In the fictional setting of the films, Adonis is the illegitimate son of the late and former world champion Apollo Creed, the result of an affair between him and a woman with the surname Johnson who died sometime in the 1990s.

Adonis spends the first several years of his life in foster care and juvenile hall, until he is subsequently adopted by Mary Anne Creed, Apollo's widow.

He lives a life of luxury and maintains a stable white-collar job, only to abandon it to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a professional boxer.

[4] In 1998, Adonis "Donnie" Johnson is spending time at a juvenile detention center in Los Angeles and frequently getting into fights with other children.

Seventeen years later, in 2015, Adonis (using his biological mother's last name Johnson) is a wealthy young college graduate working at a securities firm at the Smith Boardley Financial Group.

However, on weekends, he sneaks out to Tijuana to fight professional boxing matches against unheralded opponents and maintains an undefeated 15–0 record.

Mary Anne vehemently opposes Adonis's plot of becoming a boxer, remembering how her husband was killed in the ring during a match against Ivan Drago thirty years ago and how Rocky Balboa was forced into retirement after suffering brain damage.

Adonis finds it hard to get anyone in Los Angeles to train him due to his father's death in the ring, particularly after he suffers an embarrassing loss in a sparring match to light heavyweight contender Danny "Stuntman" Wheeler (Andre Ward).

Undaunted, Adonis moves out of his mother's residence and travels to Philadelphia in hopes of seeking out his father's best friend and former rival, Rocky (Sylvester Stallone).

Meanwhile, Adonis forms a relationship with his downstairs neighbor, Bianca Taylor (Tessa Thompson), a singer-songwriter with progressive hearing loss.

Meanwhile, World light heavyweight champion "Pretty" Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew) is being forced into retirement due to an upcoming prison sentence and is gearing up for his final fight against Danny "Stuntman" Wheeler.

Holiday meets with Rocky and Adonis, demanding that he should use the name Creed if he wants a shot at the light heavyweight title.

He ultimately goes the distance, even managing to knock Conlan down for the first time in his career as Bianca and the once-antagonistic crowd begin to cheer him on.

Rocky and Little Duke take Adonis to the desert to rigorously train his body from within to prepare for the fight, while Mary Anne, Bianca, and Amara provide a stable support system.

After a knockdown in the 10th round, Adonis unleashes a furious rage on a now exhausted Viktor, knocking him down twice and prompting Ivan Drago to throw in the towel to protect his son.

Adonis, having retained the title, visits Apollo's grave with Bianca and Amara, where he makes peace with his dad for carrying on his legacy while also building his own.

In 2002 Los Angeles, a young Adonis Creed sneaks out with his best friend, Golden Gloves champion Damian "Diamond Dame" Anderson, to watch him compete in an underground boxing match.

He then retires from boxing to focus on his wife Bianca and their daughter Amara, whose hearing impairment has since led the family to become fluent in American Sign Language.

Adonis runs Delphi Boxing Academy with Tony "Little Duke" Evers Jr. and is promoting his protégé, world champion Felix "El Guerrero" Chavez, in a match against Viktor Drago.

After her funeral, Adonis confesses to Bianca about the night of Dame's arrest, revealing Leon to be the abusive caregiver in their group home before he was adopted.

In a grueling, evenly-matched affair, Adonis has visions of his abusive foster home and Dame's life in jail, and is knocked down in the final round.

"[6] Ryan Coogler stated that "That was [Jordan] taking real punches" and became "routinely bloodied, bruised and dizzy" from his fight scenes with Andre Ward, Gabriel Rosado, and Tony Bellew, all of whom are professional boxers.

Ryan Coogler was inspired to make Creed from his experiences with his own father: "He used to play Rocky before I had football games to pump me up, and he would get really emotional watching the movies.

The older fighter is a mentor and a father figure, to be sure, but he also needs someone to take care of him, especially when illness adds a melodramatic twist to the plot.

[12][13][14] Although Adonis' circumstances change after he is adopted by Mary Anne Creed, his late father's widow, he retains his fiery personality.

[15] Michael O' Sullivan of The Washington Post analyzed that Adonis' "struggles with his temper" are "a coping mechanism that helps him deal with the fear of not living up to the name Creed.

"[19][20] Adonis pays tribute to Rocky, his father, and his country by wearing the classic American flag shorts in his debut professional match that Apollo and Balboa sported in their bouts against Ivan Drago.

[21] However, Adonis' shorts have the name Johnson on the back and Creed on the front, symbolizing that he can both preserve his father's legacy and still make his own.

"[24] David Sims of The Atlantic said, "Coogler and Jordan...create a protagonist of color who avoids the stereotypes of many of Hollywood’s black heroes while still being celebrated as one.

Scenes where he runs through Philadelphia followed by cheering kids on bikes are especially memorable—they celebrate the film’s myth-making without putting the hero on an unreachable pedestal.