The robot in the Superman trailer is more important than you think

There is a lot of information to process the first official trailer for James Gunn’s Superman.which will officially launch its new live-action DC Studios universe next July. Here’s our introduction to this version of Superman, played by David Carensuet, as he lies in the snow and whistles to his super dog, Krypto, to come help get him home. Here’s our introduction to Metropolis, villain Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), the Daily Planet, reporter Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), and much, much more. Heck, we’re even getting there see some members of the Justice League. There’s a lot packed into the trailer, so it’s easy to miss some important points — and one very an important shot deserves special praise.

We see Superman kneeling in what looks like the Fortress of Solitude, with all its crystalline structures, and he’s holding the hand of a robot that looks very familiar. Given where he is and the appearance of the robot, it’s likely that we’ll be getting a Superman version of Kelex.

Beginning with Man of Steel #1 in 1986, Kelex was introduced as a former robot servant of Jor-El, Superman’s father, on their home planet of Krypton, along with fellow robot Kellar and a number of others. Kelex served Jor-El longer than any other robot and cared for Kal-El (aka Superman) when he was a child, although the robot was presumed destroyed along with all the others on Krypton. Later, when the Eradicator, an ancient Kryptonian technology, reaches Earth and begins trying to remake Krypton, only what ends up being created is Superman’s Fortress of Solitude with Kelex inside.

Kelex is to the Fortress of Solitude what Alfred is to Batman’s Batcave and Wayne Manor: taking care of everything while Superman is gone and helping him when he needs it. Although Kelex appears quite often in the comics, the robot appears much less frequently in the movies – most recently in Man of Steel 2013voiced by Carla Gudzina. With Kelex being part of the story, we get the Fortress of Solitude and some of the weirder elements of the comics surrounding Krypton, and that’s the rule.

While the robot doesn’t exactly look like Kelex from the comics, which honestly looks like a cross between Alpha 5 from Power Rangers and Number 5 from Short Circuit if it really is Kelex, it suggests some potentially interesting things about Superman. While it does set up a new DC Studios cinematic universe, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a full-blown origin story, instead we’re getting a Clark Kent/Superman who’s already come to terms with his Kryptonian past a bit. He’ll have a fortress of solitude, a robot right-hand man, and he won’t just be a lost and confused farm boy trying to figure out what to do with his superpowers.

The trailer features quite a few characters we haven’t seen much of (if at all) in theaters, but Kelex is the biggest hint at what kind of Superman story we’ll be getting.

Superman will hit theaters on July 11, 2025.