Why is this overlooked when people continue to rally around Snyder’s wack-ass conceptualization for Justice League?
There are more than enough planetary-threat-level villains in the DCU to have avoided rolling out Darkseid too early, while still presenting a credible threat worthy of forming the Justice League. It could be argued DC actually has more of those types of villains than Marvel.
Meanwhile, the only reason fans accepted Steppenwolf as a credible threat was because of Darkseid (that doesn’t mean he isn’t credible, power-wise... it means who gives a fukk about Stepenwolf?).
Brainiac immediately springs to mind. Especially since MoS kick-started their attempt at a shared universe. But since you could argue that Braniac is AS big a threat as Darkseid, you could also argue for Black Adam (oh hey, I heard they casted some guy named The Rock to play that guy... no way he’s charismatic enough to hold it down as the main bad guy
), Vandal Savage, Amazo, the fukking Anti-Monitor (probably a Phase 3 villain), Prometheus, Rhas Al Ghul, Brother Eye + OMACs, Despero... Mongul!
But nope. We were gonna get an Act II Darkseid reveal. That makes sense.