All hail the Queen of Almerac: Maxima is set to make her big screen debut in Superman: Man of Tomorrow, currently slated for the summer of 2027. The film will see the return of several stars from the first film, including David Corinswet as Superman, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, among others. Adria Arjona, the actor everyone wants to play Wonder Woman, is all but confirmed to appear in the role of the alien Maxima.
This begs the question, who the heck is Maxima, anyway, and what’s she doing appearing in a Superman movie?
Created by comic legends Roger Stern and George Perez, Maxima was first introduced in Action Comics #645 in 1989. Betrothed to a real flop fiancé named Ultraa, she opted to go out and find her own damn husband instead. Naturally, she set her sights on the galaxy’s least available man, Superman. Maxima boldly declared that she and Superman were ideal genetic matches and that they would produce strong children together. For some reason, this was not as good a selling point as she thought it was going to be, and Superman refused.
Next, this absolute wild card opted to join the Justice League, where she continued her search for a husband, which is admittedly much easier than starting a Tinder account. After she left the League, Maxima continued to occasionally propose to Superman, who continued to occasionally reject her. This led to her joining the Superman Revenge Squad, a team of villains dedicated to, you guessed it, getting revenge on Superman.
With DC’s company-wide New 52 and Rebirth reboots, Maxima’s origin changed significantly. Rather than simply fleeing a suitor who was not to her liking, this Maxima is a queer woman who fled a deeply heteronormative ruling class on Almerac. Now crushing on Supergirl rather than Superman, this take on Maxima recasts her as part of the Crucible Academy, which taught super-powered beings to successfully defend their home worlds from cosmic threats.
In terms of powers, Maxima possesses the usual array of abilities coming from her alien physiology: strength, durability, flight, plus an array of fancier tricks like energy projection and telepathy. She’s one of DC Comics’ toughest characters, to the point she even exchanged fisticuffs with Doomsday. ‘Nuff said.
So, how could Maxima fit into a storyline that already has Superman’s greatest foe, Lex Luthor, and a number of other superheroes and villains to compete with for screen time? Well, in Superman II, Lars Eidinger will be making his debut as Brainiac, the super-smart fascist android that has been a thorn in Superman’s side in the comics dating all the way back to 1958. For her part, Maxima has a history with Brainiac that goes back to 1992’s “Panic in the Sky” storyline.
Due to Brainiac gaining mental control over Maxima and the rest of Almerac at the start of the crossover, she is, at first, his pawn. When his power over her ebbs, Maxima doesn’t just beat Brainiac in a fight — she lobotomizes him. Brainiac pathetically crawls away from the Queen of Almerac in hopes of still “claiming victory.” Maxima sneers, “No, you will claim only… death!” as she ends his reign of terror once and for all (until next time).
Maxima once again thwarted Brainiac in the “Our Worlds of War” arc. Though it cost her life, she was able to prevent the villain from inflicting total destruction across the universe, and she even made amends with Superman along the way. Where exactly she fits into the Superman II storyline remains to be seen, but after decades of fluctuating from hero to villain and back again, Maxima has earned a shot at the big time.
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