GothamBat
Protector of Gotham
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So Justice League was a dud for a lot of people, myself included. I can't recall a more disappointing movie-going experience in the last decade. I was thinking we could give our ideal version of how the film should have been. It can be a remake from the ground up or it can be slightly retooling things. Here's my attempt. Enjoy.
We start the movie with some shots of planet Earth with a title card that tells us when this is occurring (thousands of years ago) we cut to establishing shots of the Canadian Arctic and out of the atmosphere, the scout ship from Man of Steel crashes into the snowy landscape. We see a figure stumbling out of the ship. It's Kara Zor-el. She remarks how the planet she landed on has already been colonized by Krypton, many years prior to her ending up there and a few other little tidbits of exposition hinting at the circumstances of how she ended up there.
We get a sense of passage of time, we're shown mankind with amazons and Atlantians still living in harmony. The faction comprised of Atlantians haven't yet been made to live in the depths of the ocean but we do see king Atlan (this is supposed to be before the Amazons were enslaved and the subsequent revolt lead by Hippolyta and Antiope), We get a little bit of establishing the factions and some exposition and introduction to various human characters. These could be anyone, from civilians to warriors. I personally hated how insular and closed off the film we got felt, character-wise. We got no ancillary characters to enrich the movie and give it layers. We only got the heroes. Nobody else. That was a major let down for me. So yes, at least 3 human characters with names and distinct personalities.
The invasion starts to happen, the sky starts to turn red, ships start to swarm the sky. The three factions begin trying to thwart off the invading forces. After a while, it's clear that there's no way they can win and they're overwhelmed by Steppenwolf, his army of parademons and other alien entities. Mutated creatures with bone protrusions similar to doomsday along with other fourth world characters.
People are being turned into parademons and joining enemy ranks mid-battle. They would play up the shock factor and the body horror elements of this transformation. (This mutation would also tie back into the movie later). After a while we're shown a few humans, Amazons and Atlantians praying with their hands clasped together. This makes Hippolyta remember that she was once told that she could call upon the gods if the Earth were to be invaded. She gets on her horse, rides off and shoots that arrow with the mystical fire and it alerts the Greek Gods of the invasion (just so the arrow thing gets set up for later and for a bit of build up to the gods' epic entrance)
We get to see Mount Olympus where the gods are and how they react to the invasion. It's a big palatial building with fountains and columns and it's shrouded in clouds due to the altitude. We get a bit of interplay between the gods, we're shown some of their extraordinary powers. All the powers demonstrated by Ares in the final fight of the Wonder Woman movie except all these powers are coming from different gods, not all of them have all these powers (this also comes into play again later).
We see Zeus with his divine eletrokinesis, charging up his power from the electrical charge in the clouds, We see Hephaestus transmuting metal and rock to create godly weapons for them all to take with them into battle. All the gods are speaking in Latin with subtitles. In this scene, it'd be cool to throw in some epic line from Ares that went something like "The last thing I want is to fight alongside the mortals, but this is my domain." as he puts on his signature Greco-roman helmet.
We cut to the battle again and Kara has joined the fray (complete with black suit and cape with the house of El symbol) we also spot two green lanterns helping out where they can. Despite this, things still seem hopeless until 5 of the gods of Olympus teleport onto the battle field in epic fashion. Zeus, Ares, Athena, Poseidon and Artemis all start kicking all kinds of ass with a healthy dose of signature Snyder slow-fast-mo.
We get a few one-on-one fights between some of the stronger fourth world characters and the gods, Artemis blows up the invaders' ships one by one with her exploding arrows, Ares (young and in his prime with his Greco-roman attire) lays waste to like 50 people at a time in a destructive, frenzied indiscriminately fashion, killing humans and Amazons in the cross-fire, foreshadowing his eventual betrayal and showing his bloodlust. His sword can glow and be red and incandescent.
Zeus charges up all his eletrokinetic power and channels it into Athena's gauntlets (visual homage to how Wonder Woman killed Ares), Athena then clangs them together unleashing a huge blast that destroys the remainder of Steppenwolf's army and reverses the terraformation.
Steppenwolf is forced to retreat but vows that he'll be back to finish what he started. The gods split up the motherboxes, and in order to keep them apart, Atlantis and Themiscira are created. This would give a reason for the creation of Atlantis and the Island of Themiscria and how isolated they are from man's world. Yes this contradicts the story of Zeus creating the island with his dying breath but that didn't make a lot of sense in the first place and Hippolyta was likely lying about all kinds of stuff so it's not a retcon.
We then cut to black and we're told this is present day. We hear the newscaster: "The world remains in mourning after the death of the Superman", we get the montage of people mourning, of crime on the rise and the world losing hope, as well as reports of a string of mysterious kidnappings. What we got in the movie seemed extremely cut short. We just got one dude getting arrested and a random homeless guy with a sign. I would have wanted at least a 5 minute sequence, in Snyder slowmo, Martha selling the farm, Lois visiting heroes park ect. Without going in too much detail, in this sequence, it would be nice to get some cameos from characters featured in other previous movies, to really drive hope that Justice League is supposed to be a culmination of what came before it. I'd have Amanda Waller discussing with government officials about kidnappings and alien sightings (one of the officials is General Swanwick), cut to Rick Flag and June Moone in a hotel room someone watching the news, hugging. Cut to the various Belle Reve inmates in their jail cells looking morose, cut to perry white reading the paper, (showing that article about Superman, Prince and David Bowe).
We join Bruce and Alfred in the Batcave and it's revealed that, upon realizing that Clark's body wasn't degrading and was releasing some kind of bio-electrical energy (that made the dirt float) he had swapped out the body with a fake without anyone realizing.
We then cut to the Wonder Woman terrorist attack and it plays about the same as it did in the actual movie we get some mention of parademons from the leader (really play up the creepy mysterious component of aliens kidnapping people). She gets a tranmission from Bruce Wayne and leaves the scene after the bad guys are taken care of.
They meet in the batcave and discuss assembling the league and the mysterious kidnappings. They both decide to investigate the creatures and try to recruit the league. We're shown Bruce communicate with a mystery person in regards to his findings. We're shown pictures and video of the members which can act as a segue to the slightly disjointed scenes that make up their separate character intros.
Bruce goes to recruit Arthur and it plays out like in the movie but without cutting it short. Show the scenery, Bruce arriving on Horse back, show it all. Scene ends with Arthur swimming away.
We get the scene with Victor's dad leaving the lab and his conversation with his son. All of that can stay the same. After that Cyborg leaves the house, maybe add some touches like him turning off all the street lights of every street he walks down so he can hide. Have him visit his old school where he can have flashbacks of his time as an athlete, have a scene with him seeing his girlfriend pre-accident with her new boyfriend, then have him leave the school. Diana meets up with him and tries to recruit him but he bails because he senses his father is in danger.
The school setting can be a good segue to start with Barry's character intro. We get the scene of him breaking the glass and whatever else happens in that scene. Have Iris West as one of his schoolmates. Then he goes to meets his dad in prison and goes home where he meets Bruce who recruits him. I'd say take it easier on the quirkiness from Barry. I would have wanted a more subdued performance. The way Ezra played him was too OTT even for Batman & Robin. I wouldn't want him to be somber just more subdued and less whacky. The color palette change from Snyder was actually a welcome change. I liked the more neon, colorful aesthetic in Barry's lair.
Arthur saves the fisherman, goes to Atlantis, has a scuffle with Steppenwolf, the motherbox is taken and he has that conversation with Mera to set up his solo movie.
Diana and Bruce meet up, they talk about their findings and their results. The bat signal is lit and those scenes play out basically the same as they do in the actual movie. Them going to meet with gordon (who was the mystery person Batman was sharing his findings with), them being joined by Cyborg who tells them his father was kidnapped. Instead of just telling them though, he actually shows them a hologram of what happened and this is where we get our first sighting of a parademon (that creepy shot from the first trailer where, the motherbox starts ringing and a parademon sneaks up on Silas Stone).
The fight in the tunnel plays out pretty much the same except it contains all the scenes that were cut. "I'm real when it's useful", "we do this together" ect. It ends with all of them going to the Batcave. We then get the scene of them in the elevator and them meeting Alfred and Bruce saying "I brought some friends"
They talk and mention how Cyborg has a motherbox, Atlantis' one was stolen and they start trying to figure out where the last one could be. Cyborg says that for some reason, he isn't able to track that one because there's some kind of unexplained interference. (Zeus' magic concealing the island) A distinction I'd make is I wouldn't make it so Diana knows all about the motherboxes and their history. She'd know some things but not much because to reveal all the info in an exposition dump by her kind of throws a wrench in the whole mystery aspect and doesn't allow for any meaningful enigma codes or suspense. The heroes shouldn't know everything from the start. The mystery should unravel slowly.
After mention of this mystery place where the third box is, cut to the Themiscria fight with Steppenwolf where he steals the motherbox and leaves destruction in his wake. Yes I'd include the scene of the Amazon taking her own life to stop herself from turning into a parademon. This would be the first proper reveal of steppenwolf and yes I'd have him look a little better. No weird disproportionate hands and I'd probably have it be motion capture or prosthetics with CG enhancements. Hippolyta fires the arrow, it's on the news and it serves as a callback to the beginning prologue scene.
We cut to Batman going to Arkham asylum to visit Lex to find out what he knows. We get to see Arkham and some of the inmates, maybe thrown in Hugo Strange and Dr Jonathan Crane. Here, we could get a bit of the BVS brutality which I felt was missing and made Batman less cool in JL. I'd make him break Lex's fingers to make him talk. Lex would reveal what he knows. We'd get a flashback to him in the scoutship conversing with Steppenwolf. This can have Steppenwolf say something like "Now that the Kryptonian is gone, I will come to finish what I started". Bruce takes Lex with him along with the rest of the league to the Kryptonian scout ship in Gotham. Have the scene play out more atmospheric like the scene where Lex first enters the ship in BVS. Lex can mention that the fluids in there have adverse affects on humans, using the example of how his hair hasn't grown back since it's been shaved months prior. Maybe have a bit of levity here, have Batman quip that at least he looks slightly less nuts with no whacky long red hair. Once they activate the ship to access the archives, the ship goes awol and Cyborg tells everyone they need to get out asap because it's about to take off. It does and flies off, in the confusion, a shadowy figure swoops in grabs Lex and escapes. Batman grapple hooks onto him, they have a quick fight on a rooftop but he still manages to run off with Lex.
The League doesn't have time to worry because Alfred informs them that Superman's body has gone missing. They all head to the hanger to discuss what to do. We get good character building moments with the team where Diana shoves bruce. They actually end up fighting and go their separate ways. Cyborg is frustrated that Bruce stored Clark's body and kept it a secret from them all, Diana is angry at Bruce and him calling her out for leaving mankind, Arthur is just hot-headed in general and goes off to Atlantis to meet with Mera and Vulko. Bruce calls Waller to find out what she knows about Superman's disappearance, she says she doesn't know what happened, Bruce is angry, he calls her out on the fact that she procured the remains of Doomsday from the government after their battle in BVS. She hangs up on him.
We cut to Superman in the scoutship which is suspended in the Earth's atmosphere, his body was retrieved by the Kryptonian service android. We see him in one of the stasis chambers. We cut to planet Krypton. Clark is on the large platform of Jor-el's observatory. We see Kara there but the two only look at each other in passing before she flies off. Neither acts surprised at all. He finds his father, they discuss what happened. Jor-el says he's proud of him, and the fact that he defended Earth by sarcificing himself. They talk about the fact that both him and Kal had their consciousness live on despite their bodies dying and how that can be. He explains that long ago, this state was created as a safehaven for Kryptonians, that after they die, they can all live on, on a metaphysical faux Krypton where they can simply exist without fear or enslavement. They are all shells of their former selves though, unable to feel any kind of emotion, only able to formulate thoughts.
We cut to Steppenwolf intercepting Cyborg and stealing the last motherbox after a brief fight where we see the extent of Cyborg's power including the battle mode with his whole face armor thing and double arm canons. He's beaten and presumably killed.
Steppenwolf returns to Apokilips which we see in full. It mirrors the Knightmare scene in BVS with the fire columns and the omega Symbol. We can tell Steppenwolf resents his servitude and there's a hint of sadness in him as he presents the last motherbox to Darkseid who is off-frame and not visible.
We cut back to Superman again and Zod shows up, he's surprisingly calm and explains to him that Earth is doomed, he talks about Apokolips and the fourth world, how the reason Krypton stopped it's colonization of worlds is because it was imposed by Darkseid, that the Kyrptonian council colluded with him and instituted artificial births to limit Kryptons potential at the behest of him and the new gods. Zod adds that he decided to lead a revolt when he found out they had been intentionally harvesting Krypton's core and creating a phenomenon with which Krypton would explode, killing all it's inhabitants. We're reminded that Kryptonians were irrevocably tied to their world and couldn't leave it, tethered to Krypton in a way that made it so that when they ventured off into the cosmos, they would wither and die. Inset flashbacks to Zod finding all those Kyptonian corpses at those outposts in Man of Steel.
Jor-el adds that Kryptonians used to be naturally as powerful as Superman but the atmosphere of Krypton was altered in order to weaken and stifle them until they lost all their abilities. He reveals that the reason Jor-El sent Kal to Earth was so he could allow the kryptonian race to be reborn and exist away from Darkseid's influence and dominion, that they would slowly but surely reform as the powerful population they once were and be able to fight back against his forces and vanquish him. He adds that the fact that Clark was sent to a world they had colonized many millenia before wasn't a coincidence and was all part of Jor-el's plan. He wanted the would-be new kryptonian race to fit right in and grow and develop in secret. It's also revealed that among the worlds that were conquered/destroyed is Steppenwolf's birth planet. Darkseid saw his potential and recruited him after leading his population to extinction.
Insert lengthy conversation between Zod, Jor-El and Kal about what Doomsday was, it's history and how, like Clark, not only does it not die but everytime it comes back from "being killed" it comes back stronger and more unstoppable. the "doomsday" was created by darkseid as a failsafe to make sure Kryptonians wouldn't try to breed with anyone from their colonized planets to repopulate the Kryptonian race. If the genetic material of a Kryptonian mixed with that of their descendents, it would give birth to "the deformity with no name". If that monster happened to be nourished and supported by Earth's atmosphere, it would turn into a world-destroying threat, killing everything in it's wake. essentially a self-destruct button. Clark was immune to these effects because he wasn't born out of a birthing chamber and he wasn't embedded with the genetic limitations and hindrances that plagued the kryptonian race for millenia.
We start the movie with some shots of planet Earth with a title card that tells us when this is occurring (thousands of years ago) we cut to establishing shots of the Canadian Arctic and out of the atmosphere, the scout ship from Man of Steel crashes into the snowy landscape. We see a figure stumbling out of the ship. It's Kara Zor-el. She remarks how the planet she landed on has already been colonized by Krypton, many years prior to her ending up there and a few other little tidbits of exposition hinting at the circumstances of how she ended up there.
We get a sense of passage of time, we're shown mankind with amazons and Atlantians still living in harmony. The faction comprised of Atlantians haven't yet been made to live in the depths of the ocean but we do see king Atlan (this is supposed to be before the Amazons were enslaved and the subsequent revolt lead by Hippolyta and Antiope), We get a little bit of establishing the factions and some exposition and introduction to various human characters. These could be anyone, from civilians to warriors. I personally hated how insular and closed off the film we got felt, character-wise. We got no ancillary characters to enrich the movie and give it layers. We only got the heroes. Nobody else. That was a major let down for me. So yes, at least 3 human characters with names and distinct personalities.
The invasion starts to happen, the sky starts to turn red, ships start to swarm the sky. The three factions begin trying to thwart off the invading forces. After a while, it's clear that there's no way they can win and they're overwhelmed by Steppenwolf, his army of parademons and other alien entities. Mutated creatures with bone protrusions similar to doomsday along with other fourth world characters.
People are being turned into parademons and joining enemy ranks mid-battle. They would play up the shock factor and the body horror elements of this transformation. (This mutation would also tie back into the movie later). After a while we're shown a few humans, Amazons and Atlantians praying with their hands clasped together. This makes Hippolyta remember that she was once told that she could call upon the gods if the Earth were to be invaded. She gets on her horse, rides off and shoots that arrow with the mystical fire and it alerts the Greek Gods of the invasion (just so the arrow thing gets set up for later and for a bit of build up to the gods' epic entrance)
We get to see Mount Olympus where the gods are and how they react to the invasion. It's a big palatial building with fountains and columns and it's shrouded in clouds due to the altitude. We get a bit of interplay between the gods, we're shown some of their extraordinary powers. All the powers demonstrated by Ares in the final fight of the Wonder Woman movie except all these powers are coming from different gods, not all of them have all these powers (this also comes into play again later).
We see Zeus with his divine eletrokinesis, charging up his power from the electrical charge in the clouds, We see Hephaestus transmuting metal and rock to create godly weapons for them all to take with them into battle. All the gods are speaking in Latin with subtitles. In this scene, it'd be cool to throw in some epic line from Ares that went something like "The last thing I want is to fight alongside the mortals, but this is my domain." as he puts on his signature Greco-roman helmet.
We cut to the battle again and Kara has joined the fray (complete with black suit and cape with the house of El symbol) we also spot two green lanterns helping out where they can. Despite this, things still seem hopeless until 5 of the gods of Olympus teleport onto the battle field in epic fashion. Zeus, Ares, Athena, Poseidon and Artemis all start kicking all kinds of ass with a healthy dose of signature Snyder slow-fast-mo.
We get a few one-on-one fights between some of the stronger fourth world characters and the gods, Artemis blows up the invaders' ships one by one with her exploding arrows, Ares (young and in his prime with his Greco-roman attire) lays waste to like 50 people at a time in a destructive, frenzied indiscriminately fashion, killing humans and Amazons in the cross-fire, foreshadowing his eventual betrayal and showing his bloodlust. His sword can glow and be red and incandescent.
Zeus charges up all his eletrokinetic power and channels it into Athena's gauntlets (visual homage to how Wonder Woman killed Ares), Athena then clangs them together unleashing a huge blast that destroys the remainder of Steppenwolf's army and reverses the terraformation.
Steppenwolf is forced to retreat but vows that he'll be back to finish what he started. The gods split up the motherboxes, and in order to keep them apart, Atlantis and Themiscira are created. This would give a reason for the creation of Atlantis and the Island of Themiscria and how isolated they are from man's world. Yes this contradicts the story of Zeus creating the island with his dying breath but that didn't make a lot of sense in the first place and Hippolyta was likely lying about all kinds of stuff so it's not a retcon.
We then cut to black and we're told this is present day. We hear the newscaster: "The world remains in mourning after the death of the Superman", we get the montage of people mourning, of crime on the rise and the world losing hope, as well as reports of a string of mysterious kidnappings. What we got in the movie seemed extremely cut short. We just got one dude getting arrested and a random homeless guy with a sign. I would have wanted at least a 5 minute sequence, in Snyder slowmo, Martha selling the farm, Lois visiting heroes park ect. Without going in too much detail, in this sequence, it would be nice to get some cameos from characters featured in other previous movies, to really drive hope that Justice League is supposed to be a culmination of what came before it. I'd have Amanda Waller discussing with government officials about kidnappings and alien sightings (one of the officials is General Swanwick), cut to Rick Flag and June Moone in a hotel room someone watching the news, hugging. Cut to the various Belle Reve inmates in their jail cells looking morose, cut to perry white reading the paper, (showing that article about Superman, Prince and David Bowe).
We join Bruce and Alfred in the Batcave and it's revealed that, upon realizing that Clark's body wasn't degrading and was releasing some kind of bio-electrical energy (that made the dirt float) he had swapped out the body with a fake without anyone realizing.
We then cut to the Wonder Woman terrorist attack and it plays about the same as it did in the actual movie we get some mention of parademons from the leader (really play up the creepy mysterious component of aliens kidnapping people). She gets a tranmission from Bruce Wayne and leaves the scene after the bad guys are taken care of.
They meet in the batcave and discuss assembling the league and the mysterious kidnappings. They both decide to investigate the creatures and try to recruit the league. We're shown Bruce communicate with a mystery person in regards to his findings. We're shown pictures and video of the members which can act as a segue to the slightly disjointed scenes that make up their separate character intros.
Bruce goes to recruit Arthur and it plays out like in the movie but without cutting it short. Show the scenery, Bruce arriving on Horse back, show it all. Scene ends with Arthur swimming away.
We get the scene with Victor's dad leaving the lab and his conversation with his son. All of that can stay the same. After that Cyborg leaves the house, maybe add some touches like him turning off all the street lights of every street he walks down so he can hide. Have him visit his old school where he can have flashbacks of his time as an athlete, have a scene with him seeing his girlfriend pre-accident with her new boyfriend, then have him leave the school. Diana meets up with him and tries to recruit him but he bails because he senses his father is in danger.
The school setting can be a good segue to start with Barry's character intro. We get the scene of him breaking the glass and whatever else happens in that scene. Have Iris West as one of his schoolmates. Then he goes to meets his dad in prison and goes home where he meets Bruce who recruits him. I'd say take it easier on the quirkiness from Barry. I would have wanted a more subdued performance. The way Ezra played him was too OTT even for Batman & Robin. I wouldn't want him to be somber just more subdued and less whacky. The color palette change from Snyder was actually a welcome change. I liked the more neon, colorful aesthetic in Barry's lair.
Arthur saves the fisherman, goes to Atlantis, has a scuffle with Steppenwolf, the motherbox is taken and he has that conversation with Mera to set up his solo movie.
Diana and Bruce meet up, they talk about their findings and their results. The bat signal is lit and those scenes play out basically the same as they do in the actual movie. Them going to meet with gordon (who was the mystery person Batman was sharing his findings with), them being joined by Cyborg who tells them his father was kidnapped. Instead of just telling them though, he actually shows them a hologram of what happened and this is where we get our first sighting of a parademon (that creepy shot from the first trailer where, the motherbox starts ringing and a parademon sneaks up on Silas Stone).
The fight in the tunnel plays out pretty much the same except it contains all the scenes that were cut. "I'm real when it's useful", "we do this together" ect. It ends with all of them going to the Batcave. We then get the scene of them in the elevator and them meeting Alfred and Bruce saying "I brought some friends"
They talk and mention how Cyborg has a motherbox, Atlantis' one was stolen and they start trying to figure out where the last one could be. Cyborg says that for some reason, he isn't able to track that one because there's some kind of unexplained interference. (Zeus' magic concealing the island) A distinction I'd make is I wouldn't make it so Diana knows all about the motherboxes and their history. She'd know some things but not much because to reveal all the info in an exposition dump by her kind of throws a wrench in the whole mystery aspect and doesn't allow for any meaningful enigma codes or suspense. The heroes shouldn't know everything from the start. The mystery should unravel slowly.
After mention of this mystery place where the third box is, cut to the Themiscria fight with Steppenwolf where he steals the motherbox and leaves destruction in his wake. Yes I'd include the scene of the Amazon taking her own life to stop herself from turning into a parademon. This would be the first proper reveal of steppenwolf and yes I'd have him look a little better. No weird disproportionate hands and I'd probably have it be motion capture or prosthetics with CG enhancements. Hippolyta fires the arrow, it's on the news and it serves as a callback to the beginning prologue scene.
We cut to Batman going to Arkham asylum to visit Lex to find out what he knows. We get to see Arkham and some of the inmates, maybe thrown in Hugo Strange and Dr Jonathan Crane. Here, we could get a bit of the BVS brutality which I felt was missing and made Batman less cool in JL. I'd make him break Lex's fingers to make him talk. Lex would reveal what he knows. We'd get a flashback to him in the scoutship conversing with Steppenwolf. This can have Steppenwolf say something like "Now that the Kryptonian is gone, I will come to finish what I started". Bruce takes Lex with him along with the rest of the league to the Kryptonian scout ship in Gotham. Have the scene play out more atmospheric like the scene where Lex first enters the ship in BVS. Lex can mention that the fluids in there have adverse affects on humans, using the example of how his hair hasn't grown back since it's been shaved months prior. Maybe have a bit of levity here, have Batman quip that at least he looks slightly less nuts with no whacky long red hair. Once they activate the ship to access the archives, the ship goes awol and Cyborg tells everyone they need to get out asap because it's about to take off. It does and flies off, in the confusion, a shadowy figure swoops in grabs Lex and escapes. Batman grapple hooks onto him, they have a quick fight on a rooftop but he still manages to run off with Lex.
The League doesn't have time to worry because Alfred informs them that Superman's body has gone missing. They all head to the hanger to discuss what to do. We get good character building moments with the team where Diana shoves bruce. They actually end up fighting and go their separate ways. Cyborg is frustrated that Bruce stored Clark's body and kept it a secret from them all, Diana is angry at Bruce and him calling her out for leaving mankind, Arthur is just hot-headed in general and goes off to Atlantis to meet with Mera and Vulko. Bruce calls Waller to find out what she knows about Superman's disappearance, she says she doesn't know what happened, Bruce is angry, he calls her out on the fact that she procured the remains of Doomsday from the government after their battle in BVS. She hangs up on him.
We cut to Superman in the scoutship which is suspended in the Earth's atmosphere, his body was retrieved by the Kryptonian service android. We see him in one of the stasis chambers. We cut to planet Krypton. Clark is on the large platform of Jor-el's observatory. We see Kara there but the two only look at each other in passing before she flies off. Neither acts surprised at all. He finds his father, they discuss what happened. Jor-el says he's proud of him, and the fact that he defended Earth by sarcificing himself. They talk about the fact that both him and Kal had their consciousness live on despite their bodies dying and how that can be. He explains that long ago, this state was created as a safehaven for Kryptonians, that after they die, they can all live on, on a metaphysical faux Krypton where they can simply exist without fear or enslavement. They are all shells of their former selves though, unable to feel any kind of emotion, only able to formulate thoughts.
We cut to Steppenwolf intercepting Cyborg and stealing the last motherbox after a brief fight where we see the extent of Cyborg's power including the battle mode with his whole face armor thing and double arm canons. He's beaten and presumably killed.
Steppenwolf returns to Apokilips which we see in full. It mirrors the Knightmare scene in BVS with the fire columns and the omega Symbol. We can tell Steppenwolf resents his servitude and there's a hint of sadness in him as he presents the last motherbox to Darkseid who is off-frame and not visible.
We cut back to Superman again and Zod shows up, he's surprisingly calm and explains to him that Earth is doomed, he talks about Apokolips and the fourth world, how the reason Krypton stopped it's colonization of worlds is because it was imposed by Darkseid, that the Kyrptonian council colluded with him and instituted artificial births to limit Kryptons potential at the behest of him and the new gods. Zod adds that he decided to lead a revolt when he found out they had been intentionally harvesting Krypton's core and creating a phenomenon with which Krypton would explode, killing all it's inhabitants. We're reminded that Kryptonians were irrevocably tied to their world and couldn't leave it, tethered to Krypton in a way that made it so that when they ventured off into the cosmos, they would wither and die. Inset flashbacks to Zod finding all those Kyptonian corpses at those outposts in Man of Steel.
Jor-el adds that Kryptonians used to be naturally as powerful as Superman but the atmosphere of Krypton was altered in order to weaken and stifle them until they lost all their abilities. He reveals that the reason Jor-El sent Kal to Earth was so he could allow the kryptonian race to be reborn and exist away from Darkseid's influence and dominion, that they would slowly but surely reform as the powerful population they once were and be able to fight back against his forces and vanquish him. He adds that the fact that Clark was sent to a world they had colonized many millenia before wasn't a coincidence and was all part of Jor-el's plan. He wanted the would-be new kryptonian race to fit right in and grow and develop in secret. It's also revealed that among the worlds that were conquered/destroyed is Steppenwolf's birth planet. Darkseid saw his potential and recruited him after leading his population to extinction.
Insert lengthy conversation between Zod, Jor-El and Kal about what Doomsday was, it's history and how, like Clark, not only does it not die but everytime it comes back from "being killed" it comes back stronger and more unstoppable. the "doomsday" was created by darkseid as a failsafe to make sure Kryptonians wouldn't try to breed with anyone from their colonized planets to repopulate the Kryptonian race. If the genetic material of a Kryptonian mixed with that of their descendents, it would give birth to "the deformity with no name". If that monster happened to be nourished and supported by Earth's atmosphere, it would turn into a world-destroying threat, killing everything in it's wake. essentially a self-destruct button. Clark was immune to these effects because he wasn't born out of a birthing chamber and he wasn't embedded with the genetic limitations and hindrances that plagued the kryptonian race for millenia.
