After months and months of nothing, it looks like San Diego Comic-Con is going to open the floodgates and pour out a whole lot of juicy information about Aquaman.
That long overdue trailer isn’t here quite yet, but to whet your whistle in the meantime, we’ve got a look at a kickass aquatic dragon. This is apparently the chosen steed of the people of Xebel, the second underwater kingdom after Atlantis, which is ruled over by King Nereus (Dolph Lundgren), and looks, in my opinion, pretty damn cool.
In addition, longtime fans of Aquaman will recognize it as a souped-up, badass reimagining of the seahorse he used to roll around on in Superfriends. Arguably, he’s still recovering from that ridiculously bland do-gooder interpretation of the character (famously mocked by Seanbaby on the prehistoric internet).
Producer Peter Safran explains that they’re trying to counter the argument that Aquaman is intrinsically lame head-on, explaining the following to EW:
“The idea was to turn on its head the idea of Aquaman riding a seahorse, take something for which he was mocked and turn it into something terrifying and impressive, he’s a Xebellian creature but I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw Arthur (Jason Momoa) on one at some point…”
For all that Justice League sucked (and boy did it suck), at least Jason Momoa’s boozy good-natured fratboy take on the character worked. Warner Bros. are presumably hoping that audiences agree, as the future of the DCEU rides on Aquaman‘s success.
Rumor is that if it does well we’ll continue to see the cinematic universe developed in much the same way as the MCU. If it flops, then they’re moving back to standalone movies without much connective tissue between them. Whichever way it goes, having kickass sea dragons zipping around in Aquaman can’t hurt its chances.