The DCEU has always suffered from a pretty serious villain problem, with the majority of the franchise’s antagonists proving to be massively underwhelming. Michael Shannon’s intense General Zod and Patrick Wilson’s entertainingly over the top Ocean Master are probably the pick of the bunch outside of Ewan McGregor’s Black Mask, who can arguably by called the shared universe’s most memorable bad guy, but the rest leave much to be desired.
Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor and Pedro Pascal’s Maxwell Lord both split opinion down the middle depending on your tolerance for overly hammy performances, while the majority of the DCEU’s other villains are generally big blobs of unconvincing CGI with no depth or personality. Wonder Woman‘s Ares, Suicide Squad‘s double whammy of Enchantress and Incubus, Batman v Superman‘s Doomsday and Justice League‘s Steppenwolf are all dreary effects-driven monstrosities, with the latter in particular being panned as a dismal threat to the titular all-star team.
Thanks to the Snyder Cut, though, Steppenwolf has gotten a snazzy redesign, and we’re finally getting to see Darkseid in all of this glory after he was jettisoned entirely when Joss Whedon assumed control of the theatrical release and proceeded to run it into the ground. Now, as we get closer to the all-new version of the pic hitting HBO Max, a fresh image has dropped that reveals Justice League‘s major threat looking pensive on the throne, and you can check it out below.
Darkseid was originally supposed to be the overarching villain of Snyder’s entire five-movie DCEU arc, but seeing as that’s not going to happen, we’ll have to make do with the nefarious destroyer of worlds causing some major issues for Batman, Superman and the gang when the new and improved Justice League debuts in just five days instead.
