We Know The Justice League Villain, And What He’s Trying To Do

From cinemablend [excerpt], Movies like Zack Snyder's Justice League need a reason to bring the most powerful members of a comic book universe together, a mission or a goal that prompts these individual heroes to join forces for the common good. The Avengers, for example, have joined forces to take down Loki and Ultron, while Thanos is lingering on the galactic horizon. And now, we're able to confirm that the reason Batman (Ben Affleck) recruits Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), The Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) is to defeat Steppenwolf and his flying Parademons.

Steppenwolf dates back to the 1970s, introduced to DC Comics by the great Jack Kirby. He's a member of the New Gods, and as it pertains to the DC Cinematic Universe, he's the uncle of Darkseid, and the leader of the Apokolips military. From what we were able to learn on set, Steppenwolf and his Parademons will be in pursuit of three Motherboxes. These seeds will be sewn by Snyder in the DCEU, as was hinted in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice when Bruce Wayne had his Knightmare vision (seen below).

We actually saw a hint at the existence of Steppenwolf in a deleted Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice scene that Warner Bros. officially released days after the movie reached theaters. If you recall, it showed Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor in the Kryptonian ship that he blackmailed his way onto. He was bathing in a mysteriously dark liquid, and we saw a miniaturized version of a demonic figure that some, at the time, mistook for Darkseid but who actually is meant to represent Steppenwolf.