The latest trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 quickly became the highest-viewed teaser in the Super Bowl—but did fans notice the superpower briefly shown off by the film’s villain?
For those who may not know, the villain for the next MCU outing is Chukwudi Iwuji’s High Evolutionary. Audiences might recognize the actor from director James Gunn’s previous work on HBO Max’s Peacemaker.
This time, Iwuji has crossed over from the DCU into the MCU—the exact opposite of director James Gunn.
As for who his new big bad is, The High Evolutionary is a man obsessed with evolution and experimentation with genetics. In fact, he’s the one who created Rocket Raccoon himself through torturous methods.
Needless to say, it’s going to be personal for the Guardians.
The High Evolutionary's Powerset
The latest trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 went over quite well with fans—the world is excited for the cosmic band of misfits to return.
In it, audiences were given a better look at Chukwudi Iwuji’s High Evolutionary.
He sports an interesting look, with a completely purple suit and what looks to be a human face stretched over his head.
While that’s creepy, another notable part of the teaser included the antagonist giving a small glimpse of his power set in the form of a simple ability: self-levitation.
Being able to float is far from the only power Herbert Wyndham possesses’.
One key element of the High Evolutionary in the comics is that his high-tech suit allows him to advance his personal evolution at will—the man really likes to evolve.
Generally, his further evolution tends to result in superpowers.
Perhaps what fans see in the trailer is a version of that suit, which grants him the ability to float casually.
Other notable High Evolutionary powers in the comics include classical super strength, concussive force blasts, force fields, and mass manipulation, just to name a few.
All this, on top of his inhuman intelligence (not that Inhuman).
He even has the capability for astral projecting. In fact, the character has evolved so much at one point that he became a non-corporal God-like entity.
Get Ready for Chukwudi Iwuju's Villain
The idea of a suit granting partial evolution at will is a high concept—and it's very comic book-y.
It won’t be surprising if the upcoming movie drastically tones down what Herbert can do.
After all, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see Gunn make key differences between his interpretation and the source material.
The filmmaker is known for making significant changes to his stories. One key example is simply the visual design of the High Evolutionary.
Honestly, it’s still a bit odd that Gunn went with a purple color scheme over his normal crimson or burgundy—especially when Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror is set to take the spotlight.
Another similarity between Kang and the High Evolutionary happens to be the utilization of extremely high-tech suits. However, when it comes to Kang, he never actually gets superpowers—his tech is just so advanced that it can be hard to tell the difference.
Hopefully, self-levitation is only the start of what Iwuji’s antagonist has up his sleeve.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hits theaters on May 1.
