Justice League Epilogue Scene Almost Included A Green Lantern

In the final moments of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) gets an unexpected visit from a fan-favorite DC hero. If Snyder had his way, though, the scene would have played out a little bit differently. The filmmaker reveals that his original plan for the scene was to introduce Green Lantern John Stewart in the movie’s final moments, but that WarnerMedia asked him not to, apparently because they have specific plans for how they hope to use him in live action. Instead, Snyder went ahead to use another character, whose appearance in the film was expected but whose interactions with Batman were a surprise.

This might explain those rumors that Snyder was hoping to get Ryan Reynolds to come back for a cameo as Hal Jordan, a part he played in the 2011 box office disappointment Green Lantern. Reynolds took to Twitter last night, to drink gin and watch Green Lantern for the first time since its release while tweeting out snarky jokes as well as heartfelt thanks to the people who worked hard on the movie, regardless of its eventual reputation.

Minor spoilers ahead for Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

In the movie’s closing scene, fans got to see a second shot of Harry Lennix as Martian Manhunter. After having first appeared earlier in the movie, shapeshifting into Martha Kent (Diane Lane) to give Lois Lane (Amy Adams) some much-needed motivation to get back to work, he pops up again in the end, making his presence known to Batman and volunteering his help to the Justice League.

“We shot a version of this scene with Green Lantern, but the studio really fought me and said, ‘We really don’t want you to do Green Lantern,’” Snyder told Vanity Fair. “So I made a deal with them, and they let me do this [instead].”

Lennix debuted in Man of Steel, in the role of General Swanwick. It was he who appeared onstage at Comic Con with Zack Snyder when Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was announced, and fans have long suspected that he would turn out to be the shape-shifting Martian Manhunter. The character can look like anyone, but in most recent media adaptations has been played by Black men with deep, sometimes booming voices, including Phil Morris, Carl Lumbly, and David Harewood. John Stewart, one of DC’s first notable Black heroes, first appeared in the 1970s as a replacement Green Lantern during one of a number of periods when Hal Jordan was not a part of the Green Lantern Corps. He has never appeared in live action yet, although a version of the character — John Diggle, whose stepfather’s surname is Stewart — was a major character on Arrow and got a Green Lantern ring in that show’s series finale.

The Vanity Fair piece suggests that MartianManhunter may not have appeared in Justice League had Snyder been able to use a Green Lantern, although that may not be true since, as noted, Martian Manhunter appeared in an earlier scene that was so specific to his power set that it could not have been a Green Lantern doing it.