A Second Villain Cast in Snyder's Superman

German actress Antje Traue will play Faora

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Wednesday, April 27th 2011 at 12:53 PM

Antje Traue in Pandorum
Photo: Overture Films

I have not yet gotten around to seeing Pandorum, but for those of you that have and remember the character Nadia, you are already more familiar with Antje Traue, the German-born actress that will play the villainous Faora in Zack Snyder's upcoming Superman reboot, Man of Steel. The character was last played by Sharon Taylor in seven episodes of the "Smallville" TV series as the wife of General Zod.

The news was just announced that Traue will play Faora in the feature alongside Michael Shannon who will be playing the film's lead villain, General Zod. Apparently there were more than one instance of the character in the Superman universe and since I know nothing of the comic I will make way for the following description of the character courtesy of Wikipedia:

The first Faora, Faora Hu-Ul, was introduced in Action Comics #471. She was a beautiful Kryptonian woman whose unexplained hatred for men led her to torture and kill 23 men at a secret concentration camp in her home. For this, she was imprisoned in the Phantom Zone to complete a sentence of 300 Kryptonian years, the second longest term after Jax-Ur. Ironically this allowed her to survive her homeworld's destruction, along with the other Phantom Zone prisoners, albeit in an invisible ghostlike form. While imprisoned in the Phantom Zone, she was often depicted plotting against Superman with General Zod and Jax-Ur. Her hatred of men was not limited to Kryptonians, as demonstrated by her pointless murder of a young Frenchman who was attracted by her beauty.

Faora was an expert at the Kryptonian martial art of Horo-Kanu, which utilized the pressure points on the Kryptonian body. This made her an extremely dangerous foe for Superman to face in hand-to-hand combat—he was forced to flee from their first encounter. During one of her first appearances, Faora could manifest some sort of "mental lightning" to physically attack other Kryptonians, but did not exhibit this additional power during later appearances.

I'm sure Warner Bros. will issue an official press release soon enough giving a little more detail as to the character's involvement in the story and if history holds true, that news will probably arrive this Sunday.

Production on Man of Steel is scheduled to start this summer in Chicago, with a release planned for December 2012.

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