The Latest ‘Black Adam’ Sneak Peek Offers Dwayne Johnson As The DCEU’s Latest Reluctant Hero

There are a ton of do-gooders in the ever-expanding MCU. Meanwhile, over at its DC counterpart, things are a little gloomier. There’s the Suicide Squad and its revolving door cast of expendable antiheroes. Even Batman and Superman have their dark sides. And this fall there will be Black Adam, the reluctantly powerful super-being played by Dwayne Johnson, whose new trailer stresses that he could go either way.

The latest sneak peek bowed at this weekend’s San Diego Comic-Con, and it provides the first extensive look at Johnson’s hulking antihero. Black Adam was first referenced (and briefly seen) in Shazam!, but now we see he’s pretty much the exact opposite of Zachary Levi’s goofball alter ego.

“My powers are not a gift, but a curse,” Johnson’s character broods in the trailer, filled with the requisite fights, explosions, and Earth-ending threats. Pierce Brosnan’s Doctor Fate is there to try to coax him to save the world, not destroy it. “The world needed a hero. Instead it got me.”

Johnson himself was there at Comic-Con, and he made quite an entrance in Hall H, emerging from a massive screen of electric bolts to suddenly appear in the flesh.

Black Adam hits theaters on October 21. You can watch the latest sneak peek in the video above.