Shazam 2 has been an experience and a delight for numerous reasons, but mostly because it delivers a perfectly balanced platter of joy, heroism, love, sacrifice, optimism, and vengeance, and tops it all off with a well-placed Wonder Woman cameo. It was almost as if DC secured the formula for making a movie grounded, emotional, and significant in itself (and it’s a CBM film we’re talking about here which makes Shazam 2 all the more surprising in its outcome).
However, for all its hits, the film is not without its flaws and it is not as much in what is being presented on the screen as it is in what the film lacks in its finale – a Black Adam teaser.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)
Shazam 2 Does Not Build Toward a Black Adam War
What is Superman without a Zod or a Luthor? What is Batman without a Clown? What is the purpose of a superhero if not to defeat their archnemesis, proving once and for all that there can only be one who is victorious – and restoring the notion of good over evil? Shazam, too, needs his own immortal archenemy but it isn’t a man or an alien or a psychopathic criminal that Billy Batson’s alter-ego faces in his tenure as the lightning wielder. Teth Adam, better known as Black Adam, is as powerful as Shazam himself, if not more so.
Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam
The upcoming DCU, even beyond the 3-year plans presented by James Gunn for the franchise’s Chapter One, doesn’t seem to have a comfortable place to slot in a Shazam/Black Adam war. Given how the universe is only now beginning to learn to crawl before taking flight with Superman: Legacy, a culmination of a Shazam v Black Adam battle seems like an unlikely event without any build-up or arc to connect these two heroes’ stories, especially as The Rock instead of promoting a showdown against Shazam advocated for an overarching narrative with Henry Cavill’s Superman.
Speaking to Deadline about the possibilities of a Shazam vs (now moot) Black Adam fight, Zachary Levi claimed:
“That’s all so far above my pay grade. I have no idea. I know that in the comics, and even in some animation, there’s been some really cool, epic battles between Shazam and Black Adam… Shazam, Superman, and Black Adam. I know a lot of fans wanted that. I know I was totally open to that, but that’s all I know.”
Fury of the Gods, for its part, does not care for teasing a Black Adam face-off, and instead brings the JSA into the picture and shows more promise for Mark Strong’s Doctor Sivana in the coming future than Kahndaq’s ancient anti-villain.
The Rock Fails to Hit a Home Run With Black Adam
The comics have always pitted the pair against each other, and for better or for worse, Shazam and Black Adam have been at each other’s throats for the better part of the pair’s existence and it not only makes for an epic saga but does something far greater in significance – gives them both purpose, in the world of DC as well as in the readers’ perception. But the show of power and authority that Dwayne Johnson displayed by stepping over Hamada and approaching Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca made him a liability for the studio.
Black Adam (2022)
Black Adam had one chance to succeed and The Rock, instead of weaving a more paced narrative that builds toward something promising and rewarding in the long run, went all out and bet it all on one man, and unfortunately, the execution failed to live up to the hype. The countless ways in which Dwayne Johnson’s film went sideways has not only horribly affected the actor’s chances to embody the role again in DCU but also those of a seasoned and full-of-potential Black Adam appearing against Zachary Levi’s Shazam.
At the moment, the chances of an epic Shazam versus Black Adam showdown happening will only be possible when the characters are churned through the factory conveyor for a remake and revival because it is simply too late for Levi and Johnson to go up against each other now.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods is currently playing in theatres. Black Adam is available for streaming on HBO Max.
