Steppenwolf’s Mother
Much is being made of Steppenwolf’s general ineptitude as a villain. Due to all the heavy-lifting Justice League had to do with its six leads, the alien invader was left with little-to-no characterization beyond his aim to take over the world. In the original cut, however, his backstory was fleshed out somewhat, giving him much clearer motivations for his actions.
According to blogger Haroon Shareef, who claims to have insider info, the Mother Boxes actually contain the essence of his mother Heggra. Hence why he frequently refers to them as “Mother” within the film. What’s more, the Unity – aligning the Boxes – would unleash Heggra and her enormous powers. With his mother on his side, Steppenwolf secretly hoped to usurp Darkseid as ruler of Apokolips.
We’re not totally sure this is genuine, but it does seem to fit with what’s left of Steppenwolf’s character in the film. It’s a real shame that it’s cut out, as it would have both put some form of meat on the villain’s bones as well as teasing the wider New Gods mythology.
Speaking of which…
Darkseid Is Coming
Considering he’s the biggest, baddest evil in the DC universe and the movie featured appearances from his underlings, it’s disappointing for fans that Justice League didn’t have any sort of role for Darkseid, the ruler of Apokolips (which wasn’t even named in the film). All we got was a quick namecheck at one point (“For the Unity! For Darkseid!”).
According to several sources, though, Darkseid had some kind of presence in the original cut. Haroon Shareef claims that he would have briefly appeared during the climactic fight with Steppenwolf. Allegedly, the general would have tried to coax Superman onto his side. It’s unclear how this would have happened, but at this point, Supes was to have had a vision, a sort of reprise of Bruce’s Knightmare scene from Batman V Superman showing Darkseid ruling the Earth.
Shareef further claims that the film originally followed Steppenwolf back to Apokolips. Darkseid would have properly appeared this time to kill the general for his failure. He would then have remarked that he wished to go to Earth himself to “meet this Kryptonian.”
Again, we have no way of knowing at present if we can trust this info, but – if they do exist – we would kill to see these scenes in an extended cut.
