No, [REDACTED] does not have flipper hands in BATMAN V SUPERMAN!

[WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS UNCONFIRMED SPECULATION ABOUT A CERTAIN CHARACTER’S FATE IN BATMAN V SUPERMAN, BUT WHICH MAY BE CONSIDERED A SPOILER IF TRUE. READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL!]

So let’s recap: Rumours that the corpse of Michael Shannon’s General Zod, last seen getting his head twisted in the wrong direction in Man of Steel, is going to be making a reappearance in the upcoming Batman v Superman was thrown for a loop recently when Shannon told a funny anecdote of being trapped in an on-set toilet during filming, because at the time he had prosthetic flippers for hands. Yes, flippers.

This obviously clashed with the widely rumoured report that BvS would see Lex Luthor inadvertently transforming Zod’s corpse into the monstrous Doomsday, because, well, Doomsday ain’t got no flipper hands, dawg! So what gives? Was Shannon actually playing some new character we’ve never heard of? Angry Porpoise Man or something? Nope, it seems it was all just a joke, as Shannon explained to The Daily Beast.

“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. [smiles] That is so obviously a complete bullshit story, right? But people took it seriously.”

“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.”

Wait, did he just confirm the presence of Doomsday?! Well, maybe. Kinda. Look, it’s complicated! Because while Shannon does name-drop the Big D (no, Darryn, not you), he does also explain that despite us seeing images of his corpse in the film’s trailer, he’s not actually in Batman v Superman.

“I wasn’t there. It’s a really awkward situation—I’m in the trailer for a movie that I didn’t work on.”

Huh? We clearly see Zod in the trailer – which Shannon still hasn’t seen – so how can he not be there? According to the actor, he’s going to come back as ghost, much in the same way that Russell Crowe’s Jor-El was killed in Man of Steel‘s opening minutes, but then appeared to his son Superman throughout the film as a spectral presence.

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

“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.”

So that explains that, right? Ghosts. Except, I call bovine feces! If Zod was a ghost, that would still require Shannon to physically be seen on screen. Jor-El wasn’t invisible in Man of Steel! So I’m thinking that this is just another story that Shannon’s spinning, hoping to keep the fanboys guessing. I think he did do a voice-over recording, but it was either for a fully CGI Doomsday, or some stunt-guy in a suit. The Doomsday angle fits too perfectly, and there have just been too many reports of it for there to be nothing there.

But as always, we’re going to have to wait until March next year until we can find out for sure.

Last Updated: September 2, 2015