After over a year without any new films from DC, Aquaman has finally swam into cinemas to end the drought. Though reviews haven’t exactly been glowing, the pic’s booming in the overseas box office and is off to a pretty solid start in the US so far as well.
Tonally speaking, it’s much closer to Wonder Woman than say, Suicide Squad or Man of Steel and simply tells a fun, epic adventure story that can be enjoyed by as wide an audience as possible. That being said, there are still a ton of easter eggs and references in the film for fans to pick up on.
After all, the story of Aquaman is pulled from a few different comics, particularly those from The New 52, but there are a few nods to the character’s long and varied history thrown in, too. And one easter egg that seems to have slipped by a lot of folks is a quick but interesting nod to the aforementioned Man of Steel.
If you’ll recall, there’s a scene in Zack Snyder’s 2013 film where Clark attempts to rescue some oil workers from an offshore drilling platform. Unfortunately, he takes on a bit more than he can handle and ultimately ends up being crushed underneath the wreckage and left for dead in the ocean. Or so we thought. You see, he’s eventually discovered alive and well after having been rescued by something, or someone.
Though Man of Steel never makes it explicitly clear how exactly Supes was saved, Jason Momoa has since confirmed that it was indeed Aquaman who rescued him and now, in Arthur Curry’s solo outing, there’s a reference to that scene. It comes when Orm’s outlining his reasoning for bringing war to the surface world. Long story short, he’s mad that they’re polluting the ocean and to illustrate his point, he conjures up some holographic images, one of which is a flaming oil platform – the very same one that nearly killed Superman.
Again, there’s nothing explicitly said about Aquaman having been the one who saved Clark, but the reference here is clear to see and it’s a neat little callback to that moment from Man of Steel. Even if Snyder’s original vision for the DCEU which the film laid the foundation for will now never be realized.
