'Aquaman' Has a Funny Wonder Woman Easter Egg

Aquaman arguably takes the DC Extended Universe into new narrative territory, but it sort of ropes [...]

By Jenna Anderson

Aquaman arguably takes the DC Extended Universe into new narrative territory, but it sort of ropes in another Justice League member in the process.

Spoilers for Aquaman below!

The film's post-credits scene shows Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) being rescued by Dr. Shin (Randall Park), both of whom have very different reasons to be looking for Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa). When Manta wakes up in Shin's home, he sees a slew of Aquaman-related newspaper clippings on the wall, including one about how Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) had "nixed" rumors she was dating the Atlantean.

While the headline makes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance, it has since been sort of confirmed on Twitter by the film's director, James Wan.

There is a bit of irony to this Easter egg, as it references Arthur's time working with the Justice League (and the brief flirting he did towards Diana) in a relatively subtle hidden way. It also sort of mirrors the "Flashpoint" storyline that was briefly considered as the plot for The Flash's solo movie, in which Aquaman and Wonder Woman have a romantic relationship that ultimately pits their kingdoms against each other.

But even then, Aquaman largely exists as its own entity from Justice League, something that helped a lot with crafting the film's narrative.

"It's fun to go, like, 'All right, well we haven't really reviewed these finer aspects of the character, 'cause now it's my origin, so we're connected to all those pieces,'" Momoa said during a visit to the film's set. "So, it's left open to go, like, 'All right, we didn't need to develop that for Justice League. That definitely was one of the hard things was going like, 'Okay, here's Aquaman's life and here's Justice League.' So, I made up a whole bunch of different scenarios of what it was like beforehand, then he comes and he joins the team and then he goes back to his life. So, that was really important to all the forward stuff, because afterwards that was up for James to go, 'Hey, the future is yours. You've already done Justice League. I need everything pre.'"

So, could this very specific Easter egg factor into a future DCEU film, potentially one directed by Wan?

"I don't know what the bigger picture is. But I think it's really cool to take chances with the lesser-known characters and story lines," Wan revealed in a recent interview. "It's good if all the other films have their own flavor, so they don't force them to feel the same."

"It's taken me so long just to finish this movie," Wan said with a laugh. "I don't want to think about somebody else's movie at this point. I just want to survive this one.

Aquaman is in theaters now. Upcoming DC films include Shazam on April 5, 2019, Joker on October 10, 2019, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) on February 7, 2020, and Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5, 2020.

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