In case you’ve seen the unique, non-Zack-Snyder-endorsed launch of Justice League, you recognize that DC supervillain Deathstroke, portrayed by actor Joe Manganiello, makes an after-credits cameo with Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor. What’s not evident from that footage is that the murderer is a hardcore Halo multiplayer fan.

However Deathstroke’s love of the Halo online game sequence was revealed publicly this week, because of an exhibition that exhibits off the character’s costume as featured in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. The prolonged, four-hour minimize of the DC superhero movie additional explores the “Knightmare” dreamscape initially hinted at in Batman v Superman: Daybreak of Justice. In Zack Snyder’s Justice League it’s the place Jared Leto’s Joker resurfaces. And at AT&T’s Discovery Park in Dallas, Texas, followers of Zack Snyder’s DC cinematic universe can see the unique Knightmare world costumes used within the director’s superhero saga.

That’s the place one fan noticed an emblem on Deathstroke’s sword, which was presumed to be a reference to Batman villain Ra’s al Ghul and his League of Shadows (aka League of Assassins). Deathstroke is a member of that league, alongside characters like Bane and Talia al Ghul.

One fan, Geoff Reeves, posted his discovery on Twitter:

Nonetheless, one other Batman fan, @TheBatstan, challenged that discovering, stating that the icon on Deathstroke’s hilt is definitely an emblem from Bungie’s Halo video games.

“Ra’s al Ghul brand my ass,” The Batstan added.

So how did a Halo multiplayer icon wind up in Zack Snyder’s Justice League (even when it could not seem visibly on display screen)? One prevailing idea is that somebody concerned within the costume or weapon’s design did a Google picture seek for “Ra’s al Ghul brand.” The primary result’s that picture, in any case.

However that runic icon is initially from Halo, simply very barely modified. Right here’s the icon’s creator, veteran Bungie artist Christopher Barrett stating that he designed that emblem (with the unique Adobe Illustrator file to show it) many years in the past:

However how did that emblem be come to be related to Ra’s al Ghul in any respect? A fan-fiction creator could also be accountable. An creator on the fandom-crossover wiki Comedian Crossroads used that barely modified model of the Halo runes icon to characterize the League of Shadows of their creation, another comics universe named Earth-5991. In that universe, a fusion of Marvel’s Daredevil and DC’s Batman, Matt Murdock (not Bruce Wayne) turns into the Dark Knight. Right here’s the synopsis of that fan creation:

When the younger Matt Murdock witnesses his mother and father being killed in entrance of him by a mugger, he vows to by no means permit such factor to occur with the harmless. Departing from his house of Gotham Metropolis, Murdock masters each his physique and thoughts the world over, returning to avenge his mother and father and his metropolis by waging a one-man conflict in opposition to crime as Batman, the Man With out Concern.

The creator of Earth-5991, who goes by Draft227 on Comedian Crossroads, has been contributing DC crossover fan fiction work since no less than 2014 — nicely earlier than the 2017 launch of Justice League. Draft227 can also be the title of a frequent contributor to Halopedia, a contributor-run wiki in regards to the Halo franchise, which might clarify how they got here throughout the icon within the first place. Draft227 has additionally written a sequence of Halo canon fan growth tales, dubbed the New Timeline. Now, it seems, their affect has made it into Zack Snyder’s Justice League in a small, weird method.

You’ll be able to attempt to make out what’s on Deathstroke’s sword in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the place the supervillian will get a bit extra display screen time, when it premieres on HBO Max on March 18.