In Wicked: For Good, the Lion who shows up in the forest to expose Elphaba's past to the other escaping animals is the grown-up cub from 2024's Wicked. In that film, after Professor Dillamond (voiced by Peter Dinklage) is let go from his position at Shiz University, Professor Nikidik (Colin Michael Carmichael) takes over the class and introduces the students to animal cages, which are meant to discourage creatures from ever learning to speak. Elphaba is appalled, and with the help of Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), they free the cub from his cage and release him into the forest.

The Lion was terrified of being left alone in the forest and grew up fearful, and he blames Elphaba for this. When they cross paths again in the forest near the animal escape tunnel under the Yellow Brick Road, he tells his animal kin that Elphaba was the one who used the spell that forcefully gave the monkey guards their wings, implying she did it with malice. The animals are then distrustful of Elphaba and continue their plan to escape Oz. 

The Lion is then recruited by an angry Boq to join him and Dorothy to retrieve Elphaba's broom for the Wizard of Oz, and get rid of the Wicked Witch of the West once and for all.

Actor Colman Domingo (Sing Sing) voices the CG Cowardly Lion character in Wicked: For Good. 

The Cowardly Lion first appears in the 1900 book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He encounters Dorothy as she's traveling to the Emerald City and tries to bite her dog, Toto. When she reprimands him, the lion admits he's a coward and asks to join her so he can ask the Wizard of Oz for courage and actually be the King of the Beasts.