From August 2017 – January 2020, Keith R.A. DeCandido took a weekly look at every live-action movie based on a superhero comic that had been made to date in the Superhero Movie Rewatch. In this latest revisit we’ve covered a few older films—Barbarella, Vampirella, and Sparks,—and the recently released Thor: Love and Thunder, Samaritan, and now Black Adam.
In 1945, Fawcett Comics debuted The Marvel Family #1. The Captain Marvel features in Whiz Comics were already popular enough to spin off into the Big Red Cheese’s own title, Captain Marvel Adventures, in 1941, and his supporting cast—Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., Uncle Marvel, etc.—were popular enough to get their own title four years later. In the debut issue of The Marvel Family, Otto Binder and C.C. Beck created CM’s arch-nemesis, Black Adam.
Five thousand years prior to giving Billy Batson the ability to transform into a superhero, the wizard Shazam gave an Egyptian named Teth-Adam the same powers. But rather than protect the people of Egypt, Teth-Adam overthrows and kills the pharaoh. Livid that he took on the role of despot, The Wizard renamed him Black Adam and banished him to the far side of the universe.
It takes Black Adam five millennia to return to Earth, where he encounters the Marvel family. They defeat him by tricking him into saying “Shazam,” at which point he transforms back into his mortal self.
That was the character’s only appearance while Fawcett controlled the rights to the character. Once DC took over (check out the rewatch of Shazam! for the entire story there), they brought Black Adam back. In a nice touch, Black Adam was established in DC’s run as gaining his powers from Egyptian deities rather than figures from Greco-Roman one (and one Jewish king). So for him, “Shazam” stands for the stamina of Shu, the strength of Hershef, the power of Amon, the wisdom of Zehuti (an alternate name for Thoth), the speed of Anpu, and the courage of Menthu.
When Shazam! was first in development in the early 2000s, Dwayne Johnson was approached to play the title role, but he was more interested in playing Black Adam, especially once it was clear to his fans that they’d sooner see him in the latter role. (Johnson bears some resemblance to the character as drawn in the comics.) Initially intended to be part of the Shazam! movie that finally came out in 2019, Black Adam was spun off into his own film, at least partly due to Johnson’s growing star power. Jaume Collet-Serra, who directed Johnson in Jungle Cruise, was tapped to helm the film, which had a screenplay by Adam Sztykiel that was then rewritten by Rory Haines & Sohrab Noshirvani.
Other bits from the comics include the nation of Kahndaq (retconned into being Black Adam’s home in the comics instead of Egypt), Eternium (a powerful element that can only be found in Kahndaq), Nth metal (an alien alloy, and what all of Hawkman’s stuff is made out of), Intergang (an international crime syndicate that has technology from Apokolips), and the Justice Society. This movie is the latter team’s debut in the DC Extended Universe. The first-ever “super-team,” created in a 1940 issue of All-Star Comics written by Gardner Fox, the Justice Society of America brought several existing heroes together to team up, forming the template for later teams like the Justice League and the Avengers.
Two original JSA members appear in this film: Hawkman and Doctor Fate, played, respectively, by Aldis Hodge and Pierce Brosnan. They’re joined by Cyclone (a descendant of Red Tornado in the comics, here played by Quintessa Swindell) and Atom Smasher (played by Noah Centineo as the nephew of the original Atom, with Henry Winkler making a cameo as his uncle).
Back from The Suicide Squad are Jennifer Holland as Emilia Harcourt (by way of the Peacemaker series) and an uncredited Viola Davis as Amanda Waller. Back from Justice League is an uncredited Henry Cavill as Superman in a mid-credits scene. Back from Shazam! is Djimon Hounsou as one of the wizards.
Debuting in this film, besides Johnson, Hodge, Brosnan, Swindell, Centineo, and Winkler, are Sarah Shahi as Adrianna Tomaz (a non-powered version of the hero Isis, here a university professor and rebel against the mercenaries ruling Kahndaq), Bodhi Sabongui as Tomaz’s son Amon, Mohammed Amer as Tomaz’s brother Karim, Marwan Kenzari as both Ahk-Ton (the Kahndaqi tyrant Black Adam destroyed five millennia ago) and his descendant Ishmael, Jalon Christian as Teth-Adam’s son Hurut, and Odelya Halevi as Teth-Adam’s wife Shiruta.
The future of all the characters in this movie is in doubt as of this writing, given both the film’s disappointing box office and the assignment of James Gunn and Peter Safran to take over DC Studios. (Among other things, it was announced after this film was released that Cavill would no longer be playing Superman, which renders the mid-credits scene rather moot.)
“Tell them the man in black sent you”
Black Adam
Written by Adam Sztykiel and Rory Haines & Sohrab Noshirvani
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra
Produced by Beau Flynn, Hiram Garcia, Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia
Original release date: October 21, 2022
We open with a flashback to 2600 BCE, Kahndaq. A thriving city-state, it’s taken over by a tyrant named Ahk-Ton, who enslaves the populace and forces them to mine for Eternium, the powerful metal that only can be found in Kahndaq. One slave finds a bit of Eternium, and when he hands it over to one of the guards, he’s killed as his “reward.” A young boy runs to defend the old man, but his father takes him away before the boy can be killed as well.
However, the boy will not be silenced, and he runs away with the piece of Eternium and holds it up before the slaves, who hold up their hands as if holding something in return. The boy is captured and sentenced to death, but at the last minute he’s taken away by a group of wizards (one of whom we’ve seen before in the present day in Shazam!) who grant him the stamina of Shu, the speed of Heru, the strength of Amon, the wisdom of Zehuti, the power of Aten, and the courage of Mehen. He later confronts Ahk-Ton and destroys his palace. The champion is buried with the destruction of the palace.
In the present day, Kahndaq is run by Intergang. We see a kid skateboarding through the capital city and sassing the Intergang thugs at a checkpoint. The van at that checkpoint is allowed through without being thoroughly checked thanks to the kid’s distraction. Turns out the van has a fugitive hiding in it: Adrianna Tomaz, a college professor who is accused of sedition. The skateboarding kid is her son Amon, whom she berates for getting involved, and she sends him home.
The van—which includes Tomaz, her brother Karim, and two colleagues, Samir and Ishmael—heads into the mountains. They believe they’ve located the Crown of Sabbac, a demonic crown that was a tool of Akh-Ton’s rule, and they need to keep it out of Intergang’s hands. However, Intergang is right behind them—even as Tomaz finds the crown, Intergang sends a crew into the mountains to take them out and remove the crown. Samir is killed, and Tomaz is about to be next when she reads the inscription on a tomb that releases Teth-Adam, the champion of Kahndaq.
Teth-Adam is invulnerable, so Intergang’s bullets bounce off him. “Your magic is weak,” he says in ancient Kahndaqi and proceeds to massacre everyone. Ishmael is buried under rubble at some point in the chaos. Tomaz and Karim manage to escape to the van. Teth-Adam catches a missile in his bare hand, but it’s powered by Eternium, and it is able to wound him. However, he takes out the last of Intergang’s thugs before he falls unconscious.
Amanda Waller assigns Hawkman to gather a team of Justice Society members to deal with Teth-Adam: Doctor Fate, Atom Smasher, and Cyclone. This is Atom Smasher’s first mission after taking over from his uncle, who has the same growing/shrinking powers. Said uncle urges him to not mess up the costume (“It’s vintage!”) and to do what Hawkman tells him to do.
Teth-Adam wakes up in Amon’s room and he uses his lightning powers to blast his Superman poster. Amon tries to bring him up to speed on the modern world and on how to be a superhero, which Teth-Adam barely pays any attention to. (He also speaks modern English, er, somehow.) There’s a very old statue of the Champion of Kahndaq in the center of town, and Teth-Adam flies to it.
Intergang then attacks him, probably pissed about the massacre in the mountains, and he makes short work of them. Then the Justice Society shows up and Teth-Adam beats the crap out of them, too.
Doctor Fate, however, takes Tomaz aside and explains that the Justice Society has access to ancient texts that show that the legends of the Champion of Kahndaq aren’t the entire story: Teth-Adam didn’t fight for justice, he fought for vengeance and destroyed Ahk-Ton’s palace out of anger. In retaliation, the wizards punished him. Tomaz didn’t release him from a tomb, she released him from a prison.
Tomaz confronts Teth-Adam with this new knowledge, at which point Teth-Adam repeats what he told Amon: he’s not a hero.
To the people of Kahndaq, however, he’s a hero, and they cheer him on, to Hawkman’s consternation. Tomaz tartly explains that the Justice Society was nowhere to be found when Intergang took over their country, but now they want to invade and take their champion?
Amon goes home to hide the Crown of Sabbac only to find that Ishmael is alive and well and is one of the bad guys. He’s holding Karim at gunpoint and wants the crown. Karim distracts Ishmael long enough for Amon to escape, but is shot for his trouble. Despite Teth-Adam and the Justice Society fighting off the Intergang thugs, Ishmael is able to take Amon. The Intergang thugs go off in various directions, and Hawkman and Teth-Adam both try and fail to find Amon. Fate points out that they can interrogate a prisoner much more easily than they can a corpse, so maybe don’t kill all the thugs? Hawkman captures two, and Teth-Adam threatens both of them—whoever tells the truth about where Intergang is headquartered won’t be killed.
Hawkman and Teth-Adam proceed to get into another fight—which Fate decides to just stay out of—and over the course of the fight, find where Amon has hidden the crown.
Teth-Adam, the Justice Society, and Tomaz head to Intergang’s headquarters. Tomaz has translated the crown’s inscription as “life is the path to death.” Tomaz offers the crown in exchange for Amon’s life, to which Hawkman vigorously objects, but Teth-Adam says it’s her son, her choice.
However, Ishmael takes the crown and then shoots Amon anyhow, because he’s the bad guy and bad guys don’t keep their word, which you’d think Tomaz would’ve known. Furious, Teth-Adam destroys the entire headquarters. The Justice Society and the Tomazes barely survive, which is more than can be said for Ishmael or any of Intergang. However, Amon is badly hurt. Devastated, Teth-Adam flies off. Hawkman goes after him, and Teth-Adam reveals that the legends are even more wrong than they thought…
Teth-Adam was the father of the boy who became champion, whose name was Hurut. Hurut did so much harm to Ahk-Ton that the tyrant sent his soldiers to kill Hurut’s family. Hurut’s mother Shiruta is killed and Teth-Adam is wounded. Hurut transfers his powers to his father to save his life—but right after that is killed by an arrow from Ahk-Ton’s soldiers. Livid, Teth-Adam destroys Ahk-Ton’s palace.
That’s why the wizards imprisoned him, and why he’s no hero. His son was the champion; Teth-Adam is just an angry-ass father. He says the word “Shazam” and changes back into his mortal form and gives himself up to Hawkman.
The Justice Society takes him to an underwater black site run by Task Force X, where he’s imprisoned and gagged so he can’t say “Shazam” again.
In the meantime, Tomaz realizes that she translated the crown’s inscription wrong, and it’s really “death is the path to life.” Ishmael was killed in order to be made into a new champion of the demons. Sabbac is also an acronym for the most powerful demons in hell: Satan, Aym, Belial, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, and Crateis, and they turn Ishmael into a powerful monster.
Fate has the ability to see possible futures, and he admits at one point that he sees Hawkman’s death. Only later does he reveal that he’s seen two futures: the other is where Fate himself dies. He distracts Sabbac while also working to revive Teth-Adam from his prison, and is eventually killed. Teth-Adam then arrives in Kahndaq and he and Hawkman team up to fight Sabbac, eventually destroying the demon.
Changing his name to Black Adam, he refuses to take the throne of Kahndaq, but he will serve as the nation’s protector. The Justice Society departs, satisfied with that. Later, Waller sends a drone that acts as a video phone. She makes it clear that, if Black Adam won’t stay in her prison, Kahndaq is now his prison, and he’d best not set foot outside it. When Black Adam reminds her that no one on Earth can stop him, Waller counters that she knows lots of folks not from Earth. After Adam blows up the drone, Superman steps out of the shadows, saying they should talk.
“I guess we’re gonna stick with the very bad plan”
There’s a lot to like about this movie. For one thing, there are hardly any white people in it. It’s about a Middle Eastern nation, so most of the cast should be people of color. The only straight-up WASPy white people are Doctor Fate (who wears ascots and dressing gowns, just to reinforce that he’s an older white dude) and some members of Intergang (an international gang of mercenaries who don’t usually take over countries, but whatever). Atom Smasher and his uncle are Jewish, and the rest are POC, from the half-Samoan Dwayne Johnson on down.
And boy, Johnson is having a blast. Johnson is one of the most likeable action heroes extant. Even when he’s in really terrible movies—and he’s been in plenty, including his last collaboration with director Jaume Collet-Serra, Jungle Cruise—he’s always fun to watch, and that continues here.
The supporting cast is generally pretty good. Nobody ever went wrong casting Sarah Shahi, Mohammed Amer is genuinely funny in the comic relief role, Bodhi Sabongui manages to avoid being too terribly annoying in the annoying-kid role, and Jalon Christian is earnest and believable as Hurut.
But what absolutely makes the movie are the performances of Aldis Hodge and especially Pierce Brosnan, who knock it out of the park as two of DC’s most venerable heroes. I first noticed Hodge in two episodes of Supernatural he guest-starred on, and he has since gone on to be amazing on Leverage and City on the Hill and any number of other places, and his Hawkman is superb. And that’s as nothing to how perfectly Brosnan inhabits the weary sorcerer. I especially like the rapport between the Hawkman and Fate—you immediately realize that these two have been friends, colleagues, and teammates for a very long time, and the comfortable bond they share is a joy to watch.
Buy the Book
Dead Country
If only it was in service of a better movie. The script is all over the place, pacing-wise. The emotional climax of the movie comes in the confrontation against Ishmael, with Teth-Adam’s surrender as the denouement—only there’s still half an hour of movie to go with an additional climax tacked on, complete with an unconvincing sacrifice by Doctor Fate (wouldn’t it have made more sense for the whole team to take on Sabbac instead of Fate by his lonesome?) and a simply endless sequence of Teth-Adam breaking out of prison and veeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly floating to the surface so he can finally say “Shazam.” Plus we get Sabbac animating zombies so that the people of Kahndaq can engage in mob violence, which serves absolutely no function.
I didn’t mention Noah Centineo or Quintessa Swindell in the list of good supporting performances, which isn’t really fair to them, as they both are charming and personable and fun. But Atom Smasher and Cyclone serve absolutely no function in this movie whatsoever. They’re so unimportant that they disappear from the action for lengthy periods of time, and you don’t notice or care, because they’re completely irrelevant to the entire movie.
Speaking of disappearing from the action, we have Ishmael, whose betrayal is revealed early on, and then he too disappears for some time, to the point that when we see him holding Karim at gunpoint, we’ve forgotten he exists. Plus, he’s completely uninteresting as an antagonist, and becomes even less so when he’s turned into a demon.
The dialogue is fine, though it feels like the screenwriters went through and made sure they painstakingly checked all the boxes of what makes an early-twenty-first-century action movie.
But the biggest problem with the movie is how it treats heroism.
Superhero movies have always had to deal with the struggle between the tropes of action movies—which almost always end with the bad guy(s) being killed, usually in a manipulatively cathartic manner—and the tropes of superhero comics, which is that the heroes are, y’know, heroes, not killers. One of the reasons why costumed vigilantes work in society in most superhero stories is at least in part because they won’t take another life.
The entire theme of Black Adam is “yeah, fine, it’s okay if you have someone who kills people sometimes.” A better script might have used the fact that Kahndaq has spent most of its history being conquered by outsiders going after their Eternium as a reason why you need Dirty Harry more than you need Superman, but aside from one awkward (albeit justified) rant by Tomaz directed at Hawkman, it hardly comes up. Indeed, the Justice Society’s going after Black Adam is pretty much a U.S. invasion of a foreign nation, since they’re sent by Amanda Waller. (Why Waller is running the Justice Society, not to mention how she’s got Superman at her beck and call, is left as an exercise for the viewer.) But the whole notion that, eh, sometimes you need someone to kill people is morally repugnant, and feels like an excuse to up the body count. Instead of truly examining the theme, the movie just says he’s an antihero and hopes for the best. (The two Venom movies have similar issues.)
Despite the problems, it’s still a fun movie to watch, though it doesn’t hold up as well the second time, as rewatching it just exposes more of the flaws that are easier to overlook when you’re enjoying the spectacle. And it proves that a Hodge-led Justice Society film wouldn’t be untoward…
Next week, we conclude the latest semi-annual revisiting of this feature with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Keith R.A. DeCandido has three works coming out in the early part of 2023: Phoenix Precinct, the latest in his fantasy/police procedure series; “Ticonderoga Beck and the Stalwart Squad” in Thrilling Adventure Yarns 2022, a two-fisted tale about a team of adventurers in 1938; and “This Little Light of Mine” in Phenomenons: Season of Darkness, the second volume in the shared-world superhero anthology series.
