A Justice League-centric issue of Hollywood Spotlight Magazine offers fans new information about the superhero blockbuster’s “central villain,” Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds). Mild spoilers ahead:
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“The uncle of the universe’s greatest villain, Darkseid, and a member of his elite force, Steppenwolf survived a battle with Doomsday. That should tell you just how powerful he is. Aside from his strength and near-immortality, he’s also an expert tactician and wields a vicious electro-axe that can cut through just about anything.
Steppenwolf’s primary role is as the leader of the parademons, the storm troopers who seek to destroy in the name of Darkseid. His primary mission is to serve his nephew, and his status as the main villain in Justice League suggests the scope of the threat facing Earth, as well as the inevitable appearance of Darkseid himself.
Irish star Ciaran Hinds plays the role in the movie, though he will appear through the use of motion-capture technology. According to the actor, in the film, Steppenwolf is old, tired, and trying desperately to get out from under his servitude to his nephew.”
The newest report contradicts a change that was reported earlier this month, which had stated Steppenwolf would be Darkseid’s nephew. It appears now that Justice League will maintain the familial relationship between the two villains, and Darkseid is the nephew of Steppenwolf, just like in the comics.
It’s presumed that Darkseid will be the big bad come the Justice League sequel, which is currently being developed.
Another interesting tidbit is the mention of Doomsday: in the comics, Steppenwolf survived an encounter with Doomsday 245,000 years ago when the creature came to the planet of Bylan 5.
In the movie universe, the hulking monstrosity was created by Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) as a biological weapon of destruction in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. There, Luthor took the corpse of General Zod (Michael Shannon) and submerged it in fluid along with the presence of Luthor’s blood. The Kryptonian space ship called the action forbidden, saying, “It has been decreed by the council of Krypton that none will ever again give life to a deformity so hateful to sight and memory, the desecration without name.” Metamorphosis then took place, giving life to Luthor’s blasphemous creation.
It sure would be interesting if Luthor’s Doomsday wasn’t the first time a Kryptonian was twisted into such a hateful deformity — the computer’s warning against the forbidden action outright tells us it’s happened before — and with Steppenwolf being as old as he is, who’s to say he hasn’t come across one of those creatures before?
We’ll get our answers when Justice League hits theaters November 17.
