The theatrical release of Justice League rightly came under criticism for featuring one of the worst villains in the history of comic book movies thanks to Steppenwolf, but let’s not forget that Suicide Squad also boasted two antagonists that were just as bad. Both the awfully-rendered Incubus and Cara Delevingne’s Enchantress did a movie that was already butchered by studio interference absolutely no favors, and only made the troubled production zero-for-three for bad guys if Jared Leto’s Joker is also taken into account.
Director David Ayer has been frequently talking up his original vision for the antihero-led adaptation lately, perhaps in an attempt to drum up the sort of publicity and online campaigning that led to the Snyder Cut becoming a reality, and from what we’ve heard, it might eventually happen should the re-cut HBO Max exclusive turn out to be a massive success.
Of course, the Ayer Cut of Suicide Squad would be a lot easier and cheaper to put together than the Snyder Cut given that the filmmaker had enough footage in the can to screen his take on the movie for test audiences, but we’ve now heard from our sources – the same ones who told us Viola Davis was returning for The Suicide Squad and Kevin Conroy was playing Kingdom Come Batman in “Crisis,” both of which were correct – that should it get the official go-ahead, then the much-maligned Steppenwolf could end up making a return to our screens.
As you may already know, Steppenwolf was a big part of Ayer’s original pitch for Suicide Squad, but none of the material was ever filmed. However, talk behind the scenes is that the character could be used as part of the Bright director’s reassembled version of the movie to tie it closer to the Snyder Cut of Justice League.
On one hand, a much better take on Steppenwolf could erase some of the negativity that still surrounds his one and only live-action appearance and could ultimately complement the Snyder Cut, but on the other hand, we’ve already seen one terrible version of Darkseid’s minion before, and there’s no guarantee that they’d be able to get it right the second time around.