Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Ultimate Edition cut landed on digital today, giving fans the opportunity to plow through a longer, R-rated cut of the superhero blockbuster, as well as numerous additional features that explain the making of the film. Because Dawn of Justice is supposed to lead into the Justice League movie, there's a piece of concept art included in the special features that shows off what the team will look like once they are gathered together. And while some of the heroes look similar to what we were able to see during our recent set visit to Snyder's Justice League movie, other costumes look VERY different, leading me to believe that this is early concept art that has definitely changed and evolved over time.
First, here's the artwork, without a watermark, as provided by the Twitter account @nighthawkj2:
Looks like the Justice League, right? And it is, though I can tell you that there are subtle but distinct differences to these heroes that I managed to see on the set of Justice League that are NOT reflected properly in this art.
Right off the bat, I can tell you that the Trinity -- Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman -- look very similar to what was shown to us on the set of Justice League. Wonder Woman's costume, in particular, doesn't look like it changed too drastically from Batman v Superman to the Justice League film. Batman will make some upgrades, which I have detailed here, and Superman is dead. Isn't he? OK, fine. IF he returns, he'll likely look like the hero seen in the above photo. We only saw Supes in one piece of concept art on the Justice League set, and he looked like this.
As for the new members of the team?
Cyborg
The biggest difference I can tell you with regards to Cyborg is the amount of face that is being shown. In the most up-to-date concept art we were shown on the Justice League set, only ¼ of Ray Fisher's face was actually shown, and the rest was CGI metal that was covering his entire body, with that signature glowing red eye. This concept art also gives Cyborg a dark black body suit, almost RoboCop-esque in its design. The new design has more silver worked into the body. This is the most significant difference that I saw on Cyborg. His chest had the glowing red circle (which isn't part of this concept art). The red traced through into his stomach and rib cage, and was much more pronounced than it is here (because here, it's non-existent). In multiple art pieces, we saw Cyborg rocking his massive cannon arm, too, and there will be cybernetic pieces that come out of his back and arms. It's clear that Cyborg, because he is CGI, is developing daily, and this look is very basic compared to what we were shown on the Justice League set.
What about The Flash? Read on.
The Flash
There aren't a lot of differences that you can make to the Flash costume, but the subtle tweaks seen in the Concept Art are different enough from what we saw, so I wanted to point them out. Here's an up-close look at Barry Allen in the Concept Art.
So, what's different? A lot. There's no white on the Flash costume that we saw in the Costume Department of Justice League. No white behind the lightning bolt on his chest. No white on the inside of his arms. No white on his sides, where his pockets go. The suit, which looked more like armor and less like this form-fitting leotard, was red and gold, and the gold trims were in different locations from this
Then, there's the cowl. The eyes look similar, but different. (Sorry) But it's the gold bolts coming off the head. They aren't part of the costume anymore. The DC Movie Flash has gold bars that almost look like elongated "7" on his head, and they do not protrude off of his head the way that these do.
The biggest thing missing from this early concept art? The new Flash costume will be wrapped in thin, but noticeable, wires that will generate electricity a Barry reaches top speeds. The inclusion of these wires, and the flashes that they will generate, make the DC Films suit look a lot more like the Injustice version of The Flash. This image is CLOSE, but still not 100% accurate.
Now, The Flash may have multiple suits in Justice League. The suit we saw in the Costume Workshop, on Ezra Miller as he filmed scenes, and in the finished scene screened by Zack Snyder was referred to as a prototype suit that Barry Allen was using to "test" his powers. It was beaten up and scratched, badly. But in later Concept Art, The Flash's suit had Wayne Tech logos on it, so changes will be coming. But they looked nothing like this Concept Art, so I think it's fair to say that it has evolved a great deal.
The same can be said for Aquaman. Read on.
Aquaman
Because Justice League will spend a decent amount of time in Atlantis -- where the Atlanteans are protecting one of three valuable Motherboxes -- we'll see Aquaman (Jason Momoa) in different costumes. We saw Aquaman in that scene from Batman v Superman (above). And in the Costume Department on Justice League, we saw a full-body armor costume for Momoa that had small scales weaved together in gold, black and dark green color patterns. But the material did NOT cross the chest the way that it does in this early Justice League concept art.
In addition to the Aquaman costume, we saw similar, armor-based designs for Mera (Amber Heard) and Vulko (Willem Dafoe), and they resembled -- in my opinion -- the Asgardians from Marvel's two Thor movies. The bulk of the body was covered, as opposed to the random exposure to Momoa's arms and chest that are shown in this early design.
And in one piece of Concept Art, we saw a bare-chested Jason Momoa wearing nothing but jeans.
It was awesome. Naturally, Justice League doesn't reach theaters for another 16 months, and as we reported in our full Batman costume breakdown, they might not film with certain suits for another couple of months, so designs are frequently changing. But what we saw a few weeks back on the Justice League set was SO DIFFERENT from this team concept art making the rounds that I wanted to clarify a few important details. So, what else do you want to know? Hit me up in the comments, and I'll try to answer them all.
