Shazam! It's Black Adam

Captain Marvel is Billy Batson, a young boy the wizard Shazam found, convincing the lad to say his name and gain his powers.  As Captain Marvel, Billy faced the evil scientist, Dr. Sivana, but while the world's wickedest scientist did keep Earth's mightiest mortal busy....who could match him physically?

Well, the answer to that was in Shazam's past, as he tried to create a champion before Billy, in ancient Egypt, having Teth-Adam say his name, to become the Mighty Adam, later to be known as.....Black Adam!

Here's his story!

The Mighty Marvels Join Forces

In his one and only appearance in Fawcett Comics, in Marvel Family #1 (December, 1945) by Otto Binder, C.C. Beck and Pete Costanza, readers are introduced to Black Adam!

Shazam relates the story of Black Adam to the Marvel Family (Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr. and Uncle Marvel), telling of Shazam's younger days, when he tried to pass his powers on to Teth-Adam, who after saying the wizard's name, became the Mighty Adam....except that the adult Teth then used the wizard's powers against the people of Egypt.....so Shazam banished him to the farthest star....and he had just returned to face the wizard and the family in this issue! 

The three powered members of the Marvel Family could just match Black Adam's power....but it was the old con man, Uncle Marvel, who tricked Black Adam into saying the wizard's name, changing him back to Teth-Adam, who, then aged to dust...and death!

This story had been reprinted a few times by DC Comics (in Shazam! #8 and in Shazam! From the Forties to the Seventies), as well as being included in a villain pin-up in Limited Collectors' Edition #C-39, so, one could tell E. Nelson Bridwell had plans for Black Adam!

The World's Mightiest Villain Returns

But, death can't keep a good villain down as learned in Shazam! #28 (March-April, 1977) by E. Nelson Bridwell and Kurt Schaffenberger.

Dr. Sivana is the reason for Black Adam's return, having invented a resurrection machine, the world's wickedest scientist revived Teth-Adam, who said the wizard's name and became Black Adam again! 

Black Adam went out to menace Billy Batson and his Uncle Dudley (who had been traveling the country in an RV), with Black Adam and Captain Marvel being equally matched again, but, Uncle Dudley used the same trickery to get Black Adam to say the wizard's name again, allowing Captain Marvel to defeat the villain (though with less fatal results this time).

When Earth's Collide

Black Adam ended up being one of the villains who brought about the big battle between Superman and Captain Marvel in the All-New Collectors' Edition #C-58 (May, 1978) by Gerry Conway, Rich Buckler and Dick Giordano which DC had been hinting at.

Immortal wizard Karmang wanted to revive the ghosts of his Mars, and figured the only way to do that was by smashing Earth-1 and Earth-S together to release enough energy to do that.  Using Black Adam and the sand creature from Quarrm to manipulate Superman and Captain Marvel into battle, Karmang almost succeeded, if not for the help of Supergirl and Mary Marvel.  One of the most notable events of this issue was Cap's use of the magic lightning as a weapon against Superman, but the story really only used Black Adam as one of two power beings to manipulate the heroes, sadly a trend that would continue in his early appearances.

World's Finest Comics and the Monster Society

Teth-Adam had a brief cameo in World's Finest Comics #257 (June-July, 1979), as Captain Marvel was verifying that Black Adam was not active (Teth was still in a specially built cell).  But, that was a preparation for his next appearance, when Black Adam joined Mr. Mind's Monster Society of Evil in World's Finest Comics #264 (August-September, 1980) in a story by E. Nelson Bridwell, Don Newton and Dave Hunt, but Black Adam had to share the space with the rest of Cap's foes, and even though this was his individual battle, he also shared it with Oggar, the world's mightiest immortal, so there wasn't much Black Adam in this issue, nor in the finish to the Monster Society of Evil saga, in World's Finest Comics #267 (February-March, 1981), where the villains attacked the Rock of Eternity, but Black Adam was one of the first dispatched there!

Black Adam

Still, Black Adam returned in DC Comics Presents #49 (September, 1982) in a story by Roy Thomas, Paul Kupperberg, Rich Buckler and John Calnan.

This time around, Black Adam had found himself on Earth-1 after his defeat at the Rock of Eternity (with Superman unknowingly freeing him from the Egyptian tomb he had been trapped under), and he planned on taking over that world...

....if not for some help from Captain Marvel and the powerless Billy Batson of Earth-1, who used a variation of the trick Uncle Marvel/Dudley used to defeat Black Adam yet again.  But, whether that Billy ever got to become a Captain Marvel on his own was a point that would soon be rendered moot....

All of these appearances helped establish Black Adam as a major Captain Marvel villain, and this Black Adam appeared in Crisis On Infinite Earths (issues #9 and #10) in the 1980s, before DC's multiverse changed, and, after one brief new beginning, Black Adam returned again, to face Captain Marvel, then later the heroes of the Freedom Fighters and the Justice Society of America as well as Captain Marvel and his family....even getting a six issue mini-series of his own!   Well.....Shazam! to you, Black Adam, and thank for being part of over 75 years of Shazam! history.

Shazam The New Beginning 1987

After the Crisis on Infinite Earths, many DC heroes found themselves lacking in history, and even with Darkseid threatening their Legends in the 1986/1987 mini-series, these heroes still struggled to find themselves.  None more so than Captain Marvel, who was a brand new hero to start off the Legends mini-series, and had a 4 part limited series called Shazam: The New Beginning, whose first issue came out at the time of the last issue of Legends....yet was set before that series.

A New Beginning

Shazam: The New Beginning #1 (April, 1987) by Roy and Danette Thomas and Tom Mandrake told the story of young Billy Batson, orphaned in a car crash, and involved in a legal battle between Dudley Batson and Thaddeus B. Sivana, ends up with Sivana, who is using the boy for his inheritance to fund his experiments (which eventually bring Black Adam, an evil Marvel, back to Earth).

Billy discovers this experiment and flees, ending up in a subway tunnel, where he meets the old wizard, Shazam, and gives the boy the power to turn into Captain Marvel when Billy says the old wizard's name (even Shazam feels this is familiar....and recalls the original Marvel Family, before trying to forget; but this issue is technically the first appearance of the post-Crisis Sivana and Black Adam, as well as Dudley Batson).

'S' Is For Wisdom...'H' Is For Strength

Shazam: The New Beginning #2 (May, 1987) by Roy and Danette Thomas and Tom Mandrake sees this story continue...

...with Black Adam and Captain Marvel having their first fight (though cut short), as well as Billy reuniting with Dudley to go to fight Sivana for Billy's money (and Billy getting a little help from Sivana's daughter, Beautia, who also hints at the idea that the evil scientist might have caused the death of Billy's parents!).

Beautia is also a post-Crisis version of her old self (and premiered in the previous issue), and had been famous for her charms, and affection for Captain Marvel, in spite of who her father was.

'A' Is For Stamina...'Z' Is For Power

Shazam: The New Beginning #3 (June, 1987) by Roy and Danette Thomas and Tom Mandrake sees Billy and Dudley return to their home in San Francisco, with Billy going to the TV station, K-WHZ, to report his encounter with Black Adam.  The station manager doesn't believe the boy, and calls Sivana to take the boy to his home, which Billy avoids by turning into Captain Marvel and heading to the subway tunnel.

At the subway tunnel, Captain Marvel finds Shazam's ghost, who explains how the wizard had exiled his former protege to another dimension, which Sivana brought the evil being back from.
 
Captain Marvel heads to Sivana's home to confront the evil scientist, but Black Adam interrupts.  The two Shazam-powered beings are evenly matched, yet Sivana takes out the Captain with a weapon he had planned to use on Black Adam.

'A' Is For Courage...'M' Is For Speed

Shazam: The New Beginning #4 (July, 1987) by Roy and Danette Thomas and Tom Mandrake sees Sivana planning to send Captain Marvel into the dimensional exile that held Black Adam for thousands of years, but Dudley stops Sivana (during which Sivana learns that Billy and Cap are one).

Captain Marvel finds Black Adam, and the two battle, coming back to Sivana's lab, with Cap changing back to Billy, and tricking Black Adam into activating the machine, which sends the evil one back into exile (though he eventually returns in DC's War of the Gods).

Captain Marvel frees hostages taken by Black Adam, gives Billy the credit for his finding them, which leads to Billy getting a job at the television station (just in time to see G. Gordon Godfrey begin his tirade against super-heroes that kicks off Legends....where we see Billy interviewing Godfrey on air).

Action Comics Weekly

This Captain Marvel had a small run in 4 issues of Action Comics Weekly (#623 to #626) in 1988, by Roy and Danette Thomas, Rick Stasi and Rick Magyar, that had Billy dealing with a new Captain Nazi (but he was totally a modern day villain...thus he could have been called Captain Neo Nazi in the post-Crisis world....), set after Captain Marvel's brief run as a member of the Justice League.

Cap didn't even rate a cover appearance in this series, and Roy's version of Captain Marvel was mostly forgotten, even when Cap and Black Adam came back for Wonder Woman's War of the Gods...

...and then Cap and all his family got their origins tweaked again (still accounting for Captain Marvel's brief Justice League membership right after Legends, as well as few appearances in Superman titles like Action Comics Annual #4 and in the War of the Gods), with the whole Marvel Family coming back starting with the Power of Shazam! Graphic Novel by Jerry Ordway, and then the 48 issue series that brought Cap back a little towards his Fawcett roots (mostly notably by placing Billy Batson in his own fictional city...Fawcett City, as well as reviving a few old villains like Captain Nazi, Mr. Mind, Mr. Atom, Ibac and more!).