Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam didn’t exactly go according to plan, which is putting it lightly. The actor and producer kept telling everyone the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe was about to change, and while it did, he ironically had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Almost instantly cast aside by co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran, Johnson was left with egg all over his face when Black Adam underwhelmed at the box office, found itself largely panned by critics, and was then dragged round the back and put out of its misery as the franchise instead shifted gears to focus on a brand new era.
In a fitting twist of fate that’s as serendipitous as it is accidentally hilarious, the new Super Bowl trailer for Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has seen Will Poulter’s Adam Warlock become a figure of fun after inadvertently channeling one of the Black Adam‘s most lasting legacies.
Much like Morbius before it, Black Adam could be poised to go down in the history books as a failed comic book experiment that lives on solely through the medium of meme. While that’s technically better than being forgotten about completely, it isn’t quite what The Rock had in mind when he finally brought the Man in Black to the big screen after 15 years in development hell.
Either way, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has breathed new life into the template, and the shared Gunn connection is way too delicious for anyone to pass up.