This next issue of SHAZAM, which I experienced while reading through the complete run of the series which I’d borrowed from my grade school friend Donald Sims, is noteworthy in that it reintroduced a character who in the coming years would explode in popularity and eventually even get his own self-titled movie: Black Adam! And it’s easy to see why: Black Adam was the distillation of the “Reverse Flash” concept for Captain Marvel, a villain cut from identical but opposite cloth. And in fact, the character had only made one single appearance in the Golden Age, in the very first issue of MARVEL FAMILY COMICS #1. He’s so well-known now that fans think that he must have been as ubiquitous as the Joker was in Batman, but he really wasn’t. This was only his second story.
Of course, that one MARVEL FAMILY story was an acknowledged classic and had been reprinted twice by the time this issue of SHAZAM rolled off the presses. And in the 1970s, it was becoming more necessary for super heroes to contend with colorful villains rather than grappling with puzzles or solving societal problems. Series writer E. Nelson Bridwell was definitely familiar with Black Adam–he was the one who, in his editorial role, had selected that Golden Age story for reprinting both times. So it’s no wonder, now that he’d taken the reins of SHAZAM, that Nelson would work out some way to bring Black Adam back again. He was simply too good of a foil for the Big Red Cheese.
In the prior issue of SHAZAM, the villainous Dr Sivana had brought a number of the greatest villains in history back to life as a part of a scheme to ruin Philadelphia. He was foiled, of course, but he still had perfected his process of revivification. So this story opens with Sivana using his device to resurrect Black Adam. In his original story, Black Adam was 5000 years old, having been exiled to the far side of the galaxy by the Wizard after he misused his SHAZAM powers. Having finally made it back to Earth, there was nothing the Marvel Family could do to vanquish him until powerless Uncle Marvel tricked him into saying his magic word. Then, not only did he return to his mortal form as Teth-Adam, but he instantly aged to dust. But now, Sivana has brought him back–but Black Adam refuses to be the scientist’s minion, instead striking out on his own to do as he pleases.
Captain Marvel is shocked to encounter Black Adam in Massachusetts, and as before, neither Marvel can triumph over the other. So Black Adam creates a diversion and escapes. Billy returns to the RV that he shares with Uncle Dudley as his Mentor and uses the Eterni-Phone to call on SHAZAM to let him know what’s going on. nelson being a learned man, he takes the opportunity in this sequence to both indicate that Black Adam’s name in Egyptian times had actually been Khem-Adam and rationalized his black costume as reflecting Egypt’s reputation as “The Black Land.” He also created an alternate series of gods and heroes to fill out the magic word that would have been relevant in Black Adam’s time, since Solomon, Hercules and et al hadn’t yet been born. This is all very educational, but none of it does anything to stop Black Adam in the present.
Meanwhile, not having much of a plan of his own. Black Adam has returned to Sivana’s lab, where he terrorizes the evil scientist just through his mere presence. Sivana convinces Adam that the thing to do is to attack the Wizard at his home on the Rock of Eternity, reasoning that if Black Adam wipes out SHAZAM, both Black Adam and Captain Marvel will be finished as well. But Billy sees Black Adam soaring away and summons Captain Marvel to go after him. The captain catches up with is foe before he can attack the Rock of Eternity and succeeds in hurling him away in another direction. Since this entire storyline was bicentennial-themed, Black Adam winds up crashing down in the Boston harbor on the even of the Boston Tea Party.
The two Marvels battle it out, but once more, they’re too evenly matches for either one to gain an advantage. But Black Adam is crafty. He utters his magic word, then uses the speed of Anpu to dodge the magic lightning, which instead strikes his foe. Captain Marvel is suddenly transformed back into Billy Batson, and is easy prey for his foe. But rather than simply killing Billy as any rational bad guy would do, Black Adam instead ties him up and throws him into the river to drown, while Adam returns to the present. Fortunately for Billy, he’s able to stay above water for long enough that Paul Revere and the other disguised colonists can fish him out while they’re working on invading the British ships and destroying their tea.
Black Adam has by this time worked out that killing off SHAZAM would destroy himself as well, so he decides instead that he’ll take his revenge on Uncle Dudley, the one who caused his death in the first place. But Dudley is just as wide a wordsmith and as adept an actor as he was in that earlier story, and while feigning ignorance of Black Adam’s identity, tricks the villain into saying his magic word once more. Black Adam is once more returned to the vulnerable form of Teth Adam, and while he doesn’t crumble to dust this time, Captain Marvel shows up to clock him with an “amnesia punch” that erases Teth Adam’s memory of his own identity and his magic word. This is about as good a wrap-up as could be hoped for–but Marvel receives a final panel note from Sivana warning him that his next scheme will be carried out in Niagra Falls in Buffalo, New York. But that’s the next issue’s story!
And just because I don’t think I covered this particular edition anywhere before, this issue of SHAZAM also includes the weekly Daily Planet promotional page which plugged all of the books DC would be releasing the following week. In those days before the internet or even regular contact with fanzines, this was the most advance information that I could get as a reader. By the time I hit this page in this issue, of course, it was all old news, but I liked the format of it regardless.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 