Zack Snyder’s long-awaited cut of Justice League will be released in just a few days, and after years of ceaseless drip-feeding, we’ll finally see how it turned out. Of course, it was originally conceived to kick off a trilogy, and some leaked storyboards have now teased the introduction of the Legion of Doom that was to feature in Justice League 2.
Although the images were only up for a matter of hours before Warner Bros. removed them, they showed enough to get an idea of the direction in which the planned trio of stories was to be taken. Presided over by Lex Luthor, this incarnation of the Legion would have consisted of returning enemies Ocean Master and Black Manta, who previously battled Aquaman, and Dr. Poison, a secondary antagonist from Wonder Woman, as well as Captain Cold and the Riddler, who were to respectively debut in The Flash and The Batman.
The plot would’ve involved the Riddler solving the Anti-Life Equation, a formula for dominating the will of all sentient beings that’s often interpreted as a mathematically defied proof of the utter futility of continuing to live. As such, the puzzle-obsessed villain would kill himself in front of Batman, but not before Darkseid gets wind of the discovery and comes to Earth in search of it.
Meanwhile, Black Manta and Ocean Master team up to kill Aquaman, Dr. Poison takes out Wonder Woman, Captain Cold attacks the Flash, in the process destroying half of Cyborg’s body when he intervenes, and Superman under Darkseid’s control incinerates Luthor with heat vision. All of this leads to the Knightmare post-apocalyptic hellscape teased in Batman v Superman, and would be undone by the Flash travelling back in time in Justice League 3.
Although Justice League is currently intended to be a standalone feature, rumblings of #RestoreTheSnyderVerse are continuing to get louder, so depending on how successful the four-hour experience becomes upon release, some version of the planned story may yet come to pass.