Val Kilmer returns in latest 'Top Gun: Maverick' trailer

This May, Top Gun fans will feel the need ... the need to speed back to movie theaters for the long-awaited sequel to Tony Scott and Tom Cruise's era-defining 1986 action movie. After repeated pandemic-caused delays, Top Gun: Maverick is flying onto the big screen on May 27. And the film's final pre-release trailer rewards our collective patience with lots of high-flying action and a special appearance by one of cinema's chillest characters. (Watch the trailer above.)

That's right, we finally have our first sighting of Tom Kazansky aka "Iceman" in Maverick and Val Kilmer's alter ego has clearly had an eventful Navy career during the 36-year gap between movies. Iceman has achieved admiral status, and he uses his influence to help out an old frenemy: Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, played, of course, by Tom Cruise.

"You are here at the request of Admiral Kazansky," says Jon Hamm's clearly skeptical — and amazingly named — Vice Admiral Cyclone. "He seems to think you have something left to offer the Navy. What that is, I can't imagine." (For the record, Hamm is one of the few people in the world who has actually seen Top Gun: Maverick. His review? "It's so good," he told Yahoo Entertainment.)

Although this marks Iceman's first appearance in a Maverick trailer, his presence has been an open secret since the film went into production in 2018, even as the actor battled throat cancer. "He's in the movie," Top Gun executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer told Yahoo Entertainment in 2020. And Kilmer's children, Jack and Mercedes, confirmed that they were on the Maverick set during an interview for the 2021 documentary, Val. "We were this close to Tom's face," his son remembered. "He came up and hugged me and just looked me right in the eyes. It was very surreal!"

Meanwhile, Maverick director Joseph Kosinski has promised that Kilmer's return won't just be in photograph form. In a recent interview with Total Film, the Tron: Legacy filmmaker teased an on-camera reunion between Maverick and Iceman. "To get to work with an actor of that caliber, to see the chemistry, the camaraderie between him and Tom, and to have those two characters reunite in this film, was a really special moment, and one of my favorite parts of the film."

It turns out that Iceman has called up Maverick in order to teach a new class of apparently unteachable Top Gun recruits — a roster that includes Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the now-grown son of his doomed friend and fellow flyboy, "Goose" Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards). And he's clearly got his work cut out for him. "My dad believed in you," the younger Bradshaw says. "I'm not going to make the same mistake."

While Kilmer's reappearance is understandably dominating Twitter takes, there seems to be general excitement for a return trip back to the Danger Zone.

Top Gun: Maverick premieres May 27 in theaters