Sunday was like Christmas Day come early for the close-knit Snyder Cut community. A stable of steady Snyder Cut streamers who host daily and weekly DC talk shows banded together to pull off a day-long Deck the Hall of Justice celebration for all things Justice League. The streams set a goal of raising money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, a charity that is very close to the hearts of Zack and Debbie Snyder. And to help drum up awareness for the streams, Snyder himself spent the bulk of the day popping in and out of shows, interacting with hosts and fans and sharing all sorts of fun bits of information.
Toward the end of the evening, two of the most popular DC and Snyder Cut streamers, Dave Pena and Chris Wong Swenson, hosted the two-hour “The Snyder Claus” that featured Zack Snyder for the entirety. And over the course of their conversation, they covered plans that Snyder might have for more Justice League after his Snyder Cut airs on HBO Max (and, potentially, in theaters). And the director decided to share a piece of his plan, if it were to come to fruition:
I don’t think anything is going to happen right away. But Jim (Lee) and I talk quite a bit. And we talked a lot about maybe doing a book or a comic book down the road just to kind of finish this. We haven’t locked anything in, but if it’s a thing that would be interesting to the fandom, they can always ask Jim about it.
And with that bomb, Jim Lee’s mentions likely are toast. Jim Lee currently is the publisher and Chief Creative Officer for DC Comics. He’s the man that many look to in the DC community as potentially being the Kevin Feige for DC, the one who oversees creative avenues and steers creative ships in ways that few have between DC and Warner Bros. And just to hear that Snyder and Lee talk often has to excite many about the possibility of extending the SnyderVerse of stories once Justice League (the real Justice League) releases on HBO Max.
One of the areas that Zack Snyder went on to describe as he discussed the possibilities of exploring his world through comics was the post-apocalyptic world that exists after Darkseid has come to Earth and succeeded. This is a Knightmare sequence that many fans expect to see in Snyder’s cut of Justice League, and he talks on “The Snyder Claus” about a “ragtag team that’s left alive” who are trying to restore order. That team, according to rumors, is going to include Batman (Ben Affleck), Joker (Jared Leto), Deathstroke (Joe Manganiello) and perhaps a few more surprises… if the rumors being shared around are true. And Snyder elaborated that one of the geeky ideas that he and Jim Lee were nerding on about would include a story WITHIN that story. He said:
Inside of that story, we would also do the backstory of Joker killing Robin. That would be the thing that… because the Joker is somehow involved with the stealing of the Motherbox and using it to create the Treadmill. In my mind, it was always going to be that Cyborg was going to do the math and figure out, ‘This is what we’ve got to do to go back in time to warn Bruce correctly.’ But I always thought that a lot of the conflict that was happening there was Bruce reliving the events that (are) the death of Robin, and what went into that. I was like, ‘That’d be a fun comic book. Even just the death of Robin, reliving that world, just as like a nice, little one-off.’
Man, Zack, slow down with the bombs! He shares that Joker is responsible for the theft of the Motherbox that helps the team create the Cosmic Treadmill?! And that Batman reluctantly teams with Joker to pull this off, but in doing so, reflects back to the horrific way that Joker (Jared Leto) killed Robin? Dark! How much of this are we actually going to see when the Snyder Cut of Justice League finally drops?
If we are thinking practically, a comic book is the easiest way to extend the story that Zack Snyder thought he would be able to tell back in 2017. His theatrical cut of Justice League was meant to continue a story and set up sequels. Time has passed, and this might be the only live-action story Snyder gets to tell in this universe. Actor contracts, budgets, the suspicious state of the theatrical model… all of these factors play into how difficult it would be to mount more SnyderVerse content in live action. But graphic novels? That’s a no-brainer for DC. But Snyder quickly couches his expectations, saying:
We’ll see. It could be cool, but who knows? Nothing exists right now. We’re just talking! That’s it.
Then again, that’s how the Snyder Cut movement started. Just talk. But it grew and grew, and got louder and louder, until Warner Bros. and DC couldn’t ignore the calls any longer. If you want to read the full story of how Snyder’s fans got the Snyder Cut of Justice League released, I wrote a book entitled “Release the Snyder Cut” that you can pre-order right now. It drops on March 1, 2021.
And as for Snyder’s Justice League, that’s expected to be on HBO Max in March, as well, following up on the release of Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984 on Christmas Day. Given the fact that HBO Max and Warner Media have worked out a deal where their biggest blockbusters are now going to theaters and streaming on a day-and-date model, this leads many Snyder fans to hope and pray that they will be able to see Justice League in the theatrical presentation that Snyder prefers (with IMAX ratio shifts and all). That has yet to be decided, and we need to see how safe theaters are in a few months, so basically, stay tuned for a very busy year in the realm of DC Entertainment.
