There’s an iconic image from Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis #6 of Superman holding a lifeless Batman. Fans have previously mused on the possibility that we would have eventually seen that had Zack Snyder stayed on in the DCEU. The director himself has hinted that was indeed the case, and now he’s made it official. Zack Snyder has confirmed his plan to kill Batman in the Justice League trilogy’s ‘final chapter.’
Zack Snyder, as he’s wont to do, has been talking on Vero about the most popular movie that the public has never seen: the so-called Snyder Cut of Justice League. He’s also been answering questions about Justice League and the plans he had for future DC films. One fan on Vero (via Reddit), asked him about when exactly he planned to sacrifice Batman to Darkseid. Zack Snyder responded:
We always had that plan we would see that in final chapter
There you have it. It was always part of Zack Snyder’s vision for the DCEU to eventually have Ben Affleck’s Batman fall in the battle with the stronger-than-Thanos, arch-DC villain, Darkseid. Presumably it would have been similar to the comics with Darkseid using his Omega Beams, but either way, Batman would have been down for the count.
According to Zack Snyder, this would have happened in the final chapter of the director's story. That means it would have been in Justice League 3. So even if by some miracle the mythic Snyder Cut of Justice League is released, we still won’t see Batman’s death onscreen.
Still, it’s interesting to hear what Zack Snyder had in mind for the Caped Crusader. It definitely has a bit of poetry to it. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice featured the death of Superman, who was then brought back in Justice League to begin the Justice League trilogy, with the intent to have the other face of DC fall in that trilogy’s closing chapter.
So everything was building towards the heartbreaking death of Batman in the Justice League’s climactic battle with the ruler of Apokolips. Of course, Batman comes back in the comics, but it’s unclear if Zack Snyder intended to do that or allow someone else to bring back the Caped Crusader after his run.
What’s interesting about all of this is that while fans continue to campaign and fight for the 'maybe it exists, maybe it doesn’t, maybe we’ll see it, maybe we won’t' Snyder Cut, Justice League was not the end of Zack Snyder’s vision for the DCEU. The director had more in mind with a five-film arc including Man of Steel, Batman v Superman and an entire Justice League trilogy, which apparently would have included Batman’s death in its final act.
Whether people would have liked this vision or not is up for debate, but it seems that Zack Snyder definitely had a plan for his DCEU. We’ll never see it in its entirety, but the director continues to provide little details that paint a picture for fans and provide ever more fuel to the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut fire, which unbelievably seems to burn brighter now, two years after Justice League’s release, than ever before.
Zack Snyder’s next film, Army of the Dead, is headed to Netflix, but does not have a release date as of yet. Check out our 2020 Release Schedule to see what movies are hitting the big screen next year.
