Zack Snyder confirms Wonder Woman killed Steppenwolf in his cut of Justice League. Its no secret by now that the theatrical version of Justice League released in theaters in November of 2017 wasn't what Snyder originally had planned. The harsh reception to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice saw Warner Bros. insist on changes to the story Snyder and writer Chris Terrio were planning to tell. The changes came so early in the process that Snyder never even shot his original script for Justice League.
What he did shoot during principal photography is what many have now deemed as the Snyder Cut of Justice League. This version of the movie was never released since Snyder walked away from the project following the death of his daughter. Significant changes came to his vision from that point on with Joss Whedon stepping aboard. Cyborg's entire story was altered or left on the cutting room floor, as were any appearances by Darkseid. He was never going to be the main villain, but he would've had a looming presence of what Steppenwolf did.
In the third act of Justice League, Steppenwolf is defeated by the League and, consumed by his fear of failure, attacked by parademons as a Boom Tube transports him off Earth. But, the Snyder Cut of Justice League gave him a very different ending. As confirmed by Snyder in a new post on Vero, Steppenwolf was going to die at the hands of Wonder Woman. As seen below, he would be decapitated by the Amazonian seconds before he entered a Boom Tube and presumably ended up on Apokolopis in front of Darkseid.
This is a big revelation from Snyder and confirms that the third act specifically was reworked quite a bit as many believed thanks to Superman's upper-lip being a dead giveaway of reshoots. The shot of Wonder Woman leaping for the kill shot was used in the trailers and the theatrical cut of Justice League, but the context of the latter was changed to just destroy Steppenwolf's ax. Snyder's reasoning for having Diana kill Steppenwolf is evident in his caption (which also reiterates he has no idea what happens in the theatrical cut of the film) with wanting the Amazonian God to kill the New God. It is also worth noting how this could've tied into Wonder Woman, as Ares said: "Only a god can kill another god." Snyder would've proven that to be the case here.
The other big takeaway from this reveal by Snyder though is the overall status of the Snyder Cut. There have been plenty of claims as to how finished his version of Justice League was before he left, and this makes it clear that not everything was 100% done. There is clearly a lot of work that would need to go into completing this shot (which may be pre-viz), and it stands to reason that this is not the only scene that wasn't finished. We know Snyder's plan to have Uxas, the pre-Darkseid version of the character, appear in the history lesson scene wasn't done either. If Darkseid is on the other side of this Boom Tube, it is reasonable to believe that this also wasn't' completed. In any case, Snyder continues to reveal new aspects to the Snyder Cut of Justice League, which proves how different his version would be.
Source: Zack Snyder/Vero
