Justice League is inching ever closer to its release date, and as such new details about the film and its characters are starting to leak out. Today's latest reveal involves the one and only Victor Stone a.k.a. Cyborg, who is a major character at the heart of Justice League played by actor Ray Fisher. Comic book fans are likely familiar with Cyborg and his origins: He's a former football star who was terribly injured in a sci-fi accident, forcing his father to save his life by turning him into a fusion between man and machine. It turns out that while the major beats will be the same in the film, the specifics will differ, as Cyborg's injury will be in a car accident rather than a laboratory explosion.
Justice League recently held a promotional event in the Philippines, and one fan in attendance snapped pictures of some of the marketing materials used for the film, posting them to Twitter. Said materials feature mini character bios on each member of the team - even Superman! - and while most of them contain information we already knew, Cyborg's bio has just a snippet of new information. In the DC Extended Universe, Victor receives life-threatening injuries in a car accident, leading his father, Silas Stone (Joe Morton), to use an Apokoliptian Mother Box to reconstruct his son's body (something you can see briefly in Cyborg's very short Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice cameo). While the change in of itself isn't too big a deal, it does differ a lot from what happens in the comics.
Due to DC Comics' tendency to reboot itself every few years, Cyborg essentially has two origins. In his original incarnation, he was visiting his parents' lab when an experiment in inter-dimensional travel went awry. A monster crossed over through a portal and mutilated Victor, which led to his father turning him into a cyborg. The New 52 version from 2011 (from which the film takes some direct inspiration) is directly tied to the Justice League. In this origin, Victor is blasted with interdimensional energy from an Apokoliptian Boom Tube, pretty much ripping him to pieces. His father once again saves his life by making him a half-human/half-machine superhero.
It's not too hard to understand why Justice League opted to change how Cyborg gets injured. Getting your life ruined by an unpredictable car crash is a bit more relatable than having your atoms blasted by an alien portal. Plus, the time frame of the DCEU means that Cyborg has to already be Cyborg before the movie starts, so the direct Apokolips ties don't really work. Instead, we're getting a reference to it in the form of Silas Stone using a motherbox - which is going to prove to be very important in the Zack Snyder blockbuster. After all, we've learned that there are multiple motherboxes set up around Earth (see also the Wonder Woman epilogue), and they will have a role to play in bringing Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds) and his army of Parademons to our planet.
We'll have to wait until Justice League is released before we learn the full details of Cyborg's origins, but we do already know that it was some car crash. Here's a reminder of what Victor looked like pre-Cyborg, courtesy of his Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice cameo):
Justice League is set to hit theaters on November 17, 2017. Tickets aren't available just yet, but you can use the link here to pre-order them once they are. To learn more about the blockbuster, here's everything we know so far.
