Black Adam #12 // Review
Over the past year, Black Adam has run into quite a bit of trouble. Now that he’s saved the All-Father of the Akkadian New Gods, he’s got one more enemy left to face: himself. Writer Christopher Priest wraps up a 12-issue mini-series with the final chapter of Black Adam. The big finale strikes the page courtesy of artist Eddy Barrows. Priest has set a fairly ambitious scope for the series. He’s come really close to bringing it to a satisfying end at the end of the twelfth issue, but power on the level of Black Adam is really, really difficult for any writer to work with.
Black Adam is powerful. He’s been taken over by an alien robot. (This is the DC Universe. There’s a lot of that going around right now. Batman and Superman have been captured by AI over in World’s Finest.) Black Adam is some kind of major threat, though. It’s been suggested that somebody contact the Justice League. Too bad they aren’t around anymore. SOMEONE has got to get Black Adam under the right kind of control. With any luck, he’ll do it himself. He’s going to need some help, though.
Priest has got a huge number of pieces in play at the end of the series. On the one hand, this IS a good thing. The large ensemble of the issue provides plenty of context for the intensity of what is going on at the end of the series. On the other hand...it’s not exactly as focused on its title character as it might need to be. Black Adam remains kind of...aloof over the course of the issue as a massive swarm of supporting characters orbits around him. Priest does a surprisingly good job of juggling all of the characters in the ensemble, but there isn’t nearly enough time with any one character to be totally satisfying.
There’s a tremendous amount of power shooting across the page in the series finale. Barrows gives the epic scale of that power a very vivid visual presence from cover to cover. The power crackles across the page in the midst of a Gotham City-sized evening downpour that perfectly suits the mood and tone of the showdown. It’s a high-impact physical conflict that feels suitably percussive. Too bad Priest has so much going on that it all feels more than a little bit cramped on the page.
The challenge with any cosmic-level conflict lies in making the power FEEL powerful as it all concludes. By the time the series hits its twelfth issue, there’s already so much that’s going on. Priest and Barrows do their best to wrap everything up. There’s some sense of finality about it, and there IS a real sense of heroism radiating off the page, but Priest has tried to build way too much in the course of the first 11 issues. It looks good, and it makes sense, but it isn’t entirely satisfying.
