For the last seven years or so, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been circling the Shazam movie over at Warner Brothers. Sometimes, reports would state that Johnson was playing Shazam and other reports had him playing Black Adam. Earlier this summer, it was suggested that Johnson had the freedom to choose which of those two characters he wanted to portray.
Yesterday, Johnson announced his choice on twitter. He’s going to be Black Adam on the big screen.
If you’re not a comic book fan, the first words out of your mouth were probably “who the fuck is Black Adam?!” And that’s what I’m going to explain. But to understand who Black Adam is, you need to know who Shazam is. Or more accurately, you need to know who Captain Marvel is.
In 1940 — two years after the debut of Superman — C. C. Beck and Bill Parker created Captain Marvel for Fawcett Comics. Aside from the red costume and shorter cape, Captain Marvel looked a lot like Superman and he had most of his powers… flight, strength, speed and near invulnerability. But what separated Captain Marvel from Superman was the fact that he was really a kid named Billy Batson. Billy was chosen by the wizard Shazam to be a superhero. And when Billy said the wizard’s name, a magical bolt of lightning would strike him and transform him into the adult Captain Marvel.
However, Billy wasn’t the first person empowered by Shazam. That honor belonged to Teth-Adam, an Egyptian Prince whom Shazam chose centuries ago. As Mighty Adam, Teth-Adam was one of the world’s first superheroes. But the power corrupted him and he became known as Black Adam.
Black Adam was revived in the present and he became one of Captain Marvel’s greatest enemies. As originally conceived, Black Adam was fairly one-dimensional. The interesting qualities that attracted the Rock and made Black Adam into a fan favorite character weren’t in place until long after DC Comics purchased the rights to the Fawcett Comics comics. The closest modern equivalent to that deal is the way that Disney purchased Marvel and Lucasfilm to acquire their many franchise characters.
Related: Dwayne Johnson Will Play Black Adam in ‘Shazam’
In case you were wondering, Marvel Comics has a Captain Marvel of their own. Some day, you may even see her in movie theaters. Marvel and DC fought over the name for years before DC basically gave up and just started calling their character Shazam.
As for Black Adam, he is now one of the biggest supervillains in comics. But he can’t be fully classified as evil. The modern Black Adam is more of an antihero, or least he was prior to the New 52. If that last sentence made absolutely no sense to you non-comic book readers, I’ll clarify that point in the photo gallery below.
This list is comprised of the most important events and storylines in Black Adam’s history. By the end of it, you’ll know everything that you need to fully understand who he is before the Rock becomes the first actor to portray Black Adam in live action.
Everything You Need To Know About Black Adam
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The Pre-Crisis Years
Black Adam was created by Otto Binder and C. C. Beck in 1945, five years after the debut of Captain Marvel. In his only appearance in Fawcett Comics, Black Adam was tricked into saying “Shazam,” which robbed him of his powers and rapidly aged him to death. The character was shelved for decades before DC revived Black Adam in the ‘70s Shazam! comic book series, which is where he began to take root as one of Captain Marvel’s primary villains.
But for most of this period, Black Adam was a pretty standard and uninteresting supervillain. In 1985, DC published Crisis on Infinite Earths, which allowed the publisher to reboot its entire superhero line of comics into a single streamlined continuity. Black Adam and the rest of the Captain Marvel characters were fully integrated into the new DC Universe.
However, it would be another nine years before Black Adam rose to prominence again.
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The Power of Shazam!
In 1994, writer and artist Jerry Ordway provided a more contemporary take on the Captain Marvel characters in The Power of Shazam! graphic novel and the subsequent ongoing series of the same name. Black Adam played a much bigger role in Captain Marvel’s backstory than before, as his modern day reincarnation, Theo Adam killed Billy Batson’s parents before becoming the host body of Black Adam.
Black Adam’s origins were also altered to include Blaze, the demonic daughter of the wizard Shazam, who seduced Teth-Adam into seizing the throne of Egypt for himself. Near the end of The Power of Shazam!, Black Adam revealed that his human host, Theo Adam existed within him as a separate and more evil personality. This paved the way for Black Adam’s more heroic turn in the years ahead.
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JSA
Writers David Goyer (whom you may recognize as the future screenwriter of the Dark Knight films and the Blade trilogy) and Geoff Johns brought Black Adam into the JSA (Justice Society of America) in 1999. And rather than using Black Adam as a villain, he was added to the team!
Black Adam was still plagued by the evil personality of Theo Adam, but he was presented in a more sympathetic light that allowed readers to feel empathy for him. Goyer and Johns reworked Black Adam’s origins so that he was no longer an Egyptian prince. Instead, he hailed from the fictional Middle Eastern country of Kahndaq. And Black Adam’s fall from grace was precipitated by the murder of his wife and children at the hands of a villain called Ahk-ton. When Black Adam killed Ahk-ton, the wizard Shazam stripped him of his powers.
Black Adam and Captain Marvel were actually teammates on the Justice Society. However, the relatively good times didn’t last.
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Black Reign
Although they were initially adversarial towards each other, Black Adam befriended the hero known as Atom Smasher. Together, Black Adam and Atom Smasher left the Justice Society to form their own team of antiheroes in order to free modern day Kahndaq from a dictator. This led the Justice Society into conflict with Black Adam’s new team.
Rather than revert back to villainy, Black Adam remained in Kahndaq as its new ruler and protector. While the JSA didn’t condone Black Adam’s methods, they allowed him to remain in power and they convinced him to remain in Kahndaq instead of imposing his rule on the world.
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52
In the yearlong miniseries 52, Black Adam was once again presented in a more heroic light... although he publicly kills supervillains to demonstrate how far he will go to protect Kahndaq. Black Adam also empowered a former slave named Adrianna Tomaz to become the heroine known as Isis. Isis became Black Adam’s new wife and together they freed her brother, Amon and empowered him as Osiris. The trio also took in Sobek, a crocodile man whom Osiris befriended.
However, Sobek betrayed Osiris and murdered him as part of a plot to overthrow Black Adam by the neighboring nation of Bialya and Intergang. In the ensuing conflict, Isis was also fatally wounded, leaving an angered Black Adam to declare war. Needless to say, his days as a hero were over.
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World War III
Black Adam hunted down his family’s killers. But he went too far when he murdered the entire population of Bialya to get his revenge. Black Adam’s sanity snapped and the world’s superheroes desperately tried to stop him. But they were so over-matched by his powers that it was a one sided conflict that was quickly called World War III.
In his madness, Black Adam murdered the heroes Young Frankenstein and Terra before Captain Marvel and some of the magic based DC heroes managed to return Black Adam to his human form. And to prevent Black Adam’s return, Captain Marvel picked a new magic word which he claimed that Teth-Adam would never be able to guess.
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Black Adam: The Dark Age
In the aftermath of World War III, Black Adam finally headlined his own miniseries: Black Adam: The Dark Age. In that story, he attempted to resurrect Isis while drawing on the limited powers that he gave her. Eventually, Black Adam guessed the word that would restore his full powers in one of the stupidest sequences in modern comics. How bad was it? The secret word was an ice cream flavor.
Black Adam was tricked into thinking that his quest to restore Isis was a failure, so he gave his corrupted powers to Mary Batson, the heroine known as Mary Marvel (and the sister of Captain Marvel). Mary was also corrupted by the powers and she became a supervillainess as well.
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The Black Adam Family
After the Final Crisis crossover, a re-empowered Black Adam appeared in the pages of Justice Society of America. Black Adam discovered that Isis was still alive and the two of them recruited Mary Marvel to their side after stripping Billy Batson of his powers.
However, Isis was greatly changed by her resurrection and even Black Adam was horrified when she began murdering their followers in Khandaq. In a desperate bid to redeem Isis, Black Adam willingly gave up his powers to restore the wizard Shazam, who turned Black Adam and Isis to stone as a punishment for their crimes before stripping Billy and Mary of their powers as well.
Eventually, Osiris was resurrected as well and he attempted to free his sister and Black Adam from their fate. But Black Adam and Isis were never restored before DC’s reboot, The New 52 wiped out the previous continuity and basically started over.
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The New 52
For The New 52 reboot, the name Captain Marvel was dropped entirely and Billy Batson’s heroic alter ego was rechristened Shazam. And he was also given a ridiculous looking hoodie to go with his new costume.
As for Black Adam, he also received a New 52 makeover, with a reworked costume and a new origin. This time, Teth-Adam had a young nephew named Aman who was Shazam’s chosen hero. Teth-Adam incapacitated (and possibly killed Aman) to gain the full powers of Shazam.
In the present, Billy Batson tricked Black Adam into returning to his human form, which led Teth-Amon to rapidly age to death, much like he did in his first appearance decades before. But you can’t keep a good villain down for long...
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Forever Evil
Shortly before DC’s Forever Evil crossover, Black Adam was revived yet again. This time, Black Adam teamed up with Lex Luthor, Catwoman and several of the world’s greatest supervillains to save the Earth when the evil Justice League (the Crime Syndicate) from another world seized control of the world and seemingly destroyed the real Justice League.
With Black Adam’s help, Lex Luthor’s side emerged victorious and the Justice League was saved. But when Luthor later offered Black Adam and his fellow villains official government pardons for their actions, they laughed in his face before departing.
Therefore, Black Adam is at large in the DC Universe until his inevitable return.
