I get sad when I think about what we missed out on when Warner Bros. booted Zack Snyder off Justice League. Not only was the film itself totally butchered, but its planned sequels are now just fantasies. We’ve learned a lot ever since the pic’s release two years ago though, mainly through Snyder himself teasing fans with nuggets of information on social media.
Here’s the rundown of what we know so far. Justice League would’ve introduced Darkseid after the defeat of Steppenwolf, and Justice League 2 would have sent the League to Apokalips, showing Darkseid taking Superman prisoner, killing Lois Lane and creating the tyrant Superman we saw in the Knightmare sequence in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. Justice League 3, meanwhile, would’ve featured the Knightmare dream becoming a reality, with Darkseid successfully invading Earth and the League having to ‘save’ Superman and convert him back to good.
Now, Snyder has revealed another development that would have been amazing to see play out: the death of Batman. A fan asked him the following on social media recently: “You said the original idea was to sacrifice Batman against Darkseid…?” Snyder’s response?
“We always had that we would see that in the final chapter.”
It’s a development that’s reminiscent of Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis miniseries, in which Darkseid invades Earth. Batman manages to fatally wound him by shooting him with a Radion bullet, just before Darkseid (apparently) annihilates him with his Omega Beams. Getting to see something like this on the big screen would have been quite something, especially as (as far as I can remember) Batman hasn’t ever died in a film.
While we may yet see the fabled ‘Snyder Cut,’ we certainly will never see these Justice League sequels. But I, for one, would love to have Snyder’s story adapted into graphic novel form, just so we can imagine how this would have eventually played out.