Black Adam vol. 1: Theogony

Theo Teth-Adam – Black Adam to his friends, enemies, and the general superhero community – is dying.  The reason why is a mystery, but the time has come for him to pass on his legacy to one of his descendants.  In this case, the lucky recipient winds up being one Malik White, an African-American medical student with an irreverent and rebellious streak as the title character sees in him a chance to redeem his blood-soaked legacy.  Better still, however, is Malik’s dedication to the medical profession as he tries to find a way to save the man who has given him this power.  Which may or may not be a good thing as Adam has managed to piss off Darkseid, the Martian Manhunter, and a new group of gods (that he may have hallucinated into being after inhaling some space dust a while back) recently, and they come looking for some payback.

Like a lot of people, I was let down by last year’s generic “Black Adam” movie which failed to make a good case for establishing Dwayne Johnson as the new lynchpin of the DCEU.  I was hoping for better from this Christopher Priest-written take on the character, but it’s not that much better.  Part of the problem comes from the story’s dual-protagonist setup as it wants to give primacy to both Adam and Malik and winds up diluting both of their presences – the latter more than the former.  It also winds up being all over the place in terms of what part of the story it wants to focus on, leaving vol. 1 with  precious little momentum gathered by its end.

As is the case with most things, “Theogony” does have its moments.  Adam’s encounter with Batman near the end of the volume is handled quite well, and with a clever twist.  I also liked seeing the acknowledgement of the character’s actions in Bendis’ “Justice League” acknowledged as well.  The art from Rafa Sandoval and Eddy Barrows is also solid and they look to be on the same wavelength as Priest when it comes to presenting the comic as a political thriller, character-driven superhero study, and an action-infused take on the genre.  It’s just a shame that it doesn’t all come together to make this volume all that interesting to me.