Justice League featured a mid-credits and after-credits scene! So what do they both mean?
It should go without saying but just in case…
There will be spoilers for Justice League after this point! Do not read further than this if you haven’t yet seen the movie or you didn’t stay for the end credits scenes!
In departure from its usual modus operandi, Justice League featured two different end / after credits scenes. The first of them was more of a fun nod to DC fans, while the second served as a hint as to what may be coming further down the line for the DCEU.
‘Justice League’ end credit scene: Flash and Superman race
Throughout the movie, we are treated to a number of times where it’s obvious that Superman is at least as fast as Barry Allen. When he first returns from being dead, we see Superman more than able to keep up with Barry’s super speed while also fending off three other attackers.
Likewise, when the two are rescuing townspeople from Steppenwolfe’s attempt at terraforming the town, Superman easily catches up to Barry, even throwing in a “slowpoke” in there for good measure.
The end credits scene is a nod to the age old DC comics question of who would win in a race between the two.
It’s an event that’s been portrayed more than a few times in comics history as well as in Superman: The Animated Series.
The scene opens in a rural backroad, presumably somewhere near Clark’s home. Flash is the same excitable, endearing character he’s been for the whole movie, thanking Superman for doing this and saying that it’s of course not a macho measuring thing. Superman agrees, then — with a straight face — tells Barry he’s off the team should he lose. Barry is shocked for about one moment, until Superman’s face relaxes into a smile.
The two agree to some terms of winning: should Superman win, Flash will need to take everyone out to brunch (a callback to Barry’s earlier comment about not understanding the purpose of it), whereas if Flash wins, he gets to tell everyone.
The two prepare to race to the West Coast — which Barry has never been to — and the scene ends with them rushing towards the camera.
We don’t know the winner, but of course that was never the point of the scene.
We see banter back and forth between the two heroes, signaling both the tonal shift between Zack Snyder’s earlier DCEU films and this one and the completion of Superman’s character arc, showing us what some might consider to be a more ‘traditional’ Superman. It’s a fun scene that highlights the strength of each of the characters, both individually and in relation to one another.
So while this scene is in many ways solely for fan service, it also does a good job further solidify the direction of the DCEU as laid down by creative head Geoff Johns: heart, humor, hope, heroics and optimism.
Justice League after-credits scene: Lex Luther and Deathstroke talk about building the Injustice League
While the first end credits scene is pure joy, this second one was the most exciting to me (and to apparently all the other people in all three showings of the movie I attended, since there was an audible gasp each time).
The scene opens in Gotham City’s infamous Arkham Asylum, the camera focusing on a bald headed individual with his back to us that we assume is Lex Luthor.
Except that once he turns around, it’s not Luthor at all! It’s some deranged lunatic laughing at the guard as we pan away from Arkham and transition to a yacht in the middle of the ocean somewhere.
There’s a smaller boat pulling up to it, and coming up the steps, in all his murderous, armored glory is…
Deathstroke!
He looks amazing, by the way, his armor quite literally looks like it’s pulled directly from a comic book. He swaggers towards a more familiar looking Lex Luthor, still played by Jesse Eisenberg, and takes off his helmet to reveal a grizzled, white-haired, eye patch wearing Joe Manganiello who also looks like a direct-from-the-comics Slade Wilson.
Luther offers him some — what I assume to be very expensive — wine, which Slade declines, simply asking what Luthor wants.
Luthor talks about the return of Superman and saying that he’s heard that the heroes have created a league of some sort. When Slade asks what this has to do with him, Luthor replies with —
“Don’t you think we should start a league of our own?”
The Lex Luthor theme from Batman vs. Superman swells as we pan out from the yacht and I completely lose my shit because they’re teasing the formation of the Injustice League.
In terms of future Justice League installments, this strongly hints at the Injustice League one day being the very formidable foes of the Justice League. We’ll likely have Lex Luthor, Deathstroke — who is both rumored to be in The Batman movie by Matt Reeves and is in talks to have his own movie — and The Joker, as played by Jared Leto in Suicide Squad. Some other candidates might be Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Black Adam, who is the arch nemesis of recently cast Zachary Levi’s Shazam, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Black Manta, who will play villain opposite of Jason Momoa’s Aquaman in the film next winter.
As to when this might happen — the answer to that question is more up in the air. Unfortunately — and as a DC fan it pains me to say this — Justice League vastly underperformed at the weekend box office, which likely gives WB pause in terms of wanting to have another team-up film in the next few years.
We’ll have to see what WB decides going forward. At the very least, we have this fantastic scene and the knowledge that we’ll be able to one day see these two characters back on our screens in the future.