

Gunn takes the Man of Tomorrow back to his roots — a genuinely nice guy who tries to do the right thing and use his powers for good, but who simply can't solve everything by himself. He also makes a rather smart choice of placing the story in a world that has already been introduced to superheroes. Superman is the biggest hero, but he is not the first. In the world of the movie, attacks by alien monsters are common, and robots are to be expected. Portals to other dimensions are not things to mock out of incredulity, but are real possibilities. This means the world, from the get-go, is designed to support a variety of stories and tones without having to slowly get the audience used to that idea or have a mismatch of tones.

The movie starts with a clever opening text crawl that introduces this new DC Universe, explaining that the world discovered metahumans three centuries ago. Now, that number is no coincidence. It isn't three decades or three millennia, but three centuries. Now, it's very much possible Gunn will take this opportunity to pull from some obscure comic character (Jonah Hex??). That being said, the first thing that comes to mind is that the DC Universe is building up to its own Thanos-level threat, and it is not going to be Darkseid.

Instead, the text crawl may hint at the first live-action big-screen appearance of Vandal Savage.

Let's get something clear first. Yes, Vandal Savage is a lot older than 300 years, but remember that the text crawl specifically says three centuries ago is when humans first learned of metahumans, not that they first appeared then. This could mean that it was when the word was coined, or when humans separated the term metahuman from gods, which still leaves room for Vandal Savage to have existed for thousands of years without anyone noticing. We know from "Creature Commandos" that Victor Frankenstein created his son Eric in 1831, for example.

Now, why is Vandal Savage important? Well, he is considered the oldest living creature in the DC Universe that isn't a god. He's been around for tens of thousands of years, literally since the dawn of humanity. He's immortal due to the unique properties of a meteor that gave him radiation. In several comics, Savage implies he's assumed many identities over the years, including Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan.

Recently, the "Young Justice" animated series revealed that its take on Vandal Savage has been around for 50 thousand years, touching every facet of human civilization, including the foundation of Atlantis. Savage is even revealed to be the father of Nabu, also known as Doctor Fate.

Vandal Savage is not a giant, hulking monster like Darkseid, but he can be just as intimidating. Having lived for tens of thousands of years, he is a super genius and a master tactician and strategist, having seen virtually every single civilization rise and fall — and their way of combat. Unlike someone like Darkseid or Thanos, who mostly work as a villain who shows up only to beat up the heroes, Vandal Savage can be a constant, unseen presence in the DC Universe.

Given that Vandal has been around for so long, his influence touches everything. Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) and his technology and schemes to take down the Man of Steel in "Superman?" What if Vandal Savage provided that to him? In many stories, Savage doesn't work alone, but is a member of super-villain organizations like the Injustice Society and the Legion of Doom. Though we have seen heroes team up in superhero movies in the past, we have never really seen supervillains do the same, in either Marvel or DC. One way for James Gunn and Peter Safran's "DC Universe" to stand out from the competition and do something we have never seen would be to finally give us a Legion of Doom on the big screen. "Justice League" tried to plant the seeds for something like this by having Deathstroke meet with Lex Luthor, but it never went anywhere. The closest we've got to a recent villain team is in "Spider-Man: No Way Home" but even then the villains aren't technically working together as much as they are working next to each other for a brief moment.

Having Vandal Savage manipulate the events of the DC Universe behind the scenes, supporting every villain while secretly recruiting them for his supervillain organization, would be a creative and rather fun way to introduce a different type of superhero big bad. Besides, with how much "Superman" feels like a Silver Age comic, having the Legion of Doom and their swamp headquarters would fit perfectly.