We’ve known for a while that Zack Snyder’s original plan for his DCEU movies would have been a five-film arc beginning with Man of Steel that would have told a self-contained story. This would have theoretically begun with the aforementioned 2013 pic, then continued with Batman V Superman, Justice League, Justice League 2 and an unnamed finale.
The driving force for these remaining films? The arrival of Darkseid on Earth and the League attempting to prevent him from turning the planet into another Apokalips (as glimpsed in the ‘Knightmare’ sequence). Now, thanks to a newly unveiled piece of concept art, we know a bit more about the role the Apokalyptian God of All Evil would have played in it.
Fans have cast their eagle-eyes over the photos below, translated some hieroglyphs and surmised that Darkseid would have done battle with Ares in order to gain control of the Omega Effect (in the comics, his ‘omega beams’ are an inescapable attack that can kill pretty much anything in the universe). Apparently, we would have been introduced to Darkseid as a normal man (or as normal as New Gods get, I guess) who gains immense power before retreating to Apokalips and eventually invades Earth in search of the Anti-Life Equation.
The piece of concept art above was sent to Snyder, who responded on Vero with the explanation that the picture shows him “searching for something that would make him unbeatable.” Personally, I’m gutted we never got to see any of this play out on the big screen, as a multi-film arc showing the rise, reign and eventual fall of Darkseid at the hands of the League sounds unbelievably awesome.
Sadly, even if we did get to see the Snyder cut of Justice League, we’re certainly not going to see his plans for the DCEU resurrected and resolved. Oh well, at least the character will probably show up in Ava DuVernay’s New Gods.
