Doomsday's Original Batman V Superman Designs Prove Zack Snyder Messed Up

When it came to DC's Trinity in Zack Snyder's "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," there was no doubt that he had a vision and stuck to it in story and style. Superman (Henry Cavill), Batman (Ben Affleck), and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) all looked the part in the DC universe that was being built but never completed. Still, one crucial figure that might've looked slightly off was a legendary foe to the Man of Steel, Doomsday. This iconic villain was a character Zack Snyder had always been set on, including having teased Doomsday with an Easter egg most fans missed in "Man of Steel." Looking more like a Middle Earth local than the nightmarish killer of Kal-El, previous designs released by concept artist Jerad. S Marantz on Instagram proved some plans were closer to the original than we got.

After the Cave Troll-looking lug we got in "Dawn of Justice," Marantz posted an attempt saying, "Here's a very early Doomsday concept I did for 'Batman v Superman' a couple of years back. I did several options for the character. It really was an honor working on such an amazing project with such an incredible team." The design is very much in line with the original Doomsday from the comics, complete with stalagmite-covered shoulders, that rock-hard chest plate, and wisps of grey hair like when he faced off with Superman in 1993. Only in the later Doomsday efforts did he start to look like the monster Snyder was after.

Merged together, and the two other designs that Jerad. S Marantz had conjured up and indeed appeared like they were on the verge of getting to the Doomsday we encountered on screen. Lacking in hair and with the signature shoulder spikes getting shorter than the more comic-accurate effort, there's no doubt that the final Doomsday from the film was staring back somewhere amongst this pair. With that said, even though the final product might not have checked the boxes for fans, the plan for Snyder was to eventually get to that design by the end of the battle.

During Zack Snyder's Vero commentary on the film's fourth anniversary, he explained, "That was a thing that we talked about, you know, wanting to give him that classic Doomsday appearance with the bony shards coming through." While it's clear the effort was there and that breaking away from the original Doomsday before giving nods to the character was commendable, Marantz's early work clearly shows that stronger designs were waiting to be used and that, in the end, it just wasn't his day.