Production was already well underway on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom when WandaVision fan favorite Randall Park was finally confirmed to be returning as Dr. Stephen Shin, but it did at least make it official that James Wan’s superhero sequel would be paying off the opener’s mid-credits scene.
Having been handily defeated in battle by Jason Momoa’s Arthur Curry, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Black Manta was rescued by Shin, a marine scientist and conspiracy theorist obsessed by the existence and potential discovery of Atlantis. David Kane agreed to take him to the underwater kingdom, but only if he would assist his revenge plot.
Based on what we know so far, along with the concept art revealed at DC FanDome, there’s going to be a lot going on in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, but the Black Manta arc is nonetheless poised to take up a decent amount of screentime as a legacy storyline.
Co-writer David Johnson-McGoldrick took to Twitter and shared a new image of Abdul-Mateen II in his fresh duds, which you can check out below.
The earliest we can probably expect a teaser or full-length trailer for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is roundabout the March release of The Batman, so hopefully the crew keeps dropping photos like this one to tide us over in the meantime.