How Warner Bros. Should Have Made Justice League

One of the most frequent criticisms you'll hear about Justice League concerns its villain, Steppenwolf, and that's because he's little more than an Apokoliptian punching bag with no compelling motives beyond being evil.

Part of the problem is the film's two-hour runtime, which left precious little time to flesh out the character, and yet, with all the time in the world, there were better candidates from the DC Comics vault who could have filled the antagonist role.

Warner Bros seems to be clinging onto Darkseid for a future sequel, having teased his existence in Batman v Superman, but it could be argued that firing this big gun in Justice League would have helped the movie make a bigger impact.

There's more depth to Darkseid than Steppenwolf. Not only is he more powerful and thus a bigger threat, there's tragedy in his backstory. His appearance is the result of the Omega Force turning him into a stone-like monster and his love interest Suli, with whom he fathered a son, Kalibak, was fatally poisoned by one of his followers.

There were once human elements in this alien warlord but his story is one of a being who grew colder as he became more powerful, until he became hellbent on removing all free will from the universe and remoulding it in his own image.

Even if Darkseid had been revealed in Justice League, confirmed as the brains behind Steppenwolf's operation, it would have improved things by creating intrigue for future sequels, but the closest thing Justice League has to a memorable villain is the comics-accurate Deathstroke who shows up for five seconds in post-credits.