The multiverse is a concept with which comic-book audiences are growing very familiar. It is currently being used by Sony and Marvel in Spider-Man: No Way Home to bring classic characters from existing franchises into Tom Holland’s world. And in 2022, Warner Bros. will attempt to apply the same rules to its DCEU, bringing classic heroes and villains in Ezra Miller’s world of The Flash. The biggest one, which we knew for a while, was Michael Keaton’s Batman, returning to the screen for the first time since Tim Burton’s Batman Returns. And now we are able to confirm that Man of Steel villains Michael Shannon and Antje Traue will reprise their roles of General Zod and Faora, furthering continuing the SnyderVerse of characters and actors that Zack Snyder established in 2013.
This news was part of a 2022 Preview Kit that Warner Bros. put on its press site. There isn’t any real plot details for how Zod and Faora will be part of The Flash. But their names are in the cast list opposite Ezra Miller, Kiersey Clemons, Sasha Calle (playing Supergirl), Ron Livingston (replacing Billy Crudup as Henry Allen), and Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne. One name absent from the cast list, however, is Ben Affleck… though there have been several indications that the Justice League star would appear opposite Miller as he tries to carry the first ever Flash film.
Andy Muschietti’s The Flash is rumored to be a loose adaptation of the Flashpoint story from DC’s Comics, where Flash tries to go back in time and prevent the death of his mother, creating a butterfly effect that creates massive problems in the existing DC timeline. As we saw in the first trailer for The Flash, this ability to cross universes puts Miller’s Flash on the path to meet Michael Keaton’s Batman. But now we know there will be other elements from Zack Snyder’s movies carrying over into the DCEU.
Does this mean that the SnyderVerse has been restored? Yes, and no. Die-hard Zack Snyder fans will argue that this isn’t even close. What they’d prefer is for Warner Bros. to allow Snyder to return to the world that he constructed with Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and his four-hour Justice League cut, which landed on HBO Max earlier this year. And while that reunion COULD happen one day, at the moment Snyder seems content creating feature films for Netflix, including his sci-fi epic Rebel Moon, and more installments in his Army of the Dead saga.
But it‘s interesting to see a studio that was so ready to move on from Snyder’s vision for the DCEU keep using characters and actors that he cast in his movies, strengthening the ties that the new DCEU movies have to Snyder’s existing features and essentially making Snyder’s movies the strong foundation on which the DC future will be built. Gal Gadot is rumored to be appearing in Black Adam. Jason Momoa returns to play Arthur Curry in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. The next step should be the addition of Henry Cavill back in his Superman tights. It wouldn’t exactly be “Justice Is Served.” But it’d be a step in the right direction.
For now, the next major DC movie hitting theaters will be Matt Reeves’ The Batman, operating in its own universe and arriving on March 4. Look for The Flash, meanwhile, in theaters beginning on November 4 of next year.
