The first photos of Jared Leto as Joker in Zack Snyder’s Justice League have just been released – check them out below.

Leto had originally played the character in David Ayer’s 2016 film Suicide Squad, although Snyder is giving the character a different look for his re-cut of 2017’s Justice League, which was finished by Joss Whedon.

• Read more: ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ is finally on the way – but does it have to take itself so seriously?

The Joker did not originally feature in Justice League, but Snyder has now told Vanity Fair: “The Joker is really the only thing that I thought of in retrospect. But I will say that it was always my intention to bring Joker into that world.”

Take a look at the first image here:

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Joker is set to appear in the film in a dream sequence opposite Ben Affleck’s Bruce Wayne, speaking to him about what will happen if the superheroes do not stop the alien Darkseid from destroying the world.

“The cool thing about the scene is that it’s Joker talking directly to Batman about Batman,” Snyder explained. “It’s Joker analyzing Batman about who he is and what he is.

“That’s the thing I also felt like fans deserved from the DC Universe. That is to say, the Jared Leto Joker and the Ben Affleck Batman, they never really got together.

He added: “It seemed uncool to me that we would make it all the way through this incarnation of Batman and Joker without seeing them come together.”

Zack Snyder’s Justice League will air on HBO Max on March 18.