Faora To Be Villainess in MAN OF STEEL? Redesigned Krypton to Look Like Coruscant?

As you may recall, back in February we reported that a number of actresses were auditioning to join Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman reboot but not for the role of Lois Lane.  Then the rumor became that the role was for General Zod’s henchwoman, Ursa.  Now Latino Review is reporting that the female villain in Man of Steel is not Ursa but Faora, who was the inspiration for the character of Ursa.  According to LR, Faora is “bad ass in the script and that she is Zod’s ‘right hand bitch’” (Classy.)  The movie will also feature appearances by Superman’s parents Jor-El and Lana.

Hit the jump for more on Faora and to learn about the redesigned Krypton.  Man of Steel stars Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, and Kevin Costner.  The film is set to open in December 2012.

Here’s a bit of background on Faora (via 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.

We recently learned that we’ll be hearing Kal-El’s damn origin story again which means we’ll be going back to Krypton.   Rather than create a visually distinct look like Richard Donner’s Krypton, Snyder’s reportedly going to crib the city-planet look of Star Wars‘ Coruscant (below).  That may sound harsh, but keep in mind: Snyder has the freedom to create an entirely new planet and he’s just going to do something similar to Coruscant?  If the rumor proves to be true, that’s not exactly encouraging.