Metamorpho: who is the Element Man of Superman 2025, from 1965 to Anthony Carrigan?

Who is Metamorpho?

Metamorpho, real name Rex Mason, is an adventurer transformed against his will into an elemental being: his body, divided into zones of different colors, can take the form of any chemical element. In the comics, he's called "the Element Man."

The character holds a place apart at DC. Neither a masked vigilante nor an alien, he is first and foremost a victim — a man who didn't choose his powers and who would like, more than anything, to be normal again. It's this mix of power and distress that the 2025 film took up faithfully.

What to remember in a few points:

• Created in 1965 by Bob Haney and Ramona Fradon
• A transformable body into any element present in the human body
• A reluctant hero, who long refuses the costume
• Anthony Carrigan plays him in Superman (2025)

In the film, Metamorpho is presented among the hero's adversaries, under Lex Luthor's orders. But as we'll see, this position is a constraint, not a choice — and that's the whole point of the character.

1965: the birth of the Element Man

Metamorpho appears in The Brave and the Bold #57, cover-dated January 1965. The script is by Bob Haney, the art by Ramona Fradon, one of the rare female artists of the Silver Age, already known for her work on Aquaman. Her round, expressive line gives the character a look that is both unsettling and likable.

The origin is straight out of an adventure story: Rex Mason, a soldier of fortune, is sent by billionaire Simon Stagg to retrieve an artifact, the Orb of Ra, from an Egyptian pyramid. Betrayed and abandoned on the spot by Java, a prehistoric man brought back to life by Stagg, Mason is exposed to the radiation of a meteor locked inside the pyramid. He comes out transformed.

Success was immediate. After two issues of The Brave and the Bold, the character got his own series, Metamorpho, as early as 1965. The tone is that of an era fond of bizarre heroes, halfway between science fiction and comedy.

His powers, and their price

Metamorpho's power is simple to state and dizzying in its applications: he can transform all or part of his body into any element or compound present in the human body — and, depending on the writers, well beyond.

Concretely, this allows him to:

• Harden into metal or stone to absorb an impact
• Liquefy or turn to gas to get through anywhere
• Produce substances — acids, gases, explosives — at will
• Change shape, by stretching or taking on the appearance of objects

The price of these abilities is heavy. In the comics, Rex Mason cannot return to human form : he remains locked in his multicolored body, which feeds his bitterness and his quest for a cure. His weakness is the Orb of Ra, the very artifact that created him, capable of neutralizing him.

Simon Stagg, Sapphire and Java

Metamorpho is inseparable from a trio that has accompanied him since 1965. Simon Stagg is the unscrupulous billionaire who sent him into the pyramid and who, depending on the era, exploits or manipulates him. Sapphire Stagg, his daughter, is the woman Rex loves — and the reason he never quite breaks with the family. Java, the prehistoric man turned henchman, is his rival, jealous over Sapphire.

This quartet gives Metamorpho's stories a soap-opera dimension rarely found among heroes of the era. Rex isn't just a monster fighting monsters: he's a man who wants his form back so he can marry the woman he loves.

The 2025 film replaces this family network with another bond, even more direct: a young son, Joey, whom Luthor holds hostage. The principle remains the same — Metamorpho always acts out of love, never out of ambition.

His journey in the comics

After his solo series of the 1960s, Metamorpho moves through the DC universe as a teammate rather than a headliner. His most notable affiliations:

• The Outsiders, the team founded by Batman in the 1980s, of which he is one of the original members
• Justice League Europe, in the late 1980s and early 1990s
• The Terrifics, launched in 2018, where he teams up with Mister Terrific, Plastic Man and Phantom Girl

So it's no surprise to find him, in the 2025 film, in a story that also involves Mister Terrific: the two characters have already shared a series in the comics. Our article on the Justice League places these secondary teams in relation to the main lineup.

In animation, Metamorpho is a regular: he appears notably in Batman: The Brave and the Bold saga and in Justice League Action, where his colorful design and his transformations lend themselves perfectly to animation. James Gunn's film, on the other hand, is his first live-action appearance on the big screen.

Anthony Carrigan in Superman (2025)

To play Rex Mason, James Gunn chose Anthony Carrigan, an actor who got noticed in the series Barry, where he played the gangster NoHo Hank, and in Gotham, where he was Victor Zsasz. Carrigan, who has alopecia, has often spoken about his relationship to physical difference — a theme that resonates directly with the character.

The role required a heavy transformation. The actor described makeup and prosthetics requiring five to six hours of preparation per day, which enveloped him entirely. The result is one of the film's rare characters achieved largely practically rather than with CGI.

Carrigan summed up his character in one sentence: a man torn by the struggle between what he's forced to do and his desire to be good. Technically an adversary, Metamorpho is, by the actor's own admission, the most torn "villain" in the film — and probably the one audiences remember best after Nicholas Hoult's Lex Luthor.

The kryptonite scene explained

This is the character's central sequence. Lex Luthor locks Superman in a pocket universe, a dimensional prison where he also holds Krypto and Metamorpho. To weaken the hero, Luthor needs kryptonite — and Metamorpho can produce it.

What forces him to obey is his son Joey, held in another cell. So Metamorpho generates the substance that tortures the Kryptonian, while explaining to him that he has no choice. The scene works because it puts two prisoners face to face, not a hero and a villain.

The turning point comes when Luthor executes an innocent before their eyes. Overwhelmed, Metamorpho releases a burst of energy comparable to the light of a sun — exactly what a Kryptonian needs to recharge, as our article on the yellow sun and the red sunexplains. Superman regains his strength, and the two men escape together with Joey and Krypto.

This scene sums up the character since 1965: a power he didn't ask for, used under duress, then turned against the one exploiting it. In a film that speaks of goodness as a choice, Metamorpho is the one who chooses latest, and at the highest price.

Conclusion

Metamorpho is proof that a bizarre, multicolored character from 1965 can carry one of the most moving scenes of a 2025 blockbuster. Rex Mason never wanted to be a hero; he became one out of love, in the comics as on screen.

The other hero the film made a star has his own article: Mister Terrific, the brains of the Justice Gang.

Anthony Carrigan gave him a face — or rather a body — and a fragility that make him far more than a passing adversary. It remains to be seen whether the new DC universe will offer him a follow-up worthy of him.

To go further, our article on Metallo looks back at the other adversary tied to kryptonite, and the one on Lex Luthor and Superman at the man who made Metamorpho his weapon.