Black Adam is one of the best-known opponents of Captain Marvel, who might be better-known to some people as Shazam. For the most part, the character is a supervillain, but there are some stories in which he is more of an antihero. Regardless, it has been known for some time that Black Adam will be played by Dwayne Johnson in the DC Extended Universe, but there are now a lot of people speculating that the character will be making his first appearance in the follow-up to Suicide Squad.
Here are five things that you may or may not have known about Black Adam:
He Is Captain Marvel’s Predecessor
Black Adam is an excellent example of the supervillains who serve as a mirror of sorts for superheroes. In his case, this is because he is Captain Marvel’s predecessor, having been chosen by the wizard Shazam because of his strong morals. However, Black Adam became corrupted by his power in time, which resulted in him usurping the Pharaoh in preparation for his planned conquest of the entire world.
He Returned to the Earth via Flight
The wizard Shazam was less than pleased by Black Adam’s use of his superpowers. Since he could not remove said superpowers once they had been handed out, he settled for banishing Black Adam to a distant star. However, this was not enough to kill Black Adam, seeing as how he managed to make a return to Earth after 5,000 years’ worth of flight, which must have been a rather unpleasant experience to say the least.
He Has More than One Origin Story
Like a lot of superheroes and supervillains, Black Adam has more than one origin story. In the second, he served as a protector of ancient Egypt for centuries before he was corrupted by the wizard Shazam’s evil daughter Blaze, which resulted in Shazam stripping him of his superpowers and storing them in a scarab necklace when he usurped the Pharaoh. This kills Black Adam, but in the present, he is reincarnated as a man named Theo Adam, who accompanied Captain Marvel’s parents on an archaeological expedition but killed them in order to steal the scarab, thus resulting in an even more personal antagonism between the two characters. With that said, there have been other versions of Black Adam’s origin story in the comic books than the two that have been listed here.
He Is Empowered by Egyptian Gods
People who are familiar with Captain Marvel will know that he is empowered by mostly Greco-Roman deities. It is interesting to note that Black Adam is supposed to be empowered by six Egyptian gods, whose names seem to have been chosen so that their first letters could spell out Shazam in much the same manner as those who empower his successor. For those who are curious, the six are Shu, Hershef, Amon, Zehuti, Anpu, and Menthu, some of whom are much better-known than others.
Black Adam and Theo Adam Have Been Depicted as Separate Personalities
It is interesting to note that Black Adam and Theo Adam have been depicted as separate personalities from time to time, so much so that the first was actually acquitted for the murders of Captain Marvel’s parents that had been committed by the second. This does not mean that the two can be seen as good and evil counterparts of one another. For that matter, it should be noted that even though Black Adam values justice, his interpretation is an ancient one, meaning that it can be rather brutal by modern standards.
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