A lot of fans may not want to hear it based on the incredibly polarizing nature of the character, but Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor may have turned out to be the single most important figure in the entire SnyderVerse had Zack Snyder’s original plans for the DCEU not been cut off at the knees in the wake of the Justice League fisaco.
After all, the nefarious businessman was responsible for uniting the Trinity in the third act of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice after unleashing Doomsday, which then led directly into Bruce Wayne assembling his all-star squad in the first place. Lex was also the mastermind behind the death of Henry Cavill’s Kal-El, and he would have also sent Joe Manganiello’s Deathstroke after Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight had those post-credits teases been followed through.
To cap it all off, he was going to save the entire universe at the end of Justice League 3 by detonating a nuclear weapon inside Darkseid’s ship to take out the big bad of the SnyderVerse once and for all. Instead, not only was Eisenberg cast to the side along with many aspects of the abandoned mythology, but fans still can’t agree on whether they love him or loathe him.
The Academy Award nominee has admitted on more than one occasion that he’d love to be invited back into the fold, but that seems very unlikely to happen unless those long-running rumors on the resurrection and restoration of the SnyderVerse end up coming to fruition.
It can’t be ruled out, though, but it’s nonetheless fascinating to think that such a divisive figure may have just been the single most pivotal figure in an entire shared universe had things panned out as intended.