Short of a few brief scenes in “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” and the final season of “Smallville,” iconic DC ubervillain Darkseid has not really had his moment to shine in live-action form.
The character, most memorably played in animated form by Michael Ironside in the 1990s “Superman” and “Justice League” animated series, was introduced in Jack Kirby’s Fourth World/New Gods comics that followed the beings from the planets New Genesis and Apokolips – Darkseid is the ruler of the latter.
He’s seen as an ultimate big bad for DC, a Thanos-like character created many years before Thanos was ever put to page. He was also set to appear in Ava DuVernay’s “New Gods” film before that project fell apart.
Talking to New Rockstars, DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn was asked about Darkseid in the future of the DC Universe and whether the reveal of the planet Salvation in “Peacemaker” will tie into that.
Gunn says the New Gods aspects of the Kirby Comics are interesting to him, less so Darkseid, who won’t be showing up in this ‘Chapter 1’ of the DC Universe:
“It’s the New Gods in general that are, to me, interesting. We’re dealing [with that] in Mister Miracle. There’s that aspect of it, and then there are aspects of Darkseid in Thanos, in that they’re obviously very similar. They look very similar.
Because of that, to give you probably more than an answer than you probably expected, using Darkseid as the big bad right now is not necessarily the thing for a lot of reasons. Zack did it so cool in his way, and then there’s Thanos and Marvel.”
In the comics, Salvation is revealed to be DeSaad’s training ground for Parademons. That doesn’t appear to be the case here, with speculation that it is instead the DCU’s take on The Centre, aka Dinosaur Island – a sentient island.
Gunn tells Boba Talks that the roar we hear in the “Peacemaker” Season 2 finale, revealed to be something from Dinosaur Island, wouldn’t be “much of a stretch”.
The comments come as Snyder has shown off a new photo of Ben Affleck as Batman, taken during production of “Justice League”. That shot can be seen below.
