Dwayne Johnson gives a sneak peek at his 'beautiful textured' Black Adam costume

In order to achieve the cartoonishly large muscles achieved by most comic-book superheroes, film and TV adaptations have to goose the visuals a little bit. In 2019's Shazam!, for instance, Zachary Levi wore an admittedly-padded muscle suit in order to portray the title character, who is literally a young boy's idealized dream of what a powerful adult must look like. But Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who will be portraying Shazam's antihero rival Black Adam in next summer's DC blockbuster, needs no help looking buff.

Sharing a sneak peek (from behind) of his Black Adam look on Instagram on Monday, Johnson noted the visible lack of padding.

"This image of Black Adam from behind gives you a tactile sense of the absolute massive scale and size of our movie," Johnson wrote. "You also see a little of the intricate and beautiful textured detail of Black Adam's body suit (this is not your typical DC or Marvel padded muscle suit)."

In addition to Johnson's powerful back muscles, the other noticeable element of this image is the landscape of broken rubble. As Johnson notes, this is in keeping with Black Adam's violent inclinations, which separate him from other DC heroes like Shazam or Superman. In DC Comics, Black Adam is also unafraid to advocate for his home country of Kahndaq and stand up to world powers, whether they be the Justice League or the United States.

"As we all know, superheroes have a code of justice and don't kill the bad guys. But, Black Adam does," Johnson wrote. "The hierarchy of power in the DC Universe is changing."

Black Adam is currently set to hit theaters on July 29, 2022. In addition to Johnson, the film will star Noah Centineo (as Atom Smasher), Quintessa Swindell (as Cyclone), Aldis Hodge (as Hawkman), and Pierce Brosnan (as Dr. Fate), and Sarah Shahi (as Isis).

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