The Classic Superman Look We Almost Saw In The Justice League Snyder Cut

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Much has changed in the world of DC Comics over the years, but there are some things that have stayed relatively consistent. That's generally been true of Superman's look, which tends to show the superpowered Kryptonian clean-shaven, with fairly short hair and a red and blue suit. Although that look is definitely the character's default appearance, it's changed at several key moments in his history. 

One came in the 1990s, when Superman died in the comics. He was eventually reborn, but he came back with a totally new look. That look features a black suit, a mullet, and a beard. It remade Superman for the rougher, gruffer '90s. Given the fact that Zack Snyder's Justice League (which you can stream on HBO Max) deals with the death of Superman, it made sense that they would consider using this iconic look for the movie, and it turns out that it was a discussion Snyder had with his team. Ultimately, though, it seems that Snyder and the rest of the film's production decided to stick with the cleaner look that Superman is best known for. 

"We actually talked about it a lot, and I was a slight advocate —a little bit, for the mullet — but I think that there was no way to go back from that and at the time the studio was really leaning on me pretty hard," Snyder told YouTuber Tyrone Magnus. "There was just ... I was lucky to be able to figure it out, so I could get the black suit ... I had done a lot of research before, so we knew how to turn the color suit black."

Snyder granted that the mulleted look may have been a tough sell, but he said that the studio also fought him on using Superman's black suit for the movie. 

"I always said I'd shoot the colored suit, but it's a mistake," Snyder explained. "I'm just saying it out loud to you guys, this is bullsh-t. And so they were like, 'You don't know what you are talking about, nobody wants a black suit, let's just do the colors.' And so, you know, I thought like, 'look, in post, you guys are going to change your minds.' But, here we are with the black suit. Yeah, the beard and the long hair, that was gonna be... there was no way to undo that. We saw how that went last time they tried to do it."

In both the theatrically released version of the Justice League and Zack Snyder's cut, Superman's resurrection plays a critical role. Both versions also feature a sneak peak at a darker version of the character. In the moments after Superman returns to life, he's initially confused about who he is. That ultimately leads to a confrontation with the rest of the Justice League, and it's one that only Lois Lane can stop from turning into a fatal encounter. 

Although there are plenty of differences between the two versions, including the addition of Superman's black suit, Superman's general arc remains the same, and he's without a mullet or facial hair in both versions. Ironically, one of the principal issues with the theatrically released version of Justice League was the CGI work that the team had to do to remove Henry Cavill's mustache, which he had grown for Mission Impossible: Fallout, from his lip. In Snyder's cut, Superman is without facial hair, but he's also without a digitally inserted upper lip.

Zack Snyder's Justice League is available to stream now on HBO Max.