BLACK ADAM
SUPER POWERS (McFARLANE)
“One of the world’s foremost wielders of magic, Black Adam has been both hero and villain over a life that’s spanned thousands of years.”
The hierarchy of Super Powers in the DC Universe has changed? No, wait, that’s not quite right. I mean, you know, I guess it was never right, in the context of the whole Black Adam thing, but it’s especially not right here. Right? Right. What am I getting at here? Well, mostly that I don’t really have much to say about Black Adam. Much like Deathstroke before him, he’s one of those villains that I liked well enough before they got really popular, went through an anti-hero phase, and then got really over-used. He’s had a handful of figures from McFarlane, both movie and comic based, but despite Shazam’s presence in the original Kenner line, there’s been no Super Powers Black Adam up to this point. But, the hierarchy of the line-up has changed.
THE FIGURE ITSELF
Black Adam is part of Series 14 of McFarlane’s Super Powers line, and is figure 70 in the line-up. He’s the first of three JSA-themed figures in the line-up, as well as having the tie to the vintage line’s Shazam figure. The figure stands just shy of 5 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation. Black Adam is built on the line’s first Superman base body. Not exactly one of my favorites, but its larger stature does make more sense for Black Adam than it did for Superman or some of the others it’s been used for. He makes use of a pair of lower legs with cuffed boots, which I think might be new here, but I’m not certain about that. He’s also got a basic belt piece, as well as a brand-new head sculpt. The head’s definitely the star work here, and very much feels like a good translation of Black Adam’s rather arch features from the comics. The figure’s color work is decent, but does have a slight caveat. While all the paint work is clean, and I do like the slightly darker skin tone, which is appropriate to the character, the decision to use gold to accent the black, rather than yellow, makes him stand out as not really feeling quite vintage. It’s an issue that’s bugged me with a few of these end of the line offerings, in that it just gets them so close, only to miss that one small detail, and it’s especially egregious on Black Adam, who only has the vintage Shazam to pair off against, which makes the change-up more obvious. Black Adam has no accessories, which, given he also lacks any sort of cape or other notable attachment, and is also one of the heaviest “old tooling” figures in the set, makes him feel rather light. That said, I don’t know what exactly you’d give him.
THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION
I can’t say that I’ve ever had much of an attachment to this guy, but more recent years have definitely strained that for me. That being said, given Shazam’s presence in the original line, I don’t feel like this guy is exactly out of place in the line-up here. I think he misses a bit on the color scheme, which results in a sort of muddy looking figure, but beyond that, he’s perfectly serviceable, and he slots alright into the original run.
