This week’s new Superman trailer revealed lots of fresh footage, including a brief shot showing Superman himself holding a weird, alien-looking baby.
The identity of the baby has yet to be officially revealed, and DC Universe steward James Gunn has yet to confirm anything about the character. But it turns out we knew who it was all along thanks to a recently released children’s book.
Warning! Spoilers for Superman follow.
The Superman: Friends and Foes! book includes synopsis for the various characters set to appear in the film, and one of those is for Joey Mason.
Baby Joey, as he’s called, is Metamorpho’s toddler son. “When Joey is taken, Metamorpho must choose between working with Superman or Lex Luthor,” the book reveals.
Baby Joey:
“Baby Joey is Metamorpho’s toddler son.
When Joey is taken, Metamorpho must choose between working with Superman or Lex Luthor.”Raptors:
“Lex uses his highly advanced soldiers, called raptors, to fight Superman and advance his criminal schemes.” pic.twitter.com/2PbJQflefd
— DCU PRIME TV (@DCUPRIMETV) June 3, 2025
That’s not much to go on, but it makes sense in the context of the shot we see in the trailer. Here, Superman is tangled up in Metamorpho in some strange area. Perhaps Superman saves Baby Joey, returns him to his father, thus turning Metamorpho to his side in the coming battle.
Let’s remember, Metamorpho has the power to transform his body into any element, which could pose a serious threat to the all-powerful Superman.
The baby is taken care of then, but there’s still plenty that’s new in the trailer to discuss, including a confrontation with Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner / Green Lantern, and a co-op finisher with Krypto the Superdog.
Earlier this month we had Superman’s runtime confirmed, as well as a denial from director and DCU steward James Gunn that parent company Warner Bros. had “forced” him to make the movie shorter.
Superman, which hits theaters July 11, clocks in at 2 hours 9 minutes inclusive of credits and post-credits, Gunn confirmed in a post on social network Threads. For context, that’s 15 minutes shorter than Henry Cavill’s 2013 film, Man of Steel.
So, the relatively brisk 2025 Superman has a lot to squeeze in. Following various trailer reveals, fans had already wondered how Superman would do justice to its supporting cast. Superman revolves around a trio of characters: Clark Kent / Superman, Lois Lane, and central antagonist Lex Luther, but there are a number of other superheroes and supervillains confirmed to appear. Now we can add Baby Joey to the list.
All the characters revealed so far in Superman:
- Superman
- Lois Lane
- Lex Luthor
- Mister Terrific
- Guy Gardner
- Hawkgirl
- Metamorpho
- Baby Joey
- The Engineer
- The Hammer of Boravia
- Ultraman
- Rick Flag Sr.
- Supergirl
- Maxwell Lord
- Kryptonian robots, including Kelex
- Krypto
- Jonathan Kent
- Martha Kent
- Perry White
- Jimmy Olsen
- Steve Lombard
- Cat Grant
- Ron Troupe
- Eve Teschmacher
- Otis
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
