For the first time in the DCEU, Justice League followed the Marvel model of featuring two post-credits scenes at the end of the movie. The first was a quick bit of extra fun, involving the Flash and the Man of Steel re-enacting their classic race from the comics. The second was a much juicier sequence, however, teasing a major threat to come for the League.
If you recall, it began at Arkham Asylum, where a guard finds a laughing inmate in place of Lex Luthor. The real one is sitting aboard his luxury ship, where he’s in a meeting with none other than Slade Wilson AKA Deathstroke. Luthor has a proposition for the assassin: “[Superman] and his odd little friends have formed a sort of… league,” the villain explains. “We have to level the playing field, Mr. Wilson. To put it plainly, shouldn’t we have a league of our own?”
While it’s a great little tease, fans will surely know that originally, Lex was going to have a few more scenes in the pic, before they got cut. And while we probably won’t ever see them, we do have the next best thing today: concept art. Down in the gallery below, which also includes some cool behind the scenes shots from production, we get a look at Luthor behind bars, presumably thinking about his next move or plotting an escape.
Admittedly, it’s not much, but it does give us some idea of what could’ve been. It’s no secret that a large portion of the fanbase are crying out to see Zack Snyder’s original cut – or at least, what there is of it that exists in a finished state – and one thing that many are curious about is how large of a role Luthor had before Whedon’s reshoots removed him from most of the movie.
Reports regarding how involved the character would have been are conflicting, but thanks to this concept art, we can now confirm that we would’ve been able to spend some time with him in prison. Whether any further art will surface, we don’t know, but this is definitely a welcome look at one of Justice League‘s deleted scenes and should tide fans over nicely until the film arrives on Blu-ray on March 13th (pre-order here).