Gird up those loins, folks: We’re now only 15 mortal days away from the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the film that will finally give fans of superhero movies exactly what they’ve always said they wanted, freeing our planet forever from their collective sense of anger and rights, and likely to win Snyder a Nobel Peace Prize. HBO Max, the company trying to ride on this persistent bronco of grassroots digital fury, continues to anticipate the film – which today, means the company has released the chapter titles for Snyder’s epicbecause god knows you can’t make a four-hour superhero movie without breaking it down into concise chapters with titles. (To be clear, all chapters will be released as the single four-hour movie.)
Actually, Justice League will be cut six chapters, and – after already getting our affairs in order, anticipating the planetary realignment heralded by the movie’s highly anticipated re-release – we thought he’d be doing a little old-fashioned baseless speculation as to what each of these demarcations might be mean.
Chapter One: “Don’t Count On It, Batman”
Now, a simple A to B reading of the text would suggest that this is largely centered on the first parts of the 2017 Justice League, in which Arthur “Aquaman” Curry says this exact phrase to Bruce Wayne when he declines his offer to be one of his “warriors.” But given Snyder’s known disdain for Joss Whedon’s version of the movie, and love for including extra bonus villains in this new version, we can only assume that this chapter will feature an appearance from the classic Batman villain calculator instead, and us will concentrate on that. count on it, see), possibly dressed as John the Baptist
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Chapter Two: The Age Of Heroes
A literal reading might suggest that this section contains some of the backstory sections of the original version Justice League, which shows the ancient battles between aliens, Olympians, Atlanteans and Amazons against the movie’s great villain, Steppenwolf, who wants to take them all on a flying carpet straight to hell. The new version, meanwhile, will be – we’re guessing – 40 minutes of the movie heroes tell each other ages as a kind of team building.
Chapter Three: Beloved Mother, Beloved Son
Ray Fisher’s Cyborg reveals that the mystical Motherbox that brought both him and Superman back to life is also, unlikely, called ‘Martha’.
Chapter Four: “Change Machine”
While Steppenwolf combines the Motherboxes to reshape the Earth’s surface and usher in the arrival of his master, Darkseid, Bruce Wayne struggles to park his Knightcrawler all-terrain vehicle, doing that thing that takes you about 10 minutes to spend trying to flatten a dollar bill against the corner of the machine until the goddamn switch machine finally accepts it.
Chapter Five: All the King’s Horses
Earth’s darkest hour is averted when King Horse, the greatest of the planet’s heroes, spends his Titanic Whinny, shaking Steppenwolf’s army to shreds. (The only human victim of the attack is a man named “Woss Jhedon,” who is buried alive under 40 tons of rubble.) When the Apokaliptan General begs for mercy, King Horse seals his fate in the ensuing League debate by voting : “No.”
Chapter Six: Something Darker
All Justice League Members, as well as a sudden onset of Darkseid, look directly at the camera and encourage viewers to watch the upcoming, even less colorful movie Justice Is Gray version. King Horse wearily shakes his big head and gallops off to explore the stars.
And those are credits, folks, a scant four hours of your life later. A fairly titanic feat on Snyder’s part, and a fulfillment of his long-brewing vision for this superhero union-
Wait, really? A scene with a middle credits in the Newswire about the superhero movie? How low is this shit gonna bend? Ugh, fine:
Epilogue
Martian Manhunter appears, explains to disappointed Ryan Reynolds fans that he’s all they get this time, so they might as well suck it up and enjoy it.
Jesus Christ.