'Justice League': What Is Planet Apokolips?

Millennia ago, in the time before the Old Gods died, it took the combined armies of man, Amazon, and Atlantean to turn back an invasion by Steppenwolf, the uncle to Darkseid, the DC Universe's greatest despot and the leader of a world known as Apokolips.

That is the mythology behind Justice League, the just-released team-up film that brings together the various heroes of DC's film universe in their biggest and arguably brightest adventure yet.

While most of the names familiar to fans of Jack Kirby's Fourth World saga weren't said out loud in the Justice League movie, it is worth stating that, yes, when you hear the word it is not just a misspelling of "Apocalypse."

The narrative of Justice League centers on Steppenwolf, who had been turned away but not killed thousands of years ago, emerging from his exile to reclaim and assemble three Mother Boxes. The alien technology, which has seemingly limitless potential, is most powerful when the three are combined, creating a powerful and deadly wave of destruction that allows Steppenwolf and his Parademons to conquer or even destroy worlds.

In the comics, Steppenwolf is the leader of Apokolips's armies and one of a small number of New Gods who has come to Earth without Darkseid before to invade. The New Gods are a group of powerful beings, divided into the worlds of Apokolips and New Genesis, with the bad guys on the former and the good guys on the latter. He has not, however, generally been the center of major storylines, since whenever Darkseid is part of a story, he tends to take it over completely.

Justice League is in theaters today.