(Warning: Spoilers for the end-credits scene in Black Adam ahead.)
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is one of Hollywood’s premier pitchmen, and he spent a considerable amount of the Black Adam press tour talking up a potential showdown between his formidable DC Extended Universe villain Black Adam and the Man of Steel. Thus, it’s nothing if not anticlimactic to discover that, during the credits of Jaume Collet-Serra’s superhero extravaganza, Johnson’s resurrected demigod shares the screen with Henry Cavill’s Superman in what serves as a brief glimpse of possible comic book things to come.
Johnson’s desire to interject himself into the already established DCEU and promptly face off against its most famous member is more than a bit reminiscent of when the actor joined the Fast and Furious franchise and was immediately tussling with its big dog, Vin Diesel. As in that road-rage series, there’s no way Johnson’s late-to-the-party interloper can actually win such a fight; for all his super speed, strength and ability to fly and shoot lightning bolts from his fingertips, Black Adam is still a second-tier Superman variation who’s destined for defeat (or, at best, a stalemate) in any eventual contest against the real thing.
Nonetheless, the antihero is rather confident that he’s the baddest man on the planet, this despite the fact that, at the conclusion of Black Adam, he’s informed by Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller that he’s now permanently confined to his home city of Kahndaq, and that should he attempt to leave, he’ll be put back in his place by one of her minions.
With the same cold, cocky attitude that he exhibits throughout his feature debut, Black Adam notes that no one on Earth can stop him, at which point Waller informs him that she has aliens at her disposal. Cue the long-awaited return of Cavill’s Superman, making his first official DCEU appearance since 2017’s ill-fated Justice League (2021’s “Snyder Cut” is technically a stand-alone venture).
With a confident smile of his own, he remarks, “It’s been a while since anyone’s made the world this nervous,” and tells Adam that it’s probably best that they chat. Johnson’s closing smirk makes clear that he relishes the opportunity to go toe-to-toe with Earth’s defender, which echoes Johnson’s frequent media-blitz comments that what he most craves is an epic skirmish between Black Adam and the Justice League titan.
Whether he gets that chance remains dependent, of course, on whether Black Adam proves a viable stand-alone character by earning enough box-office money to warrant a follow-up endeavor. Recent reports indicating that a Cavill-headlined Man of Steel 2 is in the early stages of development suggest that Warner Bros. and DC want to keep their options open regarding Johnson’s dream project (or, at least, keep their star happy).
Yet considering that Johnson’s latest is generic and dull, and that Cavill’s superhero outings haven’t exactly set the world on fire, it’s probably way too early to get any legitimate hopes up about seeing Johnson and Cavill trade mid-air roundhouses— even if Black Adam’s teaser does pull off the now-familiar interconnected movieverse trick of distracting attention from a current film’s lameness by drumming up excitement for a future chapter.
