Although Lex Luthor is the primary antagonist in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, he’s not the only adversary that might be featured. It’s been reported multiple times over the past year that Doomsday, the being best known for killing Superman in the 1990s, will cause all sorts of hell in the latter half of the 2016 blockbuster. But now a new development suggests that might not really be the case.
Visual effects firm Moving Picture Company was one company that worked on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and this past weekend, one of its artists, Sean Ray, posted a image on Instagram to celebrate the company finishing their work. In the post, a fan asked if he had worked on Doomsday, to which Ray responded that the character wasn’t in the movie and added that it’s possible he could show up in one of the Justice League movies or Man of Steel 2. Then, as BatmanNews.com noted, Ray not only deleted that post, but his entire Instagram account. Something like that is never a good sign, and while it’s not technically official confirmation of Doomsday’s exclusion, it does imply that Ray said something he wasn’t supposed to.
Following the first mention of Doomsday’s potential involvement in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, new information came out soon after that gave the brutish beast a radically different origin. In the comics, Doomsday was a creature from prehistoric Krypton, made to be the ultimate survivor, and after killing its creator, it went on a killing spree across the universe until arriving on Earth. However, in the movie universe, as the rumor goes, Luthor obtains Zod’s corpse, and while experimenting on it, he accidentally triggers something that transforms the dead Kryptonian general into Doomsday. This then leads to Superman fighting Doomsday in the climax, a battle which Wonder Woman will also reportedly join.
With Dawn of Justice five months away, it is curious that DC and Warner Bros. haven’t announced Doomsday yet, but unless Ray is engaged in some kind of elaborate misdirection, now things aren’t looking good for an appearance from the monstrosity. It’s possible that Doomsday was originally set to appear (especially since there was indeed concept art of him), but plans changed during preproduction. Also, keep in mind that just because Doomsday might not appear doesn’t mean that the movie won’t include a menacing physical villain.
Aside from Bats and Supes duking it out, the movie has yet to directly advertise a prominent threat, but as seen in the last trailer, the two main heroes and Wonder Woman appear to be battling something extremely powerful. Rather than Doomsday, perhaps it’s some kind of Bizarro-creature, which would make more sense if Zod’s role does end up being radically transformed. He might not be a malformed clone of Superman, but a twisted, reanimated Kryptonian would still fill the Bizarro role nicely.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice hits theaters on March 25, 2016.
