Uncollected Editions: Black Adam Vol. 2: East of Egypt (DC Comics)

A new entry in our “Uncollected Editions” series, where we look at single issues that might’ve made a collection, but never came to be.

DC Comics likely cancelled Black Adam Vol. 2: East of Egypt for a variety of reasons, anything from the geopolitical climate to the lackluster response to Black Adam at the movie theaters. I had high hopes for issues #7–12, since Christopher Priest’s Black Adam Vol. 1: Theogony was a good one and, after all, it seemed the next volume would intersect with Dark Crisis.

I never had a sense that the latter half of Priest’s Black Adam mini got truncated or rushed or such; it was 12 issues from the jump. But the final issues feel like the series runs out of space, perhaps unexpectedly, really toeing the line between literary ambiguity and just not giving the characters much of a wrap-up. Further, there’s material from the first volume never touched again.

I am not at all put off by Priest being Priest here — the story told nonlinerarly, no small amount of plot point turning on simple wordplay — but I’m less convinced than with Priest’s Deathstroke that taking a deep dive into Black Adam and mucking about was worth it. This does not feel like the definitive take on Black Adam that Deathstroke was for Slade Wilson.

[Review contains spoilers]

The Black Adam series ends with Black Adam and Theo Teth-Adam split into two beings, the former with the power and the latter with the humanity. It’s thematic — this Black Adam has been immortal so long he fears losing touch with the world, and now that he’s human, he appreciates even the savage beating he receives because at least he can feel. But it’s unlikely DC will let dual Black Adams keep running around (letting along when if ever we’ll see the junior Black Adam, Bolt, again), such that this among all of it seems destined to be reversed, and soon.

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

There’s some question within these issues of multiple Black Adams over the years. This book’s central Black Adam was for a long time exiled in space (creating a race of gods at one point from space dust he breathed in), bringing to question some ancient events Adam was said to have been present for or participated in. One possibility is, by dint of some magic, Adam has the memories of other Adams who were present on Earth all those years; another is that Adam is just a self-aggrandizing liar who tells stories about himself.

Either way, I couldn’t quite catch what Priest was trying to say with all of it. Over in Priest’s Deathstroke run, Slade was subjected to some time travel shenanigans that affected his later decisions to try to do good; here it’s suggested the Black Adam you think you know is not who you actually know, but the implications are minimal. In Theogony, Priest perpetuated Black Adam’s New 52 origin, in which Adam murdered his own nephew to steal Shazam’s power; there is surely a route here to reconciling Adam’s various origins over various continuities (not that that seems wholly necessary), but even that doesn’t seem to be Priest’s goal.

Theogony ended with what seemed a Snyderverse-inspired face-off between Batman and Black Adam; Adam escaped the simulation believing it was perpetuated by Batman, when actualy it came from Martian Manhunter. None of that is broached again, however; that’s in part of course because both Batman and Martian Manhunter are “dead” in these issues courtesy of Dark Crisis.

But whereas Black Adam #7 deigns to acknowledge Dark Crisis with a couple of wordless panels, it barely refers to it in dialogue, never certainly reflecting Adam’s outsized role in the event. If like me you were hoping the latter issues of Black Adam might blend Adam and Malik’s independent story with the larger DCU’s Dark Crisis story, you’ll be disappointed. It very much seems like the Black Adam miniseries was written without knowledge of Dark Crisis and then the crossover was tacked on as minimally as possible.

I am far from an expert, nor would I ever want to speak for what ought or ought not offend others. To the question however of whether there was something overtly topical that might have warranted DC cancelling Black Adam Vol. 2: East of Egypt, I didn’t see it. There is simply that the book takes place in the Middle East and references various religions; also at one point Adam disparages protestors against his autocratic rule, calling them “idiots” who’ve been misled. It was nothing that I thought was egregious, such that I couldn’t say definitively this was why DC would or should cancel the book, but again, I couldn’t speak for everyone.

Ultimately Christopher Priest’s Black Adam miniseries started out well with Black Adam Vol. 1: Theogony, in that it built a mystery and offered tantalizing hints of weird things to come. But the final issues of the series don’t uphold it, dallying with, yes, the Sargon the Sorcerer character shares a name with Sargon, an ancient ruler, a point that’s well made but doesn’t quite seem worth the amount of attention it gets. I’d read a Black Adam series by Priest; 12 issues doesn’t seem to have been quite enough time to get things moving.

Rating 2.0