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Hey, remember when we reported that Michael Shannon got stuck in a Porta-John on the set of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice because of his costume's supposed flipper hands? And remember how the Internet took this story with a smirk, a healthy dose of skepticism, and a reluctance to spout fan theories based on a flipper-handed Zod? Yeah that second part didn't actually happen, and if new quotes from Shannon are to be believed, the flipper hands never existed at all.

In fact, Shannon's new stance is that he was never even on set for the follow-up to Man of Steel, despite the fact that he's clearly seen in the film's trailer. In a chat with The Daily Beast, he addressed the fervor that occurred as a response to his silly set story. Let's revisit the tall tale that caused this whole mess to begin with, in Shannon's own words:

“I was in my costume, and I couldn’t use my fingers because in the sequel I have flippers instead of hands. So I had these wax flippers on my fingers, and I couldn’t open the door, and I could hear Zack [Snyder, the director] being like, ‘Where’s Shannon? Where the fuck is he?’ and the whole crew was standing around. I was like, knocking on the door with my flippers, ‘Let me out of here!’”


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Now, in the clear light of day, here's Shannon's response to the fans' reaction:

“Somebody was asking me about this in New York and I made up some ridiculous bullshit answer about how my character Zod has flippers, and this went viral on the Internet or something and people have been asking me about that. That is so obviously a complete bullshit story, right? But people took it seriously.”

I can tell that some of you out there are already putting on your tinfoil hats and cracking your knuckles in anticipation of revealing how this is all a smokescreen from WB/DC, and that Snyder pulled Shannon aside in order to squash this flipper hands rumor since it's a plot spoiler. Well, I can't stop you. All I can do is tell you that Shannon would be happy to work with Snyder again, flipper-handed Doomsday or not:


“Maybe they should add it, I don’t know! Maybe in Part 3, Doomsday will have flipper hands. I mean, look—nothing would make me happier than to work with Zack [Snyder] again, he’s hysterical and he’s a lot of fun to work with.”

In case you were wondering if Shannon has anything to do with Batman v Superman at all, he attempted to clear that up during this interview. Apparently he wasn't on set and didn't know that he'd even appeared in the trailer, but he has done some voice-over work, which he explains as follows:

“I wasn’t there. It’s a really awkward situation—I’m in the trailer for a movie that I didn’t work on. I went over and did some voice-over stuff because it’s like that ghost thing. But I don’t know if I’m supposed to say that. I get very nervous."

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Image via Warner Bros.

He elaborates a bit more on the ghosts, or preserved consciousnesses of dead Kryptonians:

“The thing about the whole Krypton universe, apparently, is that even when you destroy them, there are ghosts. The first [film], Jor-El is there even though he’s been dead for lord knows how long.”


So here's what we learned/confirmed: General Zod's dead, he may return as a hologram-type ghost (maybe to advise Lex Luthor like Jor-El did for his son?), and Shannon's a jokester.

Are you upset that flipper-hand Zod/Doomsday may not be happening now? Are you convinced that this is all just a distraction? Let us know in the comments below!

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Image via Warner Bros.
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Image via Warner Bros.