Although much has been revealed about the Justice League Snyder Cut, the specifics of Superman’s resurrection remain one of its biggest lingering mysteries. By now, it is well-known that the theatrical version of Justice League veered far off course from what Zack Snyder had planned for the superhero ensemble, with the movie having undergone extensive reshoots following Snyder’s departure in the aftermath of a family tragedy.
Two years on from the theatrical release of Justice League, the campaign for the release of the Snyder Cut has grown bigger than ever, with now even Marvel movie stars showing their support for it. Snyder has also done plenty to keep interest going himself by dropping regular teases of his cut of Justice League on social media. Although these have revealed a great deal about the contrast of the two versions of the film, to the point where the Snyder Cut is now clearly a different movie altogether, Snyder has revealed surprisingly little about the return of Superman in the movie following his death in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Despite the lack of direct information relating to the Man of Steel’s revival that Snyder has revealed, however, bits of information from other social media teases he has made offer clues about what Superman’s resurrection in the Justice League Snyder Cut may have looked like.
Superman’s Return Was Meant To Be “Much Much More”
As presented in Justice League’s theatrical version, Bruce Wayne devises a plan to put Superman’s body into the Genesis Chamber of the Kryptonian scout ship and use one of the Mother Boxes to bring him back to life. After Flash uses his super speed to give the process a kick start, the plan succeeds and the Last Son of Krypton is back, albeit emerging with his memory clouded and battling the League in Heroes Park after perceiving them as a threat. Ultimately, Batman recruits Lois Lane as “the big gun” to bring Clark Kent back to his senses.
Once Snyder began teasing his version of Justice League after the movie’s release, it would soon become clear just how different it was from the theatrical version, with such elements as General Swanwick being revealed as Martian Manhunter solidifying the distinction between the two. Amid Snyder’s social media reveals, it would eventually emerge that Superman’s resurrection was also changed, and apparently to a much greater extent than many had previously suspected.
Specifically, when Zack Snyder was asked by a follower on Vero regarding the dirt rising off of Clark’s coffin at the end of Batman v Superman, and if this was meant to factor into his return in Justice League, he replied that “it was more much much more”. Although doesn’t reveal any detailed information, it nevertheless definitively establishes that Snyder’s intended revival of Superman was yet another casualty of the movie’s reshoots.
What Is Known About Superman’s Revival In The Snyder Cut
While Zack Snyder has hasn’t given much hard information on Superman’s resurrection, other teases he’s dropped relating to the Justice League Snyder Cut, along with other facts that have surfaced, have offered the occasional nugget on that aspect of the movie. One of his most recent teases indicates that Justice League was intended to revisit Superman’s death in its opening, while another would establish that Arthur Curry, Diana Prince, Barry Allen, and Victor Stone were all involved with the retrieval of Kal-El’s body, as opposed to only the latter two in the theatrical cut. Additionally, the Knightmare future seen in Batman v Superman was also to meant to factor into the League’s revival of Superman.
Specifically, Cyborg was to see a vision of the future in which Superman sided with Darkseid during his interface with the scout ship. This, in turn, was what triggered his armor’s defense system to interpret Superman as a threat after the Man of Steel’s resurrection. The Heroes Park battle itself was also much larger in scale in the Snyder Cut, with a previs of the battle leaking online, along with a snippet of Snyder’s original plan seen in the first proper trailer with Cyborg deflecting a military Humvee from landing on a police officer before advising, “You should probably move.”
A still of Cyborg preparing to defend his father Silas in STAR Labs from Steppenwolf also indicates that the villain’s retrieval of the final Mother Box was also in the mix of Superman’s return. Additionally, two deleted scenes released on home media would show Kal-El in the scout ship, passing his famed black suit before emerging in the classic red and blue, then subsequently meeting a stunned Alfred Pennyworth, who comments “He said you’d come. Now let’s hope you’re not too late.” All in all, the evidence available indicates that while much remains unknown about the exact nature of Superman’s resurrection in the Snyder Cut, it was ultimately just as impacted by the reshoots as the rest of the movie was.
Why Was The Resurrection Of Superman Altered?
Although Snyder’s words and the various other tidbits that have been made public indicate the return of Superman as another stark departure from his plan for Justice League, they still don’t leave a whole lot to go on when it comes to comparing it to what was presented in the theatrical cut. Batman v Superman offers a bit of a foundation to work from in this regard, with Lex Luthor using the Genesis Chamber to revive General Zod as Doomsday, indicating that it still likely played a substantial role in the League’s efforts to bring Superman back. However, it goes without saying that the League did not want Kal-El to return as a rampaging monster, a point that even the theatrical version goes out of its way to emphasize, which opens more questions about how Snyder’s version of the Superman resurrection unfolded. Furthermore, the presence of the Kryptonian codex in Superman’s DNA offers additional evidence of the greater complexity of his return, and given how much of a plot point the codex served as in Man of Steel, it seems likely to have factored into his resurrection in Justice League in some capacity.
As with the film as a whole, the changes made to Superman’s return in Justice League can be chalked up to the studio’s efforts to distance the movie from Snyder’s previous DC films. With Man of Steel and Batman v Superman each drawing a divisive reception (with the latter being arguably the most polarizing comic book movie ever made), rumors would emerge of Snyder’s cut being described as “unwatchable” after an early showing to studio executives. While the specifics of what prompted such an internal response are unknown, it also indicates that despite undergoing a rewrite following the reception of Batman v Superman, Snyder’s version of Justice League nevertheless remained in-sync with his prior DC movies. With the reshoots being implemented to put as much distance between Justice League and Snyder’s two previous DCEU movies as possible, it only stands to reason that Snyder’s vision for the Man of Steel’s return would go through its own tinkering and revamping.
The topic of the Snyder Cut has never been as visible and omnipresent as what it has risen to in the past few weeks. As of now, Warner Bros. has not announced any immediate release plans, but with no end in sight for the rapidly growing demand for it to see the light of day, the issue is clearly never going to slip through the cracks at this point. While the many reveals Zack Snyder has made about his version of Justice League have ensured that to be the case, the original nature of Superman’s resurrection in the Snyder Cut remains one of the biggest question marks of the movie, along with one of the factors keeping interest in its release high.
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