Zack Snyder has proved to be a divisive figure among both wider audiences and the hardcore comic book set, with just as many people celebrating his contributions to the DCEU for their mature approach and visual splendor as there have been criticisms of his overstuffed, bloated narratives and fundamental misunderstandings of the characters.
The debate about Superman snapping Zod’s neck still rages on seven years after Man of Steel was released, while the director claimed that Ben Affleck’s Batman had never killed anybody despite plenty of evidence saying otherwise. The Snyder Cut of Justice League might be the single most hotly anticipated superhero blockbuster since Avengers: Endgame, but the filmmaker could well wind up splitting opinion straight down the middle again when the HBO Max exclusive arrives in March.
In fact, there’ve been reports making the rounds that the film will do the unthinkable and have Batman and the Joker working together, and in a recent interview, the Watchmen director appeared to confirm that the Justice League will indeed need a hand from the Clown Prince of Crime in the post-apocalyptic Knightmare sequences, which would tie directly into Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice‘s unexplained appearance from Barry Allen.
“You know what would be cool, I would love to do, say you’re in the post-apocalyptic world and Darkseid, the world has fallen, and there’s the ragtag team that’s left alive to try and put it back, that inside of that story, we would also do the backstory of Joker killing Robin. That would be the thing that because, the Joker is somehow involved in the stealing of the Mother Box and using it to create the treadmill. Because, in my mind, Cyborg was always going to do the math and figure out, ‘This is what we gotta do to go back in time to warn Bruce correctly’. But I always thought that the conflict that was happening there was Bruce reliving the events, the death of Robin and what went into that.”
After Jared Leto’s Justice League return was announced, it was also speculated that we could see a flashback scene where he killed Robin and burned Wayne Manor to the ground, finally giving the DCEU’s Batman and Joker a meaningful onscreen interaction, but based on Snyder’s comments, it sounds as though it’ll be the elephant in the room causing fractious tension as the two archenemies forge an uneasy alliance in the Knightmare timeline to try and prevent Darkseid from enslaving humanity.