Good Villain,,, Black Adam

I'm not going to be as "formal" as I was with the "painful villains", but lets face it, there are not only bad villains, but also good ones, some really, really good ones, and now and then I'll pop up and say why I think they work.

Black Adam is one of them. I'll be honest, right now, I'm a touch worried about Adam, due to overexposure. That's always a danger with any villain, that once it is seen that they work, and work well, they get dragged into everything.

Still, Black Adam works, and it's rather odd. It would be easy to dismiss Adam as just a variation of the "evil twin" theme. He is, and he isn't.

What works with Adam is the way that he contrasts with Cap't Marvel. In many ways they are alike, and it is easy to "see" why the wizard would have chosen both of them. For both of them, justice, honor and taking care of your people are defining concepts. The difference is that they just don't match up on what those concepts mean... especially that first little word... "justice."

You could simply say that Adam hearkens back to an earlier day, but not really. Yes, his concepts of justice are very, very direct and a touch brutal, but the difference isn't really "new versus old." It is the old saw "do the ends justify the means?"

Billy says no

Adam says yes

I'm not going to say that is the sum total of the differences, but it is indeed a large chunk of them. It is that contrast that defines Adam, and what makes him interesting.

His current plotline is also interesting, because it plays in much the same turf that recent episodes of JLU have been playing in. Why did the world react so strongly when Adam invaded Khandaq? There are lots of debates about "was it an invasion, or a coup or what?" However, that's missing the point.

The real issue is this. A running fear among the nations of any world with Superheros has to be "What will we do if they decide they want to run things." Of course, villains have either run (Dr. Doom) or tried to run (1,000,000 examples) countries at one point or another. However, when it is the heros that do it? (And Adam's status is a bit vague at that point) What happens when Superman decides to take over? Is the Justice League the great defenders or the greatest threat?

The Khandaq storyline opens up all of those questions, and more (how WILL Adam reign anyway?), and all of those questions provide a great deal of meat for some really interesting storytelling, and I look forward to seeing it.

I do find it interesting, that with the development of Black Adam, there's probably more people out there really interested in him than in Capt. Marvel himself, though I'm actually not one of them. I'm fascinated by both of them, and hope that we get a new Capt. Marvel book coming out of the Crisis.