Jason Momoa Confirms Aquaman Saved Superman In Man Of Steel

The strength of any great film universe lies in the connective tissue – all the tiny details that link movie to movie, and character arc to character arc. It’s not always obvious, and the very best examples are those that only really become clear when you look at the franchise as a whole. Eagle-eyed fans, of course, tend to pick up on these connections first, though – and Jason Momoa has now confirmed a long-standing example of this, while promoting Justice League.

Speaking to DC All-Access, the Aquaman actor was asked about potential ‘Easter Eggs’ that audiences could watch for in the new DC team-up. Not wanting to reveal any spoilers for Justice League, Momoa instead went back to 2013’s Man Of Steel, and confirmed a theory that fans have long held – that Aquaman saved Superman during his fledgling superheroics.

“I’ll give you a cool little thing that’s not in this movie – what Zack [Snyder] kind of told me for his idea when he was doing – for Aquaman. In Man of Steel, when Henry’s saving – he’s on the oil rig, holding it up and all of a sudden he’s in the ocean and floats in the ocean ‘I had Aquaman save him.’ So they did cross paths at one point.”

The scene in question occurs during an early sequence – depicting Clark Kent’s travels around the country, having different jobs. It’s his journey of self-discovery and, while working on a trawler, he inadvertently becomes involved in a rescue mission – as the boat he’s working on receives a distress call from an oil rig. The rig is burning, and people are trapped.

Clark Kent dives into the ocean, reaches the rig, frees the trapped people and holds the structure together to allow them to escape. When it finally explodes, he’s thrown – unconscious – into the water. As he floats there, surrounded by fiery debris, he’s suddenly tended to by whales. Since Kent is next seen emerging on land, we can assume that the whales saved him – and fans have theorized ever since that this is evidence of Aquaman’s intervention.

Now, according to Jason Momoa, it seems that those fans were correct. Aquaman saved Superman before he ever became the hero we know him as today. And we’ll get to see how their relationship develops further when Justice League arrives in theatres on November 17th.