With Black Adam pushed back until October 21st, it seemed likely that this summer was not going to have a lot of Teth-Adam in it. But today, DC announced (via IGN) a new “Black Adam” ongoing series by Christopher Priest (“Deathstroke,” “Black Panther”) and Rafa Sandoval (“Teen Titans Academy,” “Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps”), and it sounds like the series will have no connective tissue with the film in any real way.
“Paul [Kaminski, editor] and I have had a few near-misses looking for a project to work on together,” Priest says. “I was initially reluctant with this one because of the upcoming movie, and the tendency to garner more scrutiny. I am a little shocked, frankly, that Paul and I haven’t been fired (yet). We are building a somewhat radically different if not outright subversive take on this character and, thus far, DC has been enormously supportive.”
“Our new Black Adam series is its own animal. It exists completely independent of existing continuity while not contradicting or denying any of it. New readers do not need to ‘prep’ by reading anything else, do not need to research anything. Much like my Deathstroke series, it begins with “Once upon a time, there was this guy from Kahndaq…” and off we go. Even if you’ve never even read a comic book before, you will be able to dive in and understand everything.
The series will see Priest do a lot of the things that has made him such an effective creator for over 30 years now: recontextualize a character, create a supporting cast, give the book a true setting, and dig into some truth that, perhaps, has been ignored in the character’s past.
“DC has permitted me to drill down a bit on the character’s heritage and maybe dial his ethnicity in a bit more,” Priest says. “Egypt, after all, is in Africa. Approaching Black Adam or Egyptian culture in a culturally neutral way limits the horizons of some great storytelling possibilities, and I am working with DC to modify our approach to more realistically reflect cultural accretions relative to the character.”
Priest adds, “For example, I’ve never been a fan of Black Adam having the traditional blue-black hair (I would imagine his hair more accurately should be dark brown and textured, not straight). Further, when moving through the world in his mortal (non-costumed) form, I would imagine Theo Teth-Adam would experience the same kinds of scrutiny and bias so many people of color experience every day. While it is not our goal to be darkly cynical, I believe there’s a great deal of storytelling potential left on the table when we narrow our focus to just the superhero punching stuff.”
Priest is also creating a new sidekick for Adam, one that springs out of a brush with death, though few details are revealed about the sidekick, other than their relationship would be more “Quantum and Woody than Batman and Robin,” referencing characters Priest has had a chance to write in the past.
It appears that the younger Black Adam, seen in both “Future State” and “Teen Titans Academy,” will not be part of this story, but when it comes to Priest and his ability to weave together disparate ideas, I’d say never say never.
For more, including some variant covers and character designs, visit IGN.
