A little history before dealing with what’s to come.
Creative Staff:
Story: Marguerite Bennett
Art: Siya Oum
Colors: J. Nanjan
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
Talia’s tour of the labyrinth has led Batwoman and Renee to a shock—the Cheetah arrived at the Lazarus Pits before they did!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Similar to the previous series, Bombshells: United isn’t afraid of spending some time going backward to look at character arcs in order to establish more of who they are in the present. This can be intriguing with some characters, a little over familiar with others, but it serves to establish them more – especially when it comes to villains. Marguerite Bennett’s use of Black Adam as the villain in Spain is intriguing and I want to know more of how he ended up in that position. That has this issue focusing on a time long before that, which gives Siya Oum a really good issue to illustrate as it focuses on the distant past and a great cast of characters. Her style, especially with the male characters, gives them such a roughness and rawness that it just leaps off the page, particularly in the last couple of panels for Adam himself.
That said, this kind of almost exposition-like work leaves me just a little less than interested. Adam himself is not a bad character and has been well utilized in other works over the years but he’s very familiar and there’s not much that feels radically different here, though I’ll admit to his Injustice series past blending into my view here a bit by reading both in the same week. Going back to around 1250 BC to show him as a child, loyal to the prince and brought into the royal family as a brother for his loyalty, Adam’s path is a familiar one to power that later has him as the ruler of Khandaq. Gaining the use of powers and knowledge thanks to Shazam, it cements him well and helps to create the kind of country that in that time was definitely far more progressive than others and a beacon amid the bloodshed out there.
The course of the issue deals with him in power and how he becomes, well, not exactly drunk on it but not afraid to use it is a familiar tale. The hubris is there and it becomes concerning to Isis, a woman that he freed with a few others when brought before him as a potential offering, and it takes a pretty dark turn in order to try and sway him from continuing on his path when you wish (and know) there must have been better ways to deal with it. All it does is send him into a spiral of anger that consumes him rather than wakes him from what he’s become and that’s kind of predictable, at least in comic book storytelling. It’s more complicated in the real world and I kind of wish we had more of that here than this.
In Summary:
It’s a solid enough foundation to understand the past of Black Adam and why he’s such a harsh ruler in Spain in the present, but none of it’s really new here. I like Oum’s artwork as there are some great panels and the presentation for Adam himself is solid. But beyond that this is largely a forgettable installment unless you’re a massive Black Adam fan and enjoy various takes on his past and path to who we know him as today in all the various forms.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: December 15th, 2017
MSRP: $0.99
