Warner Bros.
(Warning: Spoilers for the end-credits scene in Black Adam ahead.)
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is one of Hollywood’s premiere 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.