The Justice League has returned after several years of hiatus. Absolute Power showed the former members of the team that they needed to come back together, so they rebuilt the Watchtower satellite. They were just in time, too, as Darkseid attacked the Earth with the power of the Spectre in tow, and basically committed suicide by Justice League so that he could take over the Alpha Earth, a blank multiversal Earth. Since then, the Justice League has been protecting the Earth, all while bringing together the entire superhero community under one spaceborne roof. The new Justice League book, Justice League Unlimited, is ground zero for the next big DC plot lines, and readers have gotten a lot of cool Justice League adjacent books since it premiered and the Justice League returned, including Justice League Red.
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Justice League Red #1 is a great read. It begins with Red Tornado realizing that the return of the Justice League could inadvertently endanger the Earth, so he decides to pull a Batman and do something sneaky. He brings together a secret Justice League team on its own Justice League satellite, and sends them on their first mission. Now, that’s a whole other can of worms, but what we’re interested in here is the end of the issue, which has the return of the character who finally killed the DCEU — Black Adam. Black Adam was once the next generation of DC hero, but he’s fallen far from grace. Black Adam is a great character and this return is what a lot of fans have wanted.
Black Adam Was DC’s Coolest Anti-Hero
Black Adam started his existence in 1945’s The Marvel Family #1. He was one of several evil characters with the same gimmick as Shazam/Captain Marvel — gaining superpowers from divine entities and past heroes when they say a magic word — and was a simple evil bad guy. When DC defeated Shazam/Captain Marvel publisher Fawcett Publishing in court and was able to purchase their characters, he stayed that way. Post-Crisis Black Adam was also basically the same, tied into Billy Batson’s origin in the excellent Powers of Shazam! (one of the forgotten gems of ’90s DC from writer/artist Jerry Ordway), but would get a chance for stardom in JSA.
Black Adam decided that he wanted to be good again and save the world like he did in ancient times. He became a probationary member of the team, making friends with Atom-Smasher after initially butting heads with him. His violence bothered the team, and eventually he left with Atom Smasher, recruiting some JSA-adjacent heroes to overthrow the dictatorship that controlled his home country of Kahndaq. Black Adam became a villain who ran his own country, and ended up teaming up with the villainous Society during the run-up to Infinite Crisis, before being betrayed. The year after that conflict would see him become more heroic and have everything torn away from him by the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, causing him to go insane, kill millions, and have his powers taken away.
In the ensuing years, Black Adam’s status quo was the evil with good intentions leader of Kahndaq. The New 52 rebooted his history — instead of the post-Crisis origin of him possessing his descendant, he was thrown into space by the Wizard in ancient times and took millennia to fly back to Earth — and he also eventually took over Kahndaq. He’d end up helping defend the Earth during Dark Knights: Death Metal and would soon join the cast of Justice League when Brian Michael Bendis took over the book, and was given a 12-issue series, all because of his then-upcoming movie. Black Adam was everywhere in DC in the run-up to his movie, with him playing an important role in the final battle of Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths. While all that was happening, the movie, that was advertised as the saving grace of the DCEU failed, and Black Adam basically disappeared after Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths. I’ll be honest — there was no reason for the character to go away. He was given a new lease on life in his series (his mortal and his powered form were separated and he was given a new sidekick in a character we all just called White Adam), but DC dropped him like a bad habit after his movie failed. Justice League Red #1 is his first major appearance since then.
Black Adam Has His Eyes on the Justice League
Red Tornado sends Power Girl and Simon Baz on a space mission to destroy a robot that he fears will attack Earth. The two of them are able to do so, but they discover that the robot wasn’t meant to destroy, but to create, filled with seeds and mechanized farming implements. As they discuss that maybe Reddy has gone a little barmy, they’re being watched by Black Adam.
Now, this is a very interesting development. Black Adam keeping an eye on the Justice League makes sense — they may come after him at some point or he might actually want to help them. Black Adam is all about destroying threats before they can attack, so maybe he wants in. This opens a lot of cool directions for the book to go in. Black Adam has a lot of fans, despite the failure of his movie, and DC bringing him back could be something very cool for those fans.
Justice League Red #1 is on sale now.
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