Well, they finally released the Snyder Cut! Zack Snyder’s Justice League is now out in the world (and streaming on HBO Max) and it’s four hours of the director’s undiluted, controversial take on the DC Universe. It’s even more packed with DC history than the “official” theatrical release, if you can believe that, and it builds out the world of the DCEU in some new and unexpected ways. There’s no shortage of DC Comics Easter eggs in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and even nods to DC movies of the past. It’s a six course meal of a movie that DC superhero fans should savor, because we’re unlikely to ever see anything like this again. We’ve tried to find all the DC references and lore in the film. Here’s what we’ve got so far. Steppenwolf DID show up in a contemporary story as well, though. A visually-similar version of the character appeared in DC’s Earth-2, which indicated that Darkseid’s attack on Earth was one that spanned the multiverse, and his lieutenant Steppenwolf ravaged a different Earth, killing its greatest heroes in the process. So that’s two big comics influences out of the way here. Throughout this movie, Steppenwolf keeps on trying to bring about “the unity” with the three Mother Boxes, but as far as I know, that has no correlation to anything in the comics. If anything, Steppenwolf’s quest and the movie’s backstory has more in common with the Lord of the Rings saga than anything Jack Kirby did, with magical tech being distributed across the different races of the world to keep it from falling into the wrong hands.

Aquaman

Of all the characters in this film, Aquaman seems to bear the most of Zack Snyder’s stamp. It’s incredibly visible just in his eyes, which were “humanized” considerably by the time he appeared in his solo movie.

Snyder’s original vision for Aquaman was clearly something a little grittier than the gleaming underwater fantasy that James Wan brought us. The eerie “hymn” that the women of the village sing to mark Arthur’s departure is a haunting reminder of how these characters are seen in this world.

As Aquaman returns to Atlantis, we see a familiar octopus. Could this be Topo, comic book octopus sidekick to Arthur and famed for his drum solo skills in the Aquaman movie? I’d like to think it is.

Willem Dafoe’s Vulko is here, looking a little different and perhaps a bit less kindly than he did in Wan’s film. Interestingly, he refers to Arthur as “the king who would be man,” an inversion on “the man who would be king,” and a shot at Arthur for not taking his rightful place as heir to the throne of Atlantis. For his part, Arthur’s refusal on the grounds that the Atlanteans are a “brutal, petty, superstitious people” also hints at broader visions Snyder had for the character.

It’s interesting to note that Mera and other Atlanteans speak with English accents here, where they didn’t in the Aquaman movie. It’s a proud tradition of making alien races speak with an English accent, one perhaps most famous in superhero movies thanks to virtually the entire population of Krypton in Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie.

Similarly, Atlanteans don’t speak underwater here as they do in the James Wan film, instead creating bubbles of air in which to communicate like land-dwellers. It’s pretty cool.

The song that plays when Arthur vanishes into the waves is Nick Cave’s “There is a Kingdom,” and its lyrics are pretty much as on-the-nose as you might expect. 

Aquaman spearing two Parademons with his trident reminds me of this moment from Justice League: Origin, as well…

Is Aquaman the first person to call Bruce “Batman” in the DCEU? In Batman v Superman it was all “the Bat” this and “the Gotham Bat” that.

Speaking of Batman…

Batman

When we first see Bruce Wayne searching for the mysterious Arthur Curry, he’s riding a jet black horse, which is very similar to the steed he rode in some famous pages of Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, and Lynn Varley’s classic and influential The Dark Knight Returns, a work which has considerable influence on how Batman was portrayed here and in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

If you look closely you can see a 201 area code on Bruce Wayne’s business card, which further confirms that Gotham City is on the New Jersey side of the river that separates it from Metropolis.

This movie, like Batman v Superman before it, reminds us that we’re dealing with a Batman who has been active for 20 years. It’s yet another reminder of the influence of The Dark Knight Returns on the DCEU vision for Batman, depicting him as a much older, more experienced crimefighter.

Let’s just take a moment to appreciate how good Jeremy Irons is as Alfred Pennyworth. His line about “someone who broods in a cave” is classic Alfred shade (as is the moment later on when he is totally micromanaging how Diana makes tea). See also: Bruce’s joke about how he works for Alfred.

Bruce tells Alfred that he “made a promise to him [Superman] on his grave.” As we well know with Bruce and his parents, when he swears on someone’s grave, it’s a promise he takes very seriously.

We meet Kobna Holdbrook-Smith as Crispus Allen very briefly in Gotham PD HQ talking to JK Simmons’ excellent Jim Gordon. Detective Crispus Allen was a Batman supporting character who played a significant role in the excellent Gotham Central series. While we don’t get any hint of his future here, Allen went on to become the human host of the Spectre after he was murdered by a corrupt colleague.

Barry asks Bruce incredulously, “you have a satellite?” to which Bruce calmly responds, “I have six.” It feels very much like something Grant Morrison’s Batman would say (he even owns a flying saucer), but it ALSO hints at the fact that for many years, the Justice League operated out of a satellite HQ. Perhaps Bruce would consider moving the team up there in future installments.

During the big battle at the end, there’s a terrific shot of Batman that mirrors his first appearance in Detective Comics #27.

There’s a pretty clear shot of the Bat-tank that is a very direct nod to a panel from Dark Knight Returns.

Cyborg

It seems like all the flashbacks to Vic Stone’s pre-Cyborg college days take place in 2015, so it’s after the events of Man of Steel, but he has only been “Cyborg” for a relatively brief period here.

Thanks to the backstory in this version of the film, we learn that Vic is already a genius level intellect. Although in the comics it was because Drs Silas and Elinore Stone were already experimenting on their son long before the accident that forced them to turn him into Cyborg.

Interestingly, the origin story here is neither the classic comics origin nor the New 52 version (surprising, since so much of this film feels inspired by the New 52 Justice League: Origin story). There, it was either an accident with interdimensional energy or the opening of a Mother Box/Boom Tube which virtually destroyed Victor’s body and caused the creation of Cyborg.

What is the Dean of GCU’s name? It looks like it might be “Dean Stanton” which would be a lovely tribute to actor Harry Dean Stanton (but there’s no DC Comics connection here in that case).

You may note that the scoreboard for Gotham City University was built by Wayne Enterprises.

It’s probably a coincidence, but Cyborg financially helps out a “Linda S. Reed.” In the comics Linda Reed was a short-lived Green Arrow character who (along with her twin sister Ramona) went by the uninspiring name of “Girl Archer.”

Since Vic Stone has traditionally been a Teen Titans character, and he and Barry are by far the youngest members of the League, it makes sense that they would bond. Especially since this version of Barry Allen has more in common with the comic book version of Wally West than anything else, and Wally was a member of the Titans with Vic.

The Flash

When we first meet Barry Allen he is late to a job interview. This isn’t just a play on “oh, the fastest man alive is actually really slow” or something, Barry’s habitual lateness was baked into the character in his very first appearance back in Showcase #4. Similarly, even his predecessor, Jay Garrick was known for this not terribly charming trait, too.

Interestingly, Barry’s persona in the DCEU feels much more in common with the Wally West of the DC Animated Universe. He’s the less experienced hero, a kind of point-of-view character, and generally younger and funnier than his teammates. But the more specific Wally reference is his need to consume tremendous quantities of calories to keep going (his “snack hole” crack), something that was unique to Wally among Flashes (but which was also utilized when John Wesley Shipp played Barry on the 1990 The Flash TV series).

That’s Billy Crudup as Henry Allen in jail (who sadly won’t be reprising his role in Andy Muschietti’s The Flash movie) The whole “hands on the glass” thing was done quite a bit between the TV versions of these characters, played by Grant Gustin and the great John Wesley Shipp. Henry’s line to Barry that he should “make your own future” would seem to foreshadow the events of Flashpoint, as well.

But there’s one other similarity to the TV show worth pointing out…

Steppenwolf promises that there are “no protectors, no Lanterns, no Kryptonian” guarding Earth this time, which is pretty self-explanatory.

This member of the Green Lantern Corps we see fall in battle during the flashback sequence is Yalan Gur, a character who has only made a handful of appearances in the comics. Gur was indeed the Green Lantern of space sector 2814 (that includes Earth) around the time this battle would have taken place. In the comics, Gur was corrupted by his own power and turned on the humans of Earth, but he clearly didn’t get that chance in the movie, as he was killed by Darkseid in the flashback.

During the vision of the future where Darkseid has gained control of the Anti-Life Equation, another dead Green Lantern can be spotted amongst the rubble of a ruined city. That would be of Green Lantern Corps drill sergeant and fan favorite, Kilowog. This is Kilowog’s second live action appearance, if you count 2011’s not great Green Lantern movie with Ryan Reynolds.

Darkseid

When Darkseid strikes the surface of the Earth with his axe, it creates the kind of hellish firepits that his homeworld of Apokalips is famous for.

Darkseid taking on the literal “old gods” of Earth including Zeus, Ares, Apollo, and Poseidon is a fun contrast with the fact that he is part of DC’s “New Gods” mythology.

Darkseid is searching for the Anti-Life Equation, which we wrote more about here.

During Darkseid’s “vision” of the universe once he has obtained the Anti-Life Equation, we can see Superman holding a charred corpse, which is presumably the body of Lois Lane. This apparently sets him up for corruption by Darkseid, and helps bring about the “Knightmare” vision from Batman v Superman, which is once again glimpsed at the end of this film.

The third figure we see on Apokalips with Darkseid and Desaad appears to be Granny Goodness, the chief of the armies of Apokalips (and the one who trained/traumatized DC heroes Mister Miracle and Big Barda).

Parademons

The weird insectoid drones making everyone’s lives miserable are Parademons, the foot soldiers of the planet Apokolips, a hellish world which lives in opposition to New Genesis, the home of the New Gods and Forever People. All of this great stuff was created by the brilliant Jack Kirby, by the way. Steppenwolf (more on him in a minute) and the Parademons are trying to collect three Mother Boxes left on Earth.

What is a Mother Box?

The Mother Box is the unifying piece of technology of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World epic. Think of a Mother Box as an alien smartphone that can do anything from heal the injured to teleport you across time and space. It’s pretty cool hearing their trademark “ping. ping. ping.” sound for real.

Mother Boxes are often used to call down Boom Tubes, the preferred method of transport of the New Gods and their friends and foes. We see them deployed quite a bit throughout this movie, obviously. Super Powers fans of the 1980s may remember that on Super Friends: Galactic Guardians, boom tubes were referred to as star gates.

It’s POSSIBLE that the knights burying the Mother Box are meant to be King Arthur and his crew, while the one with the horns could be Sir Bors. They relatively recently appeared in Demon Knights, but they were best in Seven Soldiers of Victory, where the Knights of the Round Table fought an invasion from evil Faeries and lost, only to have Sir Ystina, the Shining Knight, help save the world in the present day. Honestly, that sounds like it would be pretty up Zack Snyder’s alley too, now that we think about it.

Mother Box is cataloged as “unknown object 61982” after it has been discovered in the modern world. So far, I haven’t been able to find any DC Comics or DCEU significance to that number.

DeSaad

DeSaad is Darkseid’s chief advisor and torturer-in-chief (hence the name). Like all the other cool Fourth World stuff in this movie, he was created solely by the legendary Jack Kirby. He first appeared in Forever People #2 in 1971.

It’s kind of cool that the nameless “Motherbox priestesses” kind of look like DeSaad, too.

Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf is the first Jack Kirby creation to show up in a DC superhero movie (for comparison, nearly the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe owes its entire existence to Jack Kirby). They don’t really give us much to go on with Steppenwolf in this flick, but to be fair, he wasn’t one of Kirby’s most inspired creations and it’s not like he has the longest comic book history. In the comics, Steppenwolf was Darkseid’s uncle, and responsible for the war between Apokolips and New Genesis, but here he appears to be his nephew instead.

In a lot of ways, particularly his appearance, this version of Steppenwolf seems to owe more to his appearance in DC’s New 52 version of the Earth-2 comics than he does any of Kirby’s vision.

The weird little spider-y device that Steppenwolf uses to get information on people looks a lot like Starro, the first villain that the Justice League ever fought in the comics, right down to the way it attaches to people’s faces.

Martian Manhunter

We get our first long-promised revelation of Martian Manhunter in the film, who, as it turns out, had been masquerading as Harry Lennix’s General Swanwick the entire time.

Martian Manhunter finally revealing himself to Bruce at the end kind of completes Bruce’s journey from vaguely fascist xenophobe in Batman v Superman to someone far more heroic.

Martian Manhunter says he has “gone by many names” but doesn’t mention any of them. It doesn’t make sense why he wouldn’t have introduced himself as J’onn J’onnz (his Martian name). Other names he has gone by include Detective John Jones (not in the movies), and as we’ve seen in this very film, General Swanwick.

While we don’t get to see Martian Manhunter officially join the Justice League here, his presence in the film kind of completes the “unite the seven” tease that dates back to Batman v Superman. Martian Manhunter has always been depicted as a founding member of the team, both in comics and in the excellent Justice League animated series.

Deathstroke

We get a LITTLE more of Joe Manganiello’s Slade Wilson in this movie than we did in the theatrical cut…

In the theatrical version, Lex had summoned Deathstroke in order to start assembling a Legion of Doom-esque team of supervillains. But here it’s to give him Batman’s true identity. Apparently this would have helped set Deathstroke up as the villain of the Ben Affleck-led Batman solo movie, which would have featured Deathstroke dismantling Bruce Wayne’s life, Daredevil: Born Again style.

We see Deathstroke again during the epilogue where Slade (who is more of an antihero in the comics) has joined Batman’s ragtag group of freedom fighters against Darkseid and the forces of Apokalips.

Speaking of that epilogue…

Joker

No, your eyes do not deceive you, that is indeed Jared Leto returning as the Joker, marking his first appearance in the role since his controversial turn as the character in the Suicide Squad movie.