Zack Snyder’s Justice League had a Darkseid, and he just officially revealed himself

There were a lot of elements that got dropped when filmmaker Zack Snyder had to leave the production of Warner Bros. and DC's Justice League. Some of them were minor things — elements of backstory, a non-mustached/CGI Henry Cavill — but others were huge. Like, major villain huge. Darkseid was meant to be the Thanos-esque baddie teasing the superhero team-up and acting as the major threat they'd need to combat after a cliffhanger. However, he got dropped. But, now that the Snyder Cut is getting released by HBO Max, under the name Zack Snyder's Justice League, the man behind this villain is finally able to claim his antagonistic throne.

Ray Porter, an actor who's appeared in things like the Lost epilogue and voiced memorable characters in BioShock 2 and more, has confirmed the rumors: he is Zack Snyder's Darkseid.

Take a look:

Porter, who's long been rumored to have played the Fourth World Big Bad, then went onto the LightCast podcast, during which he addressed having to keep this secret since Justice League hit theaters.

Way cooler than his lackey Steppenwolf, the space Hitler-esque Darkseid was supposed to be the root of all the Knightmare sequences in the Snyder Cut (and the Joss Whedon theatrical version). The Jack Kirby creation is one of DC's greatest villains and would give the Justice League a much bigger challenge than any of his underlings...not to mention some New 52 cred, as the comics saw the villain as the instigating force behind the group's gathering. Snyder had a similar idea in mind for his film, which he teased with an image on Twitter:

So why was Porter mum on the subject until now? Well, the answer is mostly a dry, legal one. "There's stuff that I don't want to give away, because we get to see it now," Porter said of his 2016 filming. "I just stayed quiet about it because I didn't want to give anything away, and I had signed [an NDA] and I don't want to mess with Warner Bros. They've always been very nice to me, and I don't want to make them mad."

He even went so far as to message the studio directly when rumors started to swirl about his involvement. "I got messages saying, 'Did you play Darkseid in Justice League?' I immediately went into panic mode and I shot off an email to Warner Bros. and I shot off an email to DC like, 'I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything,'" the actor explained.

But then came the fateful Man of Steel screening where Snyder himself announced that his version of the story was going to get its own day of reckoning. Could Porter finally break his silence? "Afterwards, I texted Zack, and I said, 'Can I come out of the Darkseid closet now?' And he responded, 'Yes,'" Porter said. "I guess in a way it was kind of selfish for me to be able to finally say, 'Yes, I did this.' It was like, 'Oh, thank God, I can finally say this.' I didn't realize it would blow up as big as it did."

Porter certainly recorded some version of Darkseid during the movie's early production, but he might have to bring some more of that Apokolips heat as Snyder rallies his cast to do pick-ups and other production on the (still nebulous) form of his official cut.

Fans will learn exactly what that looks like when Zack Snyder's Justice League hits HBO Max in 2021.