Yep, Darkseid is in the Snyder Cut of Justice League

We learned just the other day that the Snyder Cut, a long-rumored version of 2017’s Justice League that will stay true to director Zack Snyder’s original vision, both A) exists; and B) is coming to WarnerMedia’s new streaming service HBO Max sometime next year.

Or rather, it will exist. The new version of the movie will take tens of millions of dollars to complete, and Snyder still isn’t sure if it’ll be released as one big four-hour movie or in smaller chunks. But the point is that it’s coming, which went a long way towards getting people excited about HBO Max before it finally dropped today.

And when it comes, the Snyder Cut will include an iconic DC villain who was alluded to in the original movie but who didn’t actually appear: Darkseid, the ruler of the planet Apokolips, which is as sucky a place as it sounds. Darkseid is a brutal tyrant who has plagued Superman and company for decades in the comics. Snyder himself debuted a low-resolution picture of how the villain will look in the movie:

That’s actor Ray Porter as the supervillain. Mind you, it’s not like Darkseid is going to be all over the Snyder Cut; apparently he’s set to appear in the prologue and then again at the very end.

Back when Warner Bros. was still moving full speed ahead with its DC Extended Universe, it was setting up Darkseid to be the DCEU’s answer to Thanos from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a villain so big and bad he would unite the other heroes in opposition against him.* But because movies like Batman v Superman and Justice League itself were so poorly received, Warner Bros. changed its strategy, releasing more light-hearted movies like Shazam! Also Ben Affleck is no longer playing Batman and the jury is out on whether Henry Cavill will come back as Superman. The upshot of this is that it’s unclear if Darkseid — or at least this version of Darkseid — will appear in any future DC movies, but the Snyder Cut will at least give us an idea of what Snyder and company had in mind.

*In the world of comics, Darkseid actually appeared before Thanos, and there’s a good argument to be made that Marvel was inspired to create Thanos in part because of Darkseid. But Thanos beat Darkseid to the big screen, which counts for a lot, perception-wise.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels

h/t IGN