Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam movie has a ton of easter eggs coming from the DC Comics world and beyond, and it took quite a while to get them all in. After several years of his film being stuck in development hell, Johnson has entered the DCU as Black Adam, bringing the iconic antihero to life on the big screen for the first time. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, Black Adam follows the grim origin story of Teth-Adam and how he became one of the most powerful creatures on the planet.
While Black Adam laid the groundwork for the era of Teth-Adam in the DCU, the film also drew other major comic book elements throughout the film. While Black Adam took on the evil Intergang organization, the DCU also brought Sabbac to life as another villain for Johnson’s character to fight. While the DCU movie followed Johnson’s antihero, Black Adam The film also introduced the Justice Society of America, the Golden Age team that traditionally predates the Justice League.
As with most comic books and superhero movies, Black Adam didn’t hold back when it came to spreading Easter eggs from the DC Comics world. screen frenzy recently talked to Black Adam editor Mike Sale, ACE, who opened up about helping work on the highly anticipated DCU episode. One of Sale’s favorite aspects of Black Adam was the amount of DC Easter eggs and the joy of pulling out of the comics. While Sale wouldn’t spoil every specific nod in the film, planting seeds from DC Comics was a fun experience, as he said the following:
Mike Sale, ACE: I have to tell you, there are a lot of… [Easter eggs], For real. Jaume Collet-Serra is super smart and he put a lot of stuff into it. I’m not going to say what they are, but the more you watch this movie… And they don’t just come from video games or the DC world. Even going back to comic books. Jaume studied for six months for this film. He read every comic book and he has a crazy, amazing memory. He remembers everything.
One of my favorite parts of working on this film is when he came into my room and I said, “Why is he wearing a cloak when he wakes up on the Rock of Eternity? Jaume would tell me a 45-minute story about what happened? actually happened after he fought the king, and why he now wears a cloak.
You can’t tell all those things in the movie. Part of it, because he told me, we got into the movie. When he told me how the wizards had put him in the grave, which could be a whole movie, we got that little four-second thing in our movie that we could put in there. When he told me that, I thought, “Dude, we’ve gotta get that in the movie for the fans.” He said, “I don’t know. Where would it go?” And we would find places.
It made it really fun. I have to say, Dwayne and Hiram Garcia and the producers absolutely love these comic books and the characters. They were very excited about these little Easter eggs and they insisted on them and made sure they didn’t get lost along the way – because those things could go. We could have knocked out that shot and saved a lot of money.
Black Adam’s attention to detail is impressive
For the regular audience to see Black Adam, some Easter eggs can not be noticed. However, for hardcore comic fans it is fascinating to watch Black Adam draw as much as they did from the DC lore. something that Black Adam did both in the actual movie, as well as during marketing, paid tribute to several iconic comic book covers featuring Teth-Adam. A pivotal moment was when Black Adam sat on the throne and posed exactly as the cover for Part 1 of the DC series, 52which is a nice perk since they were willing to pull from comics that came out a few years ago.
Hopefully, if the Black Adam film has opened worldwide, it will generally encourage viewers to explore the character’s comic mythology. Ever since Johnson and his creative team made it clear that they have plans for the… Black Adam franchise, it will be interesting to see what potential sequels take from his comedic lore from the DCU. Hopefully, now that DC Studios is up and running, it will become clearer for the Black Adam film series, as Johnson’s antihero is just starting out in the DCU.
