The Dark Origin Story of Black Adam Clearly Indicates Why He Turned Evil
DC is going to make their first live-action adaptation interpretation of Black Adam with the debut of the character this year. Details regarding the movie have been kept under wraps and fans are wondering how this narrative will be explored. We are quite sure that he will have his supervillain arc to be explored in the movie considering we have his superhero counterpart Shazam in the DC Extended Universe. While it is not sure whether we will get to see the entire origin story of the character, we can agree that it has a major role to play in his arc. The origin story of Black Adam is sufficiently harsh to make sure that it is not really surprising that he ended up being a villain.
Black Adam
Dwayne Johnson was selected to take on Black Adam for more than a decade now. Finally, the project started and we will get to see the movie this year. Even though we haven’t got a proper trailer for the movie yet, we have seen some teasers associated with the movie. It is exciting to see how much the actor himself is hyped about the character and it is getting its own solo venture. This is something that was only seen once before with Joker being a take on the Batman villain. But there must be a reason behind the solo venture for this evil character.
Johnson himself has been quite vocal about the character and has talked about the role it will play in the DCEU. According to him, Black Adam might be the strongest character the DCEU might have ever seen before. But this strength and his character arc could only be explained by his origin story in the movie. In an interview, while talking about the character, Johnson said:
One of the things that drew me to Black Adam is his origin. He started out enslaved. Any time you have a character, or any human being, who has wrongfully been held down by others, it means so much more when they begin to rise up.
Black Adam Origin
Black Adam first appeared in The Marvel Family #1 from Fawcett Comics from Otto Binder, C.C. Beck, and Peter Costanza. This would be later acquired and resurrected by the DC. The narrative would see the Wizard Shazam talking about how the power of Shazam was bestowed upon Teth-Adam. According to him, thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt, Teth-Adam was given the powers of Shazam in the hopes that he will become a great hero. But things went awry and Adam would be corrupted by the powers and lose his mind. Shazam didn’t have any mercy for him and punished him in the most excruciating way possible.
The powers were originally given to Adam because it was indicated that he might have the makings of a hero. But Adam did not live up to these expectations and as a result, he would be punished. Later comics would see Black Adam’s powers and his persona being sealed in an artifact only to be awakened later. But the punishment involved being flung to the “farthest star in the universe” and being isolated from humanity. As Adam tried to return to Earth for five thousand years, a certain madness festered inside of him. Later when he would return, he would desire vengeance upon the wizard when he would be attacked by his champions.
It is quite fair to say that Shazam had a lack of foresight. If he did, then he would have seen that Adam would fall to darkness and the latter won’t have suffered this much. Adam did require punishment but what he was made to face is quite brutal and inhumane. Shazam’s own negligence is primarily responsible for the madness that we get to see in Adam. Thus, Shazam’s cruelty plays an essential role in Black Adam’s arc and this makes it clear why he goes against Shazam. Let’s hope this arc will be explored in the movie as it would add a certain depth to the character.
Black Adam will be released in theaters worldwide on July 29.
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