We’re diving into the surprising new villain of the Justice League on today’s Nerdist News! Since the Darkseid-tinged Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice dropped a few months ago, we’ve all been assuming that Darkseid would be the villain in next fall’s Justice League flick. I mean, after the Parademons and the Omega symbol in the Knightmare sequence and that upside-down painting that basically served as a storyboard for what we assumed would be the Darkseid invasion of 2017, it all made sense. However, Birth.Movies.Death revealed that the villain in Justice League might be… wait for it… Steppenwolf.

…Him? That’s right, star of My Life on the D-List: Apokolips and uncle to Darkseid will indeed be the baddie who menaces Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Cyborg, Aquaman, and presumably even a Zombie Superman in DC‘s first big team-up movie. This means Darkseid himself won’t drop in until 2019 with Justice League Part 2. Fans who saw the super-weird Batman v Superman deleted scene where Lex Luthor talks to some silvery techni-monster via Motherbox inside that creepy Kryptonian afterbirth tank have already seen the DCEU’s take on the baddie. But don’t count on him being all metallic in the movie or anything. Since we’ve seen the Snyderverse Steppenwolf using a Motherbox (basically space-bound FaceTime) in the deleted scene we know that’s the reason behind the metallic tinge. We can assume, however, if he’s using Motherboxes and invading planets, that he’ll be a formidable, intelligent foe for the super-team. We hope.

This being said, anything could change between now and 2019–after all, there have been murmurs that WB and Zach Snyder aren’t the best of pals after how Dawn of Justice was received. And with Ben Affleck moving up to an Executive Producer position with more creative control than ever… well, that could mean a big difference between Justice League One and Two.

But what do you guys think? Did you see Steppenwolf coming? Do you like his more-monstrous new form? Do you think he’ll make a solid JLA villain? Let’s discuss!