A few questions arose after watching Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice regarding those dream sequences and cameos from some signature Justice Leaguers. As we continue our trek to answer as many of these quandaries as we can, director Zack Snyder has shed more light on the events witnessed, this time revealing the mystery of Cyborg.
Beware of spoilers from Batman v Superman moving forward.
Ray Fisher made his first appearance as Victor Stone, a young athlete who’s transformed into a half-robot cyborg with technopathy, the ability to mind meld and manipulate various forms of technology. The film reveals a brief scene in which a floating box melds with Victor’s disembodied form to mold a new being. Some fans have posited that this mystery object might be a Mother Box from the comics, and Snyder has confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that that’s exactly what it is.
That’s the first glimpse of the Mother Box there. It was an agonizing birth.
If you’re wondering what a Mother Box is, the short answer is that it’s an alien supercomputer primarily used by the New Gods (a race of higher beings) with a vast array of abilities, one being its habit of attaching itself to and protecting hosts by granting them abilities. This is what’s powering the DCEU iteration of Cyborg, and Snyder teased the character’s bigger involvement down the road.
I really wanted to show Cyborg’s birth because I feel like he plays such a strong part coming up, and I really wanted to give a sense of him. I really want [the audience] to know how far he’s come.
In terms of the larger implication of the Mother Box, it serves as another tease for Darkseid. Batman v Superman was filled with nods to the god-like villain from Apokolips, including the omega symbol scorched onto the earth in one of Batman’s dream sequences and Lex Luthor’s foreboding warning at the end of the film (which now makes more sense given a recent deleted scene released by Warner Bros.). Another ability of the Mother Box is teleportation via Boom Tubes, which are portals commonly used by Darkseid in the comics and animated series to transport his invasion forces across galaxies.
Officially, we don’t know what villain will be menacing the Justice League in the big team-up film coming on November 17, 2017, but all signs sure as hell point to the big bad. Fisher will return later on to headline his own Cyborg film, scheduled for release on April 3, 2020.
