The release of ‘Black Adam’ is just a few months away, and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is revealing why he fought to make sure his film was the the character’s DCEU debut.
Thanks for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Black Adam is getting his own movie. The villain/anti-hero’s standalone movie is one of the most highly-anticipated movies of the year. Turns out, Black Adam was originally supposed to go toe-to-toe with Shazam in one movie before The Rock stepped in.
Black Adam is going to be a real treat for DCEU fans. He’s got all the powers of Superman, he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. He’s fully embracing the anti-hero role. From the release date to Dwayne’s history with the character to the rest of the cast, HollywoodLife has the details you need to know right here.
Who Is Black Adam?
Black Adam is the “evil” version of Shazam, Zachary Levi’s character from 2019’s Shazam. However, both Black Adam and Shazam originate from comics published in the 1940s.
“One of the world’s foremost wielders of magic, Black Adam has been both hero and villain over a life that’s spanned thousands of years,” reads the character’s official bio on the DC Comics website. Black Adam was the first champion picked by the wizard Shazam – not to be confused with the caped superhero Shazam – to be a “magically empowered hero.”
“Teth-Adam, or ‘Mighty Adam,’ began as a hero of humanity, but then allowed his power to corrupt his ideals and desires,” reads Black Adam’s bio. “Now labeled Black Adam, he was exiled by Shazam but returned in the modern-day. A frequent enemy to Earth’s heroes, Black Adam believes he is the right person to lead humanity, and any action he takes is necessary for the greater good.” Thus, Black Adam is more of an “anti-hero,” though, with a name like Black Adam, it should not be that surprising that he skews more “bad” than “good.”
In the 1994 comic book series, The Power of Shazam!, per CinemaBlend, Teth-Adam was depicted as the son of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II. After Adam’s corruption, Shazam the wizard, stripped his champion of his magical powers, causing him to age rapidly and become a corpse. Flash forward a thousand years and – SPOILER ALERT – Theo Adam aides a pair of researchers who discover Black Adam’s tomb and the scarab where Shazam the wizard kept his disgraced champion’s powers. Theo kills the researchers, transforms into the new Black Adam, and realized that Teth-Adam was his ancestor. Oh, and those researchers? They were the parents of Billy Batson, the child who the wizard picks for Shazam.
As for why there are two Shazams, the caped superhero used to go by the title Captain Marvel, which becomes even more confusing when you realize there is a Marvel Comics (and Marvel has its own character called Captain Marvel.) Comics are weird.
By uttering the word “Shazam,” a magical word that invokes the names of ancient Egyptian gods Shu, Horus, Amon, Zehuti, Aten, and Mehen, thus S-H-A-Z-A-M, Teth-Adam gains a bevy of powers. He has super strength, the power of flight, invulnerability, super speed, superhuman hearing, enhanced intelligence, and a healing factor. He also has the occasional bit of lightning-based teleportation.
There have been some rewrites and retcons to his character over the years. Black Adam has been changed from an Egyptian to a Kahndaqian. Theo Adam gets erased, and Black Adam is a slave who stole the powers that were meant for another. The gods that made up Black Adam’s “Shazam” got switched from Egyptian to Greek. Despite all this, the character has had, for the most part, the same powers.
Black Adam has made appearances in many DC properties. He was mentioned in the “Isis” episode of Smallville. The character showed up in many animated DC properties, like Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Young Justice, and Justice League Action. He appeared in the animated film Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam, and in both the Injustice and Injustice 2 video games.
The official trailer for Black Adam dropped in June 2022 and teased what’s to come in the film. “I was a slave until I died. Then I was reborn a god. My son sacrificed his life to save me. Now, I kneel before no one,” Black Adam says in the trailer. He goes on to declare that he does kill people, as footage shows Black Adam in the middle of some wild action with the other characters.
The film’s official longline reads, “Nearly 5,000 years after receiving the almighty powers of the Egyptian gods and being imprisoned just as quickly, Black Adam is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world.”
Original article: ‘Black Adam’: The Rock’s First DC Movie: Everything To Know – Hollywood Life
Photo: Warner Bros
