I decided to watch the new Black Adam film in the cinema back when it came out, I didn’t know much about it but given that it is a DC film I thought that it would be worth the trip. On the whole I think it was, but the film left me confused and slightly unsettled by its notions of justice and heroic behaviour which is what I want to explore here. Effectively, the moral conflict of the film is centred on the question of whether violence can be justified. So, let’s travel to the distant land of Kahndaq and wander through the ethical dilemmas of the use of violence.
Spoilers ahead! (Oh and for Man of Steel, Wonder Woman Vol. 2 219, Batman: Death in the Family and the Batman character of Red Hood in general. Minor spoilers for Captain American: The Winter Solider and Avengers: Endgame).
Overall review
Feel free to skip this section but I want to offer up my thoughts on the film as a whole. So Black Adam (2022) is the first live action appearance of the titular comic-book character, played by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. It is part of the DC Extended Universe, although it has minimal references to other films and the whole DCEU is a bit of a mess at the moment to be honest. The acting, sets, costumes and other technical aspects were all good, nothing to complain about there. The villain and the villainous plot wasn’t particularly memorable, it served its purpose but it wasn’t great. My real issue with the film was the whole anti-hero nature of Black Adam/Teth-Adam, which I don’t think was dealt with well. The highlight for me was the Justice Society of America (JSA) superheroes. We had Hawkman/Carter Hall (Aldis Hodge), Doctor Fate/Kent Nelson (Pierce Brosnan), Atom Smasher/Al Rothstein (Noah Centineo) and Cyclone/Maxine Hunkel (Quintessa Swindell). They aren’t the most notable DC superheroes but I enjoyed their presence and would like to see them again. Hawkman was a personal favourite of mine, I like his comic book character, and would love to see more of him in a standalone film (hopefully alongside Hawkgirl). Our other key characters, Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi), her son Amon (Bodhi Sabongui) and her brother Karim (Mohammed Amer), were a good addition, and it was refreshing to see non-superheroes still being heroic and affecting the plot in a film like this.
I do have some more slightly miscellaneous thoughts which I am feeling self-indulgent so I shall share.
I thought the setting of a small city under occupation by foreign organisation/gang (they are literally called intergang!) quite a unique and interesting setting. This also helped to distinguish Kahndaq from Wakanda, which are both fictional places which are sought after for being the only place where a certain powerful material is.
It can be pretty certain that Black Adam’s superspeed fight towards the beginning of the film was copied from Quicksilver’s very similar famous fight in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Like Quicksilver, Black Adam moves so fast that everything around him appears to slow down to almost no movement so that the bad guys can be taken out quickly and cleverly. There is a song in the background and everything. Quicksilver’s worked because it was also comedic but Black Adams was jarringly dark and whilst it demonstrated his power this had already been established, so I don’t think that scene works anywhere near as well that Quicksilver’s did.
Amon’s bedroom being full of DC heroes’ posters and figures was very similar to that of Freddie Freeman’s in Shazam (2019). It worked well in the latter because Freddie could then be a kind of superhero advisor to Billy Batson and whilst Amon also fills this role, albeit to a lesser extent, the similarity was just a bit too repetitive. DC didn’t need to be so self-referential. Having Amon just reading a couple of comic books would have been enough to express his longing for a (super)hero without suggesting that every young teen boy in this film franchise has hundreds of Superman and Batman posters.
I feel that it is important to note here that I don’t like to complain about films. When I see a film I want to like it, especially when it uses beloved characters. So I take no pleasure in my critiques of Black Adam but critique it I must.
What is the film’s message?
So, what actually is the film trying to say about the use of violence? The question of whether the powerful should use their abilities to subjugate others is the main debate between characters. It is the disagreement on this issue which fuels the conflict between Black Adam and the JSA. Whilst the latter, especially Hawkman, are opposed to violence, taking our usual ‘good guy’ position, Black Adam uses violence whenever it helps him to meet his goals. Black Adam’s violence is aimed against anyone who opposes his own goals of protecting those he values. As he says throughout the film, he is not a hero. Black Adam never appears sadistic or enjoying the violence he inflicts on others but he does kill pretty much everyone he comes up against, from the ‘big bad’ to nameless lackeys.
I’m not overly familiar with Black Adam’s comic book counterpart and, whilst I have done research, I am not in a place to judge on how faithful of an adaption it is to the source material. Black Adam first appeared in Marvel Family no.1 (1945) as a villainous character, in opposition to Billy Batson/Shazam/Captain Marvel. In more recent iterations, Black Adam has taken more of an anti-hero quality and can be seen as an ally to Billy and even a member of the Justice League (as of 2021). In the comics, Black Adam was granted the powers of the ‘Champion’ by the Council of Wizards but misused them for evil purposes and was stripped of this role. He is the ‘Chosen One’ who failed to live up to the expectations placed on him. Billy is eventually chosen as ‘Champion’ and manages to be the kind of hero that the Wizards intended. Whilst how Black Adam got his powers is slightly changed in the film, the end result is the same. Black Adam serves as a warning about the abuse of power and is alluded to as such in Shazam (2019).
From Black Adam’s first appearance in the modern day, it is clear that this is not the hero that the people of Kahndaq, and the audience, expected. He instantly kills a man and then dispatches more before disappearing. Black Adam then uses his super-abilities to fight the JSA, who seek to deter him from his violent path and subdue him. He also fights Intergang to protect Amon and his family, who show Black Adam kindness and are clearly the innocent party. Black Adam’s only voluntary decision to stand down is when his rage-fuelled powers hurt Amon and he agrees for the JSA to put him in a position where he can no longer use his powers. How they do this I will discuss later, but it remains only temporary and Black Adam’s powers are restored when Dr Fate calls him back to fight the final duel with the bad guys.
When Black Adam is back, he doesn’t show any sense of regret for his violent actions or any attempt to change his ways in how he responds to those he opposes. The events of the film culminate in the apparent end of Intergang in Kahndaq, although I’m not entirely sure why, and so the film ends with Black Adam’s actions leading him to form a democracy in the country. So, the overall message of the film appears to be that violence can be justified to overthrow an imposed regime, including allowing the killing of evil henchmen. The JSA may object to this but no one else does, and Black Adam never explicitly regrets this or promises to limit his use of violence in the future. He does not change his extreme ways and whilst he probably will try to control his rage in the future it is still present..
I don’t have an issue with superhero films exploring the idea of whether violence is justified but just I just don’t think that Black Adam did it well. The tone was not of a dark film which could delve into these big questions. It was a 12A and as such contained a fair amount of light and comedic moments. Some of the deaths were even treated as comedic which I really didn’t think was in good taste. I left the cinema thinking ‘did that film just support vigilante violence and murder?’. The JSA appear to just forget that Black Adam has killed so many people and seem content to leave him completely unconstrained at the end of the film. True a post credit scene shows that others want to contain Black Adam’s more violent actions but this appears to be mostly an opportunity for a little cameo of Superman.
Black Adam pretty much kills anyone who stands in his way, he does not only reserve killing for the evil team’s leaders but everyone who opposes him. It is this totality which I was particularly uncomfortable with. Whilst killing someone might be a lesser evil in an extreme situation (e.g. when Superman kills General Zod in Man of Steel (2013)), Black Adam, and so the film on the whole, seems to allow the killing of anyone who can be considered ‘a bad guy’.
JSA
I did say that I enjoyed the JSA in this film, and I did, but I do have a cavate which is relevant to this debate of good vs evil and how the powerful treat others.
Far from being independent, the JSA appear to be working with Amanda Waller, another morally dubious character, who appears in Suicide Squad (2016) and The Suicide Squad (2021). When capturing Black Adam and needing to stop him from ever using his abilities again they hand him over to Waller’s team who place him in a form of suspended animation. The JSA are never suggested to not be aware of the fate Black Adam faces as he is placed in a machine which will hold him unconscious perpetually. The camera perspective then shifts and we see that many more, at least a hundred (I think, I’m bad at estimating) are being imprisoned in similar machines.
How is this forced unconscious state any different to actually killing Black Adam? Surely there is no difference in being forcibly unconscious and unaware for forever and something close to death. The machines are designed to forever hold their prisoner and, whilst Black Adam does escape, I see no difference between this fate and capital punishment. Surely some other method of containment could have been designed to hold Black Adam and the other prisoners which stopped them from posing a threat and still allowed them to be conscious, aware and able to engage in some form of rehabilitation.
The issue here about imprisonment seems so blatantly obvious to me that I can’t take the film’s messaging seriously. It seems blind to the obvious moral implication of actions so that I cannot trust it to faithfully communicate its messaging. The JSA, and particularly Hawkman, seem clearly opposed to killing and yet they are imprisoning Black Adam in this cruel way. I have to conclude this is an overlooked and unintended aspect of the film’s characterisation so I am left not trusting it to self-consistent and not revealing of the creator’s intention of the moral or ethical conclusion.
The abyss stares into you
This famous quote, ‘And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you’, from Fredrick Nietzsche is popularly used by people to argue that when we dwell to much on negative things they can dominate our perceived reality. Lie down with the dogs and you’ll wake up with the flees is another common turn of phrase. The notion that when we are drawn into some kind of conflict we can become what we hated in the first place is not uncommon.
At times I thought that this would be how the film went; that as we see Black Adam’s traumatic reckoning with King Ahk-Ton and his avenging those Intergang and Ishmael has hurt, Black Adam realises that he has become what he hated. It is that danger which we humans seem to be aware of, that in fighting evil we become what we hate. That in taking revenge we become like or even worse than the one we wanted revenge on.
The jubilation at the end of the film seems to suggest that Intergang was defeated, and is no longer in control of Kahndaq, but we are never told how or why, or what will be the consequences. Rebuilding a country and establishing a stable, peaceful government is difficult. In popular media, the Star Wars sequels show us that. What is to stop Black Adam from ruling over Kahndaq as Ahk-Ton did? He has incredible power and an obviously strong will to impose his ideas on others.
I think that it would have made more sense in the film for this to be Black Adam’s fatal flaw, that his passion to defeat evil becomes misguided and misused to instead oppressively rule others. Whilst the twist is that Black Adam was the Champion’s father who avenged his son, I saw a twist coming but thought that it would be that Black Adam was chosen by the Wizards but became a tyrant king in Ahk-Ton’s place. This would have been more in keeping with the comic books and whilst I wasn’t a massive fan of the actual twist myself I don’t know the general audience’s opinion.
Black Adam is told, by either Hawkman or Dr Fate I can’t remember, that he doesn’t feel like he is worthy because he wasn’t personally chosen by the Council of Wizards. The film treats this as a vocalisation of a truth long felt by Black Adam but for me it is another sign that the film’s internal messaging and characterisation was faulty. In my opinion, Black Adam feels unworthy because he is. Because he has used powers meant for peace and justice to enact violence of unwarranted severity. This doesn’t mean that he couldn’t become worthy of his powers but it does mean that Black Adam’s issue isn’t a lack of self belief but believing that acts are justified when they simply are not.
The ‘No Killing’ Rule
Generally in DC, superheroes have a ‘no killing’ rule. The three main DC superheroes, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, all explicitly have this rule. Whilst this doesn’t mean they never kill it is depicted as a very serious action when they do do so. For example, in Vol. 2 219 Wonder Woman kills Maxwell Lord to save Superman and embraces a self-enforced exile afterwards. She may consider that her actions were ethically justifiable, ‘for the greater good’, but acknowledges the severity of them and seeks to pursue a less lethal path in the future.
Personally, I’m quite opposed to violence except in the most extreme circumstances and I live in a country without the death penalty, a status quo I am totally in favour in. I believe that we simply just shouldn’t take another human life, that human life is sacred and inexorably and unconditionally of immense value. So, I really value DC’s general position. Captain America: The Winter Solider is one of my favourite films, I really love it, but I do find it difficult to see Cap and his fellow SHIELD agents seemingly killing evil lackeys at the beginning of the film. It’s the same reason why I really struggle with the fact that Hawkeye faces no repercussions whatsoever for his numerous extra-judicial killings in Avengers: Endgame. For superheroes to be role models then they must embody both justice and peace, and showing a humanity seeking to be the best version of itself. There was massive controversy in the geek-realms over Batman indirectly killing people in Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and I think that is partly why. Not only did the depiction go against established canon but it suggested that such actions were okay. Not all superhuman characters need to be like this, and ethical matters can be wrestled with, but I appreciate seeing a high value on human life being portrayed in films.
Contrasted to Black Adam, I think a much better exploration of the morality of vigilante violence and killing to be found in the various Batman media. It has a darker, gritty tone to take on the issue and does so a fair bit. The question comes up a few times - would it be for the greater good if Batman just killed the big villains? Would it be morally justifiable to stop future evil acts by killing the villain before they can commit them? Whilst the character of Batman rigidly sticks to the absolute morality that killing is bad, Red Hood/Jason Todd appears as a counter to this as he goes around killing evil-doers. Jason was originally Batman’s sidekick, Robin, but was killed by the Joker before being resurrected years down the line due to superhero shenaginns. Jason takes it as a personal insult that Batman did not avenge his death by killing the Joker and goes on a spree of killing the villains who Batman would instead lock up. Its a conflict both of morality but also characters, which has the space and scope to be a fairly satisfing explroation of the topic. Essentially, I do think that media, and superhero media particularly, can effectively explore and wrestle with the use of violence but that Black Adam failed to do this.
So why is this important? Is it?
Why did Black Adam give me so much pause for thought then? Partly because I wasn’t expecting the film to explore these issues. Had the film opted for a darker tone and got some more consisted messaging and characterisation then it could have been better and could have better explored the issues it wanted to more effectively.
I do wonder though whether this almost casual depiction of violence and killings in popular media will, consciously or not, influence the way we, as consumers, view these issues. You could say on the flip side that maybe our films are reflecting the beliefs our society already holds; I don’t know. I don’t think that we are mindless and just copy what the people in films do but I do also think that we should be careful about what we create and what we consume. In the same way which we can unconsciously adopt someone’s accent or mannerism if we spend enough time with them so to do films affect us. What I hope is that films like Black Adam, be they good or bad, can open up opportunities and spaces for us to discuss these big issues and research how these matters play out in the real world, like by looking at material from human rights organisations.
Here ends my ponderings. If you watched it, what did you think of Black Adam? What do you think about how films and other popular media depict violence? Do you think that this can be helpful or harmful?
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