The 2022 ComicBook.com Golden Issue Award for Best Post-Credits Scene

After the past few years ebbed and flowed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2022 saw the world of blockbuster movies return with great fanfare. The past twelve months have brought a wide array of beloved franchises onto the big screen, delivering heart-stopping moments and shocking reveals. In the past decade, a lot of those reveals have occurred via mid-credits or post-credits scenes, which leave fans absolutely buzzing as they exit the theater. That’s why this year’s ComicBook.com’s Golden Issue Awards — which celebrate our favorites from 2022 — decided to honor the best post-credits scene of the past year.

And the winner of the 2022 ComicBook.com Golden Issue Award for Best Post-Credits Scene is…

Black Adam!

Anyone who even passively followed Black Adam’s journey to the big screen — and namely, franchise star and producer Dwayne Johnson’s efforts to get the solo film made — has probably heard comments about Superman. For years, Johnson hinted that his take on the Shazam! family antihero would be powerful enough to rival the Man of Steel himself, something that had been sporadically hinted at in previous DC comics. The potential rivalry even found its way into the animated family fare DC League of Super-Pets over the summer, with its own post-credits scene showing a meeting between Superman, Black Adam, and their respective pet dogs. But as production began on Black Adam, the live-action DC universe that surrounded it appeared to be in a state of flux, with Superman actor Henry Cavill not having reprised his role onscreen since 2017’s Justice League, despite years of fans hoping for his return.

By the time Black Adam actually premiered in late October of 2022, the speculation surrounding a cameo from Cavill’s Superman hit a fever pitch, something that comments from Johnson himself seemed to further fuel. And sure enough, the final frames of Black Adam delivered —after receiving a hologram warning from Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) about the people that could stop him if he ever left his nation of Khandaq, Cavill’s Superman arrived, telling him that they need to talk. Not only had the years-long wish for this specific crossover come true, but Cavill’s Superman had returned in style, complete with the iconic curl in his hair and John Williams’ Superman: The Movie theme in the background. Even if it took years to see Johnson and Cavill’s characters actually brawl onscreen, in that brief moment, it seemed as if the disparate parts of the past and future of the DC Universe were about to be united going forward.

Sure, that since has not proved to be the case, with new DC Studios CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran constructing new plans for the entire franchise going forward — plans that have already been confirmed to not feature Johnson’s Black Adam right away, and include a rebooted and recast Superman not portrayed by Cavill. But behind-the-scenes changes aside, the hope and excitement that audiences felt watching Black Adam‘s post-credits scene will always remain something special.

The nominees for Best Post-Credits Scene are:

• Superman Returns (Black Adam) – WINNER

• Shuri Meets Toussaint (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)

• Clea Arrives (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness)

• Shadow the Hedgehog (Sonic The Hedgehog 2)

• Hercules (Thor: Love and Thunder)