BLACK ADAM
Let’s get one thing straight, Black Adam has never been a “hero” anything in any medium (anti-hero is how this movie is selling it to audiences) until Dwayne Johnson started looking for a starring vehicle that could fit his oversized ego. Black Adam has always been portrayed as a villain, nay, a super villain. In fact the word “black” and his black costume are supposed to be an instant tip off when compared to our young Billy Batson and his alter superhuman ego, Shazam/Captain Marvel.
Think “Dark” as opposed to “Light”, think “Evil” as opposed to “Good”. And it was never about his skin color but his inner darkness, the evil within. Black Adam has always been depicted as a white ancient creature with pointy ears who was akin to a really evil genie imprisoned inside a bottle. One unlucky day, someone lets him lose and the world is never the same again. It takes both Shazam, and on many occasions Superman to undo Black Adam and his attempts to take over the world.
The trouble with Black Adam is that he has never been portrayed as a caricature, his brand of insane evil is right up there with Lex Luthor in that he can on many occasions rationalize and defend his actions, at the very least to himself. Thanos? Nahhh no way hombre!
Unlike other “normal” villains whose actions are sometimes a momentary response, a survival mechanism, or involuntary reflex, Black Adam is cold, calculating, pre-meditated in his actions. He can sound-off to his victims the pros and cons of his actions yet does not hesitate to do the wrong thing, the evil thing. Again, shades of Thanos!
The more you look at Black Adam the more he looks like Sinestro, from the Green Lantern Corps, a once supposed superhero who turned bad, real bad and then super evil. Amusingly enough, Sinestro too had pointy ears. There must be something of a strong correlation between pointy ears and villainy.
Photo above: Sinestro in DC Comics’ Green Lanterns and Sinestro series.
Photos to left: Sinestro, Black Adam, Black Adam vs Shazam and Superman
Images/Ilustrations are copyrighted by DC Comics/Warner Media Discovery.
All excerpts used in compliance with Fair Use Clause of the U.S. Copyright Act.
“Congratulations to The Rock … for making the Fast and the Furious franchise about YOU … Will this be another Baywatch?…”
Tyrese Gibson, Maxxim Magazine | October 5, 2017
“His (The Rock) Ego Will Break The DCEU Apart”
Unidentified Fan, Fandom Wire August 2022
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson isn’t exactly one of Hollywood’s decade-long A-listers. The Rock doesn’t quite keep up with top male actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Matt Damon, Denzel Washington and Will Smith.
And while many sources claim he is currently the highest paid actor in Hollywood, he has headlined more than a few flops and a number of hits in recent years. Flops count includes San Andreas, Rampage, Skyscraper, Snitch, Tooth Fairy, G.I. Joe Retaliation, The Game Plan, Pain and Gain, and Baywatch. Hits include Jungle Cruise, Jumanji and sequel, Red Notice, Fast and Furious Hobbs and Shaw.
All other connections to the DCEU world of movies aside (Wonder Woman, The Justice League, The Flash and Aquaman), what is immediately obvious in this spin off of Shazam is the use of superheroes who parallel Marvel’s offerings this year and the next, in particular the highly anticipated 2023 Antman Quantumania and this year’s Dr. Strange in the Multiverse. Collusive synergies or serendipity?
With Black Adam, set to release this year, Dr. Fate is another “sorcerer supreme” of sorts, albeit one who manipulates the very fabric of destiny whenever he puts on a Greek warrior-looking helmet inhabited by an ancient deity, Nabu (no relation to ancient
Mesopotamia’s god of literacy, wisdom and scribes – The Nabu). Most DC Comics issues showcasing Dr. Fate are immersed in wild illustrations that look straight out of the hallucinations of person or persons heavily ingesting massive amounts of cocaine or similar drugs. And the stories that involved Dr. Fate in the comics were always treading a fuzzy line between pseudo-science fiction, mythology, fake religious deities and sheer fantasy.
For readers steeped into hardcore Batman and fantasy/sci-fi Superman, Dr. Fate’s adventures were always a distressing plunge into the Lost, Lost Land of Delusional Hallucinogenic Adventures.
Dr. Fate was a secondary character in secondary stories which served as filler or buffer to pad an issue that was thin on story for the main character – Superman, Batman, The Flash or Green Lantern. Think along the lines of a rock concert where we have a second, little-known band to open for the main event.
In Black Adam the movie, aside from big gun Dwayne Johnson, Warner Brothers studios shoehorns former James Bond headliner Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Fate. A terrific pairing if only Brosnan were in his 007 heydays, he would have made for a more sinister, edgy and more vibrant Dr. Fate.
Photo above: Pierce Brosnan former 007 as Doctor Fate and Sarah Shahi as Adrianna Tomaz, Egyptian Goddess Isis
In the Black Adam trailers he comes off as syrupy, burned out and half asleep in the manner he reads his lines as he attempts to recruit our baddie of the day, Black Adam, into the Justice Society of America. There doesn’t seem to be any spit, fire or passion in his delivery. But these are excerpt teasers. We haven’t see the full Monty as of the date of this writing, so we are half there on their pick. Just hoping those trailer clips are misleading.
Another odd choice for the movie is the introduction of the Justice Society of America as opposed to the Justice League we are all so familiar with.
“Black Adam is what happens when artists say they want to go dark but don’t really have the stomach for it.”
Entertainment Weekly | Joshua Rothkopf
Why would the movie version of Black Adam dip into the Justice Society of America rather than the Justice League creating all kind of anachronisms? Is it because someone thought hey this story goes all the way back to the Egyptian Pharaohs and Dwayne Johnson was just in an Indiana Jones sorta of Jungle Cruise film? Do we roll out a turn of the 20th Century flavor for this film with all kind of English explorers in Africa and London Sherlock Holmes trimmings? The problem is that the Justice Society of America (JSA) is an earlier timeline version of the Justice League in the DC Comics world where steamboats and Tarzan were popular.
On a positive note, the teasers of Black Adam have a very sophisticated and sleek look that seems to be more in line with Marvel’s best superhero installments, detailed, muscular, big action filled sequences and with set-pieces that are clearly chromatically synchronized. Whenever that happens it usually indicates enough budget was spent on creating a distinctive visual look consistent through several scenes or, hopefully, the entire film.
And the visual effects appear to be far better executed than those in Shazam 2.
But will a sleek looking superhero movie float and rise purely on production design and visual effects? With a supporting cast that counts relative unknowns Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone, Noah Centineo as Atom and Aldis Hodge as Hawkman, will the story and plot buff out this adventure and tip on the scales of instant winner in the cap of the studio?
For a more complete movie review be sure to sign on with your Gold or Silver member account and enjoy bonus downloadable exclusive posters.
All contents copyrighted 2022 for West Coast Midnight Run™. All rights reserved. Partial reprints allowed only with express written permission from the publisher.
“Before Rome, before Babylon, before the Pyramids, there was Kahndaq” the voice over of a teenager (later revealed to be Amon (Bodhi Sabongui), son of the only female amongst a large swath of angry men from the fictitious quasi Arab/Hindu country), “Khandaq 2,600 BCE, the first self governing people on Earth …” the voice-over continues, a ballsy flourish of bluster, one of many, from Warner Brothers and Dwayne Johnson who ignore some highly known and well-documented historical records pointing to Byblos as one of the oldest continuously living city-state in the Old World, said to have been founded as recently as 8,800 BCE (making it almost 11,000 years old and the city after which the words Book and The Bible are coined from). Byblos belongs to a series of city-states doting the Mediterranean and the Levant and part of the cradle of civilization, Phoenicia, that crafted the modern day alphabet and invented the art of shipbuilding, maritime trade, and maritime warfare. So it was incomprehensible that Warner Brothers would suggest the first ever city to worldwide viewers as something as recent as 4,600 years ago.
The fun is only starting (partly correct, partly sarcasm) with Black Adam as the story lurches forward attempting to spin a modern day DC-Comics world interpretation of the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank but the occupiers are Intergang, a fictitious global crime organization that exists only within the DC comic books. And the world has turned a blind eye to the sad plight of its inhabitants. Black Adam mixes modern-day Palestinian tragedy with mythic Egyptian Pharaonic-based folklore, superstitions and occult magic.
Part of the fun is the extensive effort at painting Black Adam as a villain when the movie adaptation and the Dwayne Johnson “team” are so earnest at making him a recalcitrant hero, someone with deep reservations about being a hero or following the modern day superhero code. The origin story is always so much fun for moviegoers who are familiar with the comic book lore. That is where the film screenwriters reinvent the material, giving it a fresh coat of paint.
Welcome to Hobbs as Black Adam.
Dwayne Johnson does a good job of being the model/actor who executes some spiffy scenes with a handful of sarcastic lines in a highly modified version of the original materials’ Black Adam, a rapidly acclimated fossil who manages to smirk and eyebrow modern-day rhetoric against gun violence and killing, any kind of killing, in a reverse sarcasm “BLM-style” ALM pitch (All Lives Matter) clearly targeting law enforcement – and the screewriters lampshade the “sarcasm” tone of the film for the viewers on at least two separate “laugh squeezing” scenes, if only the producers used laugh tracks from the I Love Lucy and Happy Days heydays.
In an earlier scene, The Rock production team clearly goes against “fallen” Hollywood revenue models and takes a clear shot against violence in a scene where
Teth Adam (Black Adam) is getting re-oriented on 21st century lifestyles and whether it is gonna be mommy or daddy who will teach the children how to inflict violence on the enemy. No worries, it turns out it is in a
different movie, Hollywood lets the cat out of the bag and fingerpoints video games as the culprit – a clear source of mountains of gold in the form of t-shirts, lunch boxes and a multitude of superhero
merchandising “Western World” toys for t-h-oughts, oooops toys-for-tots.
Incredulously The Rock is a fan of both Elvis and The Fonz, because Henry Winkler does a cameo appearance as ….ta da… Superman, nope just kidding but you’ll find out if you go see the movie.
A defining pitch of this Black Adam for those clearly acquainted with the comic books-based character, but lost on new audiences, is the black humor in giving us one of the most lethal and criminal supervillains who has been shown to murder entire cities without as much as blinking, as a hardened pragmatist who fraternizes with mere mortals and agrees or disagrees with domestic banter as well as high brow principles of how to mete out proper superpowered “Just’This” blows to his opponents or even those who merely offend his style.
“an expensive-looking shrug that conforms to the trademark dullness of all of Johnson’s recent efforts.”
David Sims | The Atlantic
Undoubtedly there is more on Aldis Hodge as Hawkman, Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone, Sarah Shahi
as the lone and sole pretty “Arab/Hindu” woman with her only son struggling alongside a mass of shabby men against tyranny and the quest for freedom under the long shadow of Black Adam and the Just Zzzzzz League. Sign Up as a Gold Member and enjoy the complete review and downloadable exclusive posters from your favorite publisher.
How does our review part ways with mainstreet magazines (The Atlantic, Entertainment Weekly and others)? Find out inside our Gold Members’ Edition.
west coast midnight run, black adam, captain marvel, dwayne johnson, pierce brosnan, james bond, 007, superman, JSA, the rock, dc comics, Shazam, Justice Society of America,
Black Adam Movie Review – West Coast Midnight Run™ Presents
The new Shazam-centric adventure starring Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam, the predecessor of Captain Marvel, turned evil and became a banished super villain returns to the modern 21st Century. Will he save our entertainment weekend or destroy it?
Express Login