Steppenwolf and Darkseid Struggle To Be Compelling Villains in Zack Snyder’s Justice League
The Snyder cut vastly improves Justice League, but its villains still leave me cold.
After watching all four hours of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, there is zero doubt that the film is vastly superior to 2017’s Justice League. League members Barry Allen/The Flash and Victor Stone/Cyborg are given richer origin stories, the action sequences are thrilling, and the plot is much more coherent.
But still, the film has plenty of issues, mainly with regards to its supervillains, Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) and Darkseid (Ray Porter). Steppenwolf, a being with Godlike powers and a servant of Darkseid, is working off a debt where he must conquer 150,000 worlds in Darkseid’s name if he wishes to return home to the planet Apokolips. We see Steppenwolf confer with fellow minion DeSaad (Peter Guinness) via some melty metal alien Facetime technology.
Once Steppenwolf discovers that the Anti-Life Equation is on Earth, Darkseid shows up ready to claim it. The Anti-Life Equation would give Darkseid control over the minds of all sentient beings, giving him power over the universe. So you know, typical supervillain wants to rule everything stuff.
The Snyder cut also gives us a Lord of the Rings-style flashback to thousands of years ago, when Darkseid and his legions tried to conquer Earth using the combined energies of the three Mother Boxes, aka The Unity. Darkseid was beaten by the combined efforts of the Olympian Gods, Amazons, Atlanteans, and humans (along with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him Green Lantern). Wonder Woman refers to this epic war as the Age of Heroes, comparing it to Batman’s attempt to build the Justice League.
This backstory provides context for Darkseid’s return, but doesn’t serve to make the supervillain very compelling. This is partly due to the CGI design of both Steppenwolf and Darkseid, which feel very video-gamey and intangible. Both character feel like final bosses in a video game, but without personality or purpose. Even the plot macguffins feel like place-fillers, with names like Mother Box, The Unity, and the Anti-Life Equation. It’s all very dry and unengaging. Sidebar: there is way too much dialogue about scenting and smelling the Mother Boxes. Gross.
Motivation matters when you’re crafting a compelling villain. Consider Thanos (Josh Brolin) in the MCU, a CGI monster hellbent on galactic domination. Thanos’s ethos is very simple: he seeks to solve the universe’s resource shortages by killing half of all living beings. It’s an insane plan but Thanos lays it out in a way that makes sense for him. In one of the most compelling moments from Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos explains his plan to a young Gamora, before adopting her as his own.
We also watch as Thanos kills the daughter he raised and loved in his endless quest for power. Gamora’s death is the emotional cornerstone of Infinity War, and it adds emotional layers to Thanos’s quest. Even his retirement on a humble farm on a distant planet informs the audience of who Thanos is and what his motivations are.
We get none of that with Steppenwolf and Darkseid. Steppenwolf talks of returning to the planet Apokolips, which is never seen and barely mentioned. Does he have family on his home planet? Why is he indebted to Darkseid? And the same goes for Darkseid: what are his motivations, what does he care about? A monolith of a villain, he is imposing but lacks any sort of grounding in either his backstory or performance. Both characters are unable to express even the simplest of emotions due to the flat visual design of their characters.
Both villains have similar journeys, i.e. the collection of magical items that combine to unleash the greatest power in the universe. And while the MCU spent 20-something films laying the groundwork for Thanos and the Infinity Stones, the DCEU had only 3 films to do the same. It’s also worth noting that Justice League would have been the first in a trilogy of films with Darkseid as the Big Bad.
Still, in a film that’s four hours long, I wish that Snyder had devoted more time to fleshing out either of his villains. As it is, their moments are not nearly as compelling as the Justice League themselves.
(featured image: Warner Bros.)
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