Stephen Colbert meets Deathstroke and explains why Baby Yoda is an Avenger in Snyder Cut parody

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert poked fun at Zack Snyder's Justice League last night with a sketch that put a comedic spin on the film's epilogue meeting between Lex Luthor and Slade Wilson. In the original theatrical cut, Luthor (played by Jesse Eisenberg) floats the idea of forming the Legion of Doom. In the long-awaited Snyder Cut, Superman's arch-nemesis provides Deathstroke (Joe Manganiello) with Batman's secret identity. The latter was meant to set up Ben Affleck's Caped Crusader film that never came to be.

The "Colbert Cut" goes one step further and drags out the sequence for several minutes as Luthor (portrayed by Colbert in a bald cap that makes him look more like Charles Xavier) confuses Wilson with Deadpool, ribs the assassin over his feud with the Teen Titans, and explains the complicated rights issues surrounding Marvel properties. The ultimate takeaway here is that The Mandalorian's Baby Yoda is an Avenger. Make it happen, Multiverse of Madness!

Watch the full thing below (the skit begins at the 3:30 mark):

Snyder's edit also bumps up Deathstroke's scene count to two. The villain — rocking a snow white mohawk — appears in the DCEU's second "Knightmare" sequence, in which Batman leads a ragtag group of heroes in the wake of a Darkseid victory. It was Manganiello who suggested the character's new look after years of trying to get a solo Slade Wilson project off the ground.

“Part of living with the character for four years, thinking maybe around the next bend you’re gonna get to play him, you can’t help but percolate," the actor recently said. "In the treatment that I wrote, the standalone, in the end of the film, I always envisioned him shaving his head into some kind of war-like, almost borderline suicide mission [style]. ‘This is it, I’m gonna die like a warrior.’ I explained that to Zack and he said, ‘Great, let’s do it.’”

Zack Snyder's Justice League is now streaming on HBO Max. Click here for SYFY WIRE's roundup of all the new additions.