Warning: major spoilers for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice are ahead!
After hacking into Lex Luthor’s files from his private database in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Batman discovered (and later showed Wonder Woman) footage of some of the world’s “metahumans.” One of those videos was of S.T.A.R. Labs scientist Dr. Silas Stone, who was recording his efforts to rebuild his injured son, Victor. Moments later, moviegoers watched as Victor was transformed into Cyborg, who, like in the current New 52 comics, will become one of the founding members of the Justice League. However, director Zack Snyder mainly included this moment to highlight how important he’ll be in the future.
Although it was important to set up Cyborg, along with Aquaman and Flash, as one of the DCEU’s top superheroes, Zack Snyder explained to EW that it was important the audience understand Victor’s roots. As he put it:
I really wanted to show Cyborg’s birth because I feel like he plays such a strong part coming up, and I really wanted to give a sense of him. I really want [the audience] to know how far he’s come.
Just like his comic book counterpart, Ray Fisher’s Victor Stone is a promising football player who is horribly injured in a tragic accident and loses most of his limbs. Desperate to save his son, Dr. Silas Stone uses all of the cutting-edge, prototype, and even alien technology at his disposal to keep Victor alive, and the result is Cyborg. In the pre-New 52 universe, Cyborg went on to join the Teen Titans, but over the last couple years, he’s better known as one of the first Justice Leaguers, a position he’ll retain in Justice League: Part One.
Silas Stone’s first couple video entries in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice showed him lamenting how he couldn’t help his son. Then in the last entry, Silas sounds more hopeful about his Victor’s chances, and it was thanks to a floating, shapeshifting cube in the lab. That cube then broke apart and attached itself to Victor, who screamed in pain as he was transformed into his cyborg self. It wasn’t explained what this cube was in the movie, but just as hardcore fans speculated, Snyder confirmed today it was a Mother Box. He said:
That’s the first glimpse of the Mother Box there. It was an agonizing birth.
Mother Boxes are sentient, portable, super-intelligent supercomputers from the Fourth World mythology in the DC universe. One of their many functions is healing a user, which we saw it to do to Victor. They are mainly used by the denizens of both New Genesis and Apokolips, but because Victor was merged with one, he’s been turned into a technopath. We have yet to learn how Silas obtained a Mother Box in the DCEU, but considering one of those alien cubes was one of the components used in rebuilding Victor in the New 52 universe, it makes sense that it was key in the creation of the cinematic Cyborg. Along with the Darkseid hints sprinkled throughout Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, this is further proof that the New Gods will likely to play a key role in the entire DCEU.
Cyborg will return to the big screen for Justice League: Part One on November 17, 2017, and he’ll lead his own movie on April 3, 2020.
