The Origin of Black Adam // Comics 101

Black Adam.

For many comic fans, circa the late 00s, what they knew was a badass dude in a cool costume who was known for being utterly brutal in combat and ripping people to pieces. In one case, he literally used a Three Stooges technique to kill a man.

Source: Infinite Crisis issue 6: Touchdown. Written by Geoff Johns. Pencils by Phil Jimenez, George Pérez, Ivan Reis, Joe Bennett. Inks by Andy Lanning, George Pérez, Ivan Reis, Jerry Ordway, Sean Parsons, Art Thibert. Colors by Jeromy Cox, Guy Major, Tanya Horie, Richard Horie. Letters by Rob Leigh. This was a busy book.

While Infinite Crisis was not Black Adam’s first appearance, it was certainly where he began his rise to popularity. The character would also appear in the ongoing Justice Society of America book as a reluctant ally, as well as play a major role in the 2006 weekly release comic 52. During the latter, he would find purpose as the leader and protector of the fictional nation of Kahndaq. It was only a matter of time before Warner Bros. remembered they had more than just Batman in their stable of characters who could be heroically violent.

With the release of WB’s vehicle for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to middling reviews, we figured it was time to look back to the origins of the character Black Adam. Was there something special there? Was there something worth the hype?

I’d like to think so.

“Who is Black Adam? Find out inside!”

We look back to Marvel Family Comics issue 1 from December of 1945. For those unaware, Marvel Family Comics doesn’t actually belong to the company that would be named Marvel Comics in the 1960s. Instead, Fawcett Publishing had who is now considered the most popular superhero of the era: Captain Marvel. Inspired by Superman in some respects back in 1941, young Billy Batson has the power to become empowered by the Wizard Shazam by saying his name. As the comics grew in popularity, he gained allies with his sister Mary Marvel, a friend in Captain Marvel Junior, and so many others under his name.

He also had a ton of villains, including a mad scientist named Doctor Sivana, a brutish evil mirror in Ibac, robots, and even a mass-murdering super-intelligent caterpillar.

Just be glad I didn’t bring up the evil banjo player: Mr. Banjo.

Black Adam, though, was just made for this comic. We’ll see why.

The Mighty Marvels Join Forces! was written by Otto Binder, with art by C.C. Beck and Pete Costanza.

Our story opens with the elder Wizard Shazam chiseling the records of the Marvel Family into his home, the Rock of Eternity. As he continues, however, the reader is told that before the Marvels came to be, the Wizard had made a hero named Mighty Adam who fell to evil. The Wizard banished Mighty Adam to the furthest star in our galaxy, changing his name to Black Adam in the process. However, he’s been coming home for the last 5,000 years.

And now he’s home.

Billy Batson, who works for radio station WHIZ as an on-location reporter, is investigating a new report of an unidentified object rocketing to Earth. In fact, it’s approaching at near lightspeed. The Wizard continues to tell the story, also taking the time to reintroduce readers, new and old, to the origins of the Marvel Family as they show up. Billy’s origin gets retold, as does that of Freddy Freeman, who would become Captain Marvel Junior.

As Billy Batson and Freddy Freeman meet up to talk about the UFO, Black Adam finally reaches the Earth and swoops menacingly over the planet. He lands and is mystified by how much the world has changed in the time since he was last on Earth. However, he will still conquer the planet and rule it!

It is worrying that a cop in 1945 goes right for his gun rather than de-escalate or use non-lethal methods.

He begins by breaking a policeman over his knee. This isn’t because Black Adam believes ACAB or because he demands justice. The cop simply yelled at him for standing in the middle of the road. Captain Marvel Junior swoops in to punch Black Adam in the face, saving what remains of the cop. He takes it without issue and decides to punch Junior back.

The two are at a standstill, and things don’t change when Captain Marvel shows up either.

Just for reference, this is already incredibly rare! Seeing multiple heroes in the same story, despite them being all part of the same family, is something that barely happened in the Golden Age of Comics.

Black Adam realizes this is not in his favor and dives into the crowd. Despite wearing black clothes with gold accents and having the facial structure of a Vulcan, both Marvels lose him. After several minutes of searching, they reluctantly give up and decide to ask the Wizard what’s up.

The Wizard of the present who is telling this story chisels down that the Wizard of the past was shocked and dismayed to hear that Black Adam was back. The Wizard tells both Billy and Freddy how Black Adam came to be. 5,000 years ago in Egypt, the Wizard chose to pass his powers and abilities down to a worthy man. Unfortunately, he chose Teth-Adam.

Teth-Adam, now infused with the powers of several gods of old, decides the best thing to do is to kick the Pharaoh off his throne and take over the kingdom of Egypt. By breaking his neck.

According to research, this would be Hor-Aha. He was actually the first Pharaoh, who ruled over the unified lands of Egypt for the first time. Poor guy.

The Wizard Shazam realizes that Teth-Adam has gone astray. Nothing can harm the man who has his powers, and he seems incapable of ripping the powers away from him. Instead, Adam is thrown into the deepest corners of space.

Since it took him 5,000 years traveling at near lightspeed to return home, it looks like the Wizard might have cast him out to Wolf-Rayet 140. It’s really cool when random comic plots happen to line up with science and history.

I do question why the oceans were red, though. Coloring error, or did one of the plagues of Egypt get out of hand?

However, Black Adam has followed Billy and Freddy to the Wizard Shazam. He quickly does what all Marvel Family villains do: gags the heroes so they can’t talk and summon the lightning that transforms them. Luckily, Billy Batson’s sister Mary Bromfield notices that the two have gone missing. With mostly harmless parental figure Uncle Dudley in tow, the two of them quickly find out that Billy and Freddy are in danger! Without wasting time, they shout their words of power!

Yes, Uncle Marvel is a member of the Marvel Family, but he’s a lot like the kid sidekick of the team. Uncle Dudley has no powers but has built himself a super suit just like the rest of them. Dudley has even saved the day once or twice, but in a genre that’s crammed full of kids in tights getting captured on a daily basis, seeing an adult be the tag-along is remarkably refreshing.

The Wizard of the present is less kind, outright calling Uncle Dudley a fraud. Which, I mean, he actually is in more than just that respect. But he means well. In fact, Uncle Dudley decides he can totally take care of Black Adam on his own.

It goes about as well as you expect.

Unfortunately, Mary Marvel can’t damage Teth-Adam either. In fact, once Uncle Dudley frees the boys, the mighty trio of Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, and Captain Marvel Junior just aren’t enough to even harm Teth-Adam.

I can see why The Rock would identify so strongly with this guy. He isn’t selling anything at this point.

Uncle Dudley, panicking, summons the ghost of the Wizard Shazam. The Wizard reveals Adam’s one weakness is just saying Shazam again, so Dudley enacts a most cunning plan.

Part of me would love to see Uncle Dudley transform into a different hero each time he says the name wrong.

Black Adam is returned to Teth-Adam and is now powerless. Before he can shout Shazam once more, Captain Marvel strikes him in the face!

And kills Teth-Adam.

And with that frightening Twilight Zone twist, the threat of Teth-Adam is literally no more. Captain Marvel’s run would end in 1953 when Fawcett Publishing cut their losses between dwindling comic sales and National Comics suing them for having a character vaguely similar to Superman. During those 8 years, Teth-Adam would not return.

While it is remarkably refreshing that a villain remains dead, it’s also kind of a loss. After all, a dark reflection of the hero is always a nice thing to play with. This would happen in other superhero comics a few decades down the line, with DC’s characters like the Reverse Flash, Bizarro, Sinestro, and so on. The fact that Black Adam was a mistake made by the infallible Wizard Shazam himself was also ripe with story potential: was there another line of heroes somewhere? What about another mistake made by the Wizard? Sadly, these were not followed up on.

Teth-Adam would eventually return to the original continuity of Captain Marvel. But it would take the property being sold to DC and being revived in the 1970s before he showed up on the comic page again.

…which we’ll look at next time.

Hopefully, his dialogue will have aged better.