In what will surely be seen as surprisingly explosive news for comic book fans, Syfy has done the extremely predictable by announcing Krypton—a prequel series about Superman’s home planet. Though the project is obviously cut from the same cloth/comic book page as Gotham, it’s trying to top Fox’s “Batman without Batman” show by taking place years before Superman is even born. According to Deadline, Krypton will be about Kal-El’s grandfather and how he “brings hope and equality” to his planet.
Obviously, the series will have to end with him successfully turning Krypton into a paradise where nothing will ever blow up and kill off an entire civilization—save for one baby and his cousin and anyone else that a future storyline might require. Krypton is being masterminded by Man Of Steel’s David S. Goyer—of course—as well as Once Upon A Time’s Ian Goldberg. Though we don’t know much about the show yet, Goyer’s involvement makes it a safe bet that the Martian Manhunter’s grandfather will never show up.
Interestingly, the character of Superman’s grandfather is relatively unexplored in the comics, but a DC wiki says that the title belongs to—or used to belong to—Seyg-El, a character created by John Byrne and Mike Mignola in the ‘80s. Seyg-El, who was named after Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, isn’t technically part of DC canon anymore, though, so Syfy is basically free to shape the character however they want. If this were a CW show, Grandpa-El could be a handsome, young doctor, but since this will be on Syfy, maybe he can be Edward James Olmos. That wouldn’t be so bad, right? Anyway, this all just brings us one step closer to finally having a TV show about a DC character on every channel.