Jessica Wolfgang, Staff Writer ’25
Influx of Superheroes:
Currently, there has been a massive influx of production in superhero movies. Recently, in July of 2022, Marvel produced yet another Thor movie: Thor: Love and Thunder. Continuing this trend, Warner Bros, who owns DC Comics, made an adaption of yet another superhero movie by the name of Black Adam, also referred to as Teth-Adam. The movie was fully released on Oct 21, 2022, into theaters, with the help of Dwayne Johnson otherwise known as “The Rock,” who plays Black Adam. The movie has seemed to gain popularity as well as decent ratings, thus enabling the release of more superhero movies in the near future.
We need a Hero:
In the movie Black Adam, it gives the viewers a summary of who Black Adam is as well as to what he, like any other superhero, must save. It is established that he is the savior of a fictional place called Kahndaq, that has middle eastern origins. Like all superheroes, he gains power in some way and thus, must save his people/area from a current problem.
Picture Credits: DC Comics (Warner Bros.)
Currently, Kahndaq is being overruled by a dictatorship, which leaves the people in a constant state of oppression as well as awful living conditions, including horrible citizenship rights. Given the condition of Kahndaq, it makes sense that they would need a hero. However, Teth-Adam or Black Adam is revealed to be more of an anti-hero, with more darkness in his heart than normal superheroes.
Not Your Average Superhero:
5,000 years ago, in Kahndaq, there was a king who enslaved his own people and commanded them to hunt for Eternium. Eternium was a material that would let him have God-like powers. Hurut, one of the slaves of Kahndaq, found and wanted to give this material to the king. The king tried to assassinate Hurut, which led to ancient Egyptian Gods giving Hurut a superpower. After witnessing his mother getting killed and his father coming close, Hurut passes on his power to save his father, later to be revealed as Black Adam. Black Adam releases all his fury through his new power when Hurut and his wife are killed, ultimately wiping out all of Kahndaq. He continues this trend of wreaking havoc and damage when he is summoned to save modern Kahndaq. He takes out all the bad guys by killing them, leaving him with some backlash from the Justice League. Though the Justice League works with him for a little bit only for a common goal: save people living in Kahndaq.
Not Everything is Black and White: Black Adam has a unique and interesting concept–To be a hero, it does not require someone pure of heart. Rather, it requires someone willing to get the job done for the overall good of humanity, no matter their dark past. It teaches an important lesson that no one is perfect or sometimes people are not always 100% evil or 100% pure of heart. The anti-hero, Black Adam, teaches that perhaps a person with a bad past, can change the impact of their future.
