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In Black Adam #1, we met Malik White. Descendent of Teth-Adam, and destined, in future DC Comics solicitations, to be “youthful successor” to Black Adam wearing a white version of his classic suit, and to be known as Thunderbolt or Bolt, even if Teth-Adam prefers “White Adam”. And we got a lecture from Malik White about the racist value-laden uses of the words White and Black in naming traditions, regarding both morality and intentions. Well, the police of the DC universe certainly seem to regard him as a Black Adam in today’s Black Adam #4.
Writer Christopher Priest told ComicBook.com previously, “Malik represents Black Adam’s second chance, Black Adam’s origin, for those of you who don’t know is that the wizard Shazam chose this slave boy named Aman to receive the Shazam power and to be his champion. And Teth-Adam is Aman’s uncle, and Teth-Adam helped Aman escape slavery. Aman decided he wanted to share the power with his uncle. ‘Why don’t we both have the power, and we’ll be like Batman and Robin,’ and Teth-Adam’s like, ‘Okay, cool.’ So Shazam says, ‘Speak my name, and you both shall receive the power’, And at the moment that he spoke the Shazam word, Teth-Adam reached around and snapped the boy’s neck, and killed him, because he wanted to power for himself.” But there are other powers at play, and in today’s Black Adam #4, Malik gets to meet them all.
I mean that’s what I call patriarchy. And a new pantheon for DC Comics, drawing on Sumerian and Mesopotamian gods, Ninurta is a god of farming, Enki a god of water, Marduk is the god of Babylon, Nergal a god of war and death, Anu is king of the gods and father of the sky, Ashur is a deified god of the city Assur and head of the pantheon, and Belit is a godly scribe – basically she’s the secretary.
Might they take a permanent place in the DC Comics pantheon itself?
BLACK ADAM #4 CVR A IRVIN RODRIGUEZ
(W) Christopher Priest (A) Rafa Sandoval (CA) Irvin Rodriguez
THERE IS NO REDEMPTION FOR BLACK ADAM. Thousands of years ago, did Black Adam inadvertently create a powerful race who’ve modeled themselves after the Akkadian pantheon of goddesses and gods? Or is he being gaslighted, taunted by illusions, by one of his many enemies? Theo Teth-Adam finds only more questions when he is lured to the Akkadian Hightower and given a cryptic message. Meanwhile, Adam has dispatched Etrigan the Demon, an unlikely ally, to either train his youthful successor or kill him.
Retail: $3.99 In-Store Date: 09/20/2022
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