[Note: This article contains spoilers for the after-credits scene in Justice League, a.k.a. the only bit of any modern superhero movie that’s still allowed to contain some actual surprises.]
The fairly tepid box office returns that have greeted Warner Bros.’ latest superhero outing, Justice League, suggest that there might be a pretty healthy number of ostensible comic book movie fans who sat this specific throwdown out. Luckily, new player Joe Manganiello’s got your back, Justice League-agnostic superhero fans: The actor tweeted out a picture of himself in character as Slade “Deathstroke” Wilson last night, allowing everybody who skipped the movie to get a glimpse of the eyepatch-and-armor look he’s rocking.
Slade is a fan-favorite character from the comics, in general because he’s a pretty solid take on the old “What if Batman was a bad guy?” question, and specifically thanks to his years of serving as a legitimate threat to the Teen Titans, especially as voiced by Ron Perlman in the 2003 Cartoon Network show. Deathstroke pops up at the very last minute of Justice League, hanging out with an apparently free Lex Luther for a little boat party/recruitment drive, and managing to look pretty cool while doing so. Meanwhile, he’ll be integrated into the DCEU proper at some point in the next few years, with news coming last month that The Raid director Gareth Evans is directing a standalone film centered on Manganiello’s version of the character.
Anyway: Thanks, Joe! You’ve saved a lot of people two hours they really didn’t seem to want to spend, staring into the infinite abyss of Henry Cavill’s CGI mustache void.