A lot of DCU fans have spent so long getting the exact opposite of what they wanted from Warner Bros., that they’ve got every right to believe the studio is deliberately antagonizing them. Rubbing salt into a wound that hasn’t even healed yet, the company has decided to release a two-film bundle featuring Man of Steel and Black Adam at the worst possible moment.
You get the sneaking suspicion that the call to drop the two blockbusters concurrently was a smart idea when it was first put into motion, seeing as the post-credits scene of Dwayne Johnson’s franchise debut welcomed back Henry Cavill’s Superman for the first time in a long time, setting up a superpowered showdown for the ages.
However, we now live in a world where both of the beefy stars have been quietly shuffled towards the exit, with neither the Man in Black or Man of Steel having a place in James Gunn’s bold and brave new era. Needless to say, the timing is more than a little off, and it hasn’t exactly gone down too well with the fandom.
As mentioned previously, had Black Adam stayed the course and changed the hierarchy of power even the tiniest little bit, then bundling the film together with Man of Steel makes perfect sense. As it stands, though, it’s the equivalent of flipping the bird at the furious folks left shocked and appalled that Johnson and Cavill were each exiled in record time, so we’ve got the feeling that sales figures aren’t exactly going to be through the roof.