"I have turned one hundred thousand worlds to dust looking for Anti-Life, looking for those who robbed me of my glory. I will stride across their bones and bask in the glow of Anti-Life, and ALL of existence shall be MINE."
"So begins the end."
— Steppenwolf
Spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Previews
- The clip
where Steppenwolf is ambushed by multiple Amazons. They try to bind him with ropes, so how does he escape? Hack the soldier in front of him with his axe, which spills lots of blood onscreen, and then throw four entire horses at one Amazon group! - Steppenwolf's nephew and master, the evil Lord of Apokolips, Darkseid, FINALLY makes his debut in the DCEU (and his live-action film debut, period). And he looks absolutely terrifying.
- Arguably, his younger self looks even more unnerving. His exposed torso shows he's got an unsightly cavity in the middle of his chest that resembles the Omega symbol. And rather than emit bright lights from his eyes like he does in the present, his eyes are a combination of black sclerae, deep shadows, and light pigmentation in his irises that contrast heavily against his dark skin. Not to mention in the shot where he's preparing to swing his halberd, he's looking right at the audience.
- A Darkseid-focused teaser illustrates his brand of villainy. He's bitter about the forces of Earth beating him back in ancient times, and has been unleashing Hell on other planets to mend his bruised ego. He continues to monologue over a shot of his minion and relative Steppenwolf being overpowered by Superman, showing how little he truly cares about others, complete with the Basso profundo voice to kill all deep villain voices, courtesy of Ray Porter.
- Minor in comparison (and easy to miss), but at one point, Martha Kent is seen with glowing red eyes. What could that possibly mean? Averted in the film proper, when it turns out "Martha" was in fact a disguised Martian Manhunter.
The Film
- When Yalan Gur, the original Green Lantern, goes up against Darkseid, the tyrant god doesn't mess around. He chops Gur's ring-bearing hand clean off, then kills the now-powerless alien.
- When the ring floats up after Yalan's death, Uxas contemplates it for a moment, then reaches out to grab it; the only thing that stops him is an arrow to the chest from Apollo. Even worse, the ring stops and hovers in front of him, as if it's trying to determine whether he's a worthy candidate. A ruthless tyrannical monster he may be, but if there's one thing Darkseid has, it's willpower.
- A shot of Batman overlooking the crashed Kryptonian ship is framed and lit in a way that, fittingly, makes him look like an eyeless demon.
- It's a much more mundane kind of nightmare fuel, but the way the truck crashes into Victor and Elinore's car is more than guaranteed to make one gasp in horror.
- Cyborg's vision of a future where Darkseid claims Earth. Not least of which is that - unlike Bruce's nightmare - there's a strong implication that this future might actually happen regardless of what they do now.
- The Amazons light a funeral pyre for their fallen princess Diana, which means that not even the killer of gods was enough to stop the invasion of Apokolips.
- Also, there are Apokoliptian spacecrafts hovering overhead - with Darkseid observing from one of them - which means the Amazons are completely exposed now. To see this Proud Warrior Race living like refugees is truly harrowing.
- Darkseid invades Atlantis and impales Aquaman on his own trident while killing another Atlantean (Vulko?) with his Omega Beams. Appropriately enough, the path of the beams looks like it's spelling the word "END".
- Immediately after that, the following shot has him turning towards the camera with a his eyes glowing red. (picture above).
- At some point, Darkseid manages to sneak up on Superman and lays a hand on his shoulder, not unlike Xerxes tempting Leonidas or Bane threatening Daggett. The look on Superman's face is one of pure, utter fear, immediately followed by a zombified stare. To say nothing of Lois's bones in Superman's arms.
- The whole vision really showcases how terrifyingly powerful Darkseid is. Darkseid's power level has varied throughout the years and different continuities, sometimes being depicted as Orcus on His Throne. Here, he not only steps into the fray himself, he tears through the most powerful metahumans in the entire world like it's nothing.
- What the ship says right after Victor's vision ends (and Flash moves forward with the plan of resurrecting Superman) is creepy and ominous at once: "The future has now taken root into the present." Meaning that once Superman is resurrected, what Cyborg saw stopped being a potential outcome for the current course of action and started being... inevitable even. The creepy monotone delivery from the ship definitely doesn’t help.
- In fact, neither does Victor's horrified reaction to his vision.Flash: Victor?Victor: No.Flash: Go?!
- In fact, neither does Victor's horrified reaction to his vision.
- Fridge Horror on all of this. If the Justice League revives Superman, Darkseid will eventually enslave him and turn Earth into a Hellscape. If they let Superman rest in peace, Steppenwolf will eventually cut them down and take their Motherbox, turning Earth into a Hellscape. The Flash was able to avert at least one of these, but he left them open to the other. In spite of these heroes' best efforts, they can't save the Earth forever.
- The Amazons light a funeral pyre for their fallen princess Diana, which means that not even the killer of gods was enough to stop the invasion of Apokolips.
- Steppenwolf taps the Atlantean Mother Box and finds himself in a simulated environment. He puts two and two together, realizing Earth contains the Anti-Life Equation. Wasting no time, he tells Darkseid this. Earth is now at the mercy of one of the most dangerous beings in The Multiverse.
- Darkseid's holographic projection, which looks like it's made of lava.
- When Steppenwolf is contacting Darkseid, a bunch of hunched, dark, and armor-less Parademons can be seen alongside the soldier ones, hinting that they're workers/slaves instead. Again, those were people before being turned into such creatures.
- The sight of Parademons emerging from the sea with helpless, suffocating Atlantean guards in their clutches is nothing short of nightmarish.
- The scene itself feels straight out of a horror movie: the grimy color palette, creepy island, black silhouettes of the Parademons, Steppenwolf towering over the defenseless Atlantean soldier before grabbing and tossing him over a rock (splattering it with blood) before Steppenwolf pulls out a spider-like being that creepily crawls on the guard’s face: viewers would be forgiven to think that it was gonna crawl inside his mouth ala Alien by this point, but thankfully it’s just used to forcefully reveal information.
- Resurrected Superman's rampage... from Barry's perspective. Imagine knowing that no one can harm or even touch you when you're going at super-speed, you feel safe, you feel confident. Then you face someone whom not only can reach your speed but whose punches can shatter stone. And he's trying to hit you, and you don't have super durability. To top it all off, that someone used to be your hero. The look of pure Oh, Crap! on Barry's face when he sees Superman spotting him is one for the books.
- When Barry doesn't make it in time to help Victor disrupt the Unity, Victor's face goes blank and he says "It's too late" in a voice that doesn't sound natural. Even when the Unity explodes, he seems to just stare into space.
- While Flash reversing time is a certified Moment of Awesome, the reversed slow-motion process of Superman and Cyborg's flesh being disintegrated from their bones is incredibly chilling to watch. For a few moments, after the Unity exploded, the rest of the Justice League really were dead. Even Superman, who survived a nuclear missile's blast in space, was disintegrated.
- As Cyborg tries to divide the Mother Boxes, he finds himself in an apocalyptic world where his parents are still alive, accompanied by an unscathed doppelganger of Victor himself. In a fashion reminiscent of For the Man Who Has Everything, they try to tempt Cyborg, telling him that if he lets Darkseid win, he can live out his days with his parents again, with his old body restored. The empty, glassy-eyed smiles on their faces are the cherry on top.
- Cyborg resists this, at which point the three illusions turn into three terrifying hags with glowing eyes. When the illusion dissipates, we see the hags are still present and writhing in Cyborg's grasp. In other words, Cyborg has witnessed the true forms of the Mother Boxes!
- While it is karmic, Steppenwolf's death is brutal. He’s impaled through the back by Aquaman, punched through the portal by Superman, and beheaded by Wonder Woman just before entering it. We also get a glimpse of his face, his eyes still wide open and glowing blue, before Darkseid crushes his head under his foot.
- Worse so when you consider that decapitation, or more clinically disruption of blood/oxygen flow to the brain, isn't instant death, just unconsciousness followed shortly by brain death. For the average human, it can take a few seconds to lose consciousness from cut off blood flow. For a much stronger creature like Steppenwolf, he'd likely last much longer, meaning he could very well have been fully conscious as his head rolled on the floor, under Darkseid's boot, only to see his master crush his head unceremoniously.
- And of course, befitting a glimpse into a possible "Knightmare" future... let's just say Jared Leto took full advantage of Zack Snyder's invitation to reprise his role. In the only scene where the DCEU!Batman and DCEU!Joker ever directly talk to each other, the Joker blames Batman for letting Lois Lane die, which led to the creation of the Knightmare timeline and taunts him with the death of Robin, with Batman clearly becoming angrier as the conversation goes along.
- Jared Leto’s unsettling, grimy appearance compared to his Suicide Squad (2016) cleanliness almost borders on Unintentional Uncanny Valley, especially his teeth which are so dirty you can't even tell if he's got those metal caps from before. This is definitely not helped by the extreme close-ups in the scene. At one point, it looks like he’s looking directly into the camera.
- It's a somewhat moot point in the Knightmare timeline, but the Joker knows that Bruce is Batman.
- It's implied that Knightmare Batman has at least somewhat fallen back upon his one rule, but immediately makes it clear that he won't spare the Joker when the time comes.
[Harley Quinn] begged me, with her last breath, that when I killed you — and make no mistake, I will fucking kill you — that I'd do it slow. I'm gonna honor that promise.- One detail that enhances the creepiness of this interaction is the music. Right when Batman promises to kill the Joker, the music drifts into a distorted reprise of the piano part from "What Are You Going To Do When You Are Not Saving the World". Considering less than a minute later Superman catches up to them, it could be taken as a hint that he's listening from afar.
- Joker asks Batman how many other timelines he's going to screw up in trying to Set Right What Once Went Wrong to defeat Darkseid. Now Future-Barry's line about going too far back while delivering his Ominous Message from the Future to Bruce back in Dawn of Justice becomes a lot more unsettling in hindsight...
- Something that makes his appearance in the film creepier is how calm Joker is through the entire scene, managing to make an already creepy character into something skincrawlingly frightening just by how detached and relaxed he is for the entire scene.
- This deleted scene also reveals that this Batman and Joker went through events similar to A Death in the Family.
"By the way... who do you think screamed the loudest? The girl? Or the boy..."
