Remember Steppenwolf?
Though none of Aquaman’s Super Friends get a name-check in the movie, the main villain of Justice League does. Yup, just when we’d managed to forget about the awful CGI lump that was Steppenwolf, he winds up with a mention in the film.
When Mera arrives in Amnesty Bay to get Arthur to help her stop Orm from starting a war with the human world, she tries to encourage him by mentioning his recent act of heroism, reminding him that he helped defeat Steppenwolf and saved Atlantis.
It’s true. In Justice League, Steppenwolf came to Atlantis to collect one of the Mother Boxes which would allow him to create The Unity, a process to terraform Earth into a copy of his homeworld of Apokolips. Though he got away with the box, Arthur gave him a good fight and eventually bested him in Russia alongside Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Cyborg and Superman – it was mostly Superman, though.