Black Adam Can Be The DCEU’s Wolverine

The upcoming Black Adam movie could position its title character as DC's equivalent to Wolverine. Though Black Adam has taken quite a long time to get rolling, the first day of DC FanDome gave a peak at what audiences can expect, from name-dropping several Justice Society of America members who make appearances to Dwayne Johnson stressing the harsh origins of the title character. Johnson's description of Black Adam himself also may offer a sense of just what role he'll occupy in the world of the DCEU.

Johnson would place particular emphasis on Black Adam having been a slave who achieves his freedom after being granted power from the gods and who now seeks to unleash his own brand of justice on the world. Aside from the moral ambiguity of Black Adam, Johnson has also repeatedly spoken of him as a game-changing figure in the DCEU with the power level that he operates at. Meanwhile, with the way Black Adam is being presented as a character, he could carry some notable parallels with Wolverine.

To be clear, this doesn't come down to Black Adam's moral compass, considering that Wolverine is well-known as an honorable hero, albeit a gruff one willing to use lethal force. Where Black Adam is similar to Wolverine is in the tragedies and pain of their pasts making them both outsiders even among other characters with superpowers. More importantly, this also makes them well-suited to stand alone without needing to be part of larger teams.

Though Wolverine is one of the most recognizable members of the X-Men, he's also clearly a loner even among other mutants, which made spinning him off into solo movies a no-brainer. By the same token, while Black Adam has also been spoken of as undergoing a redemption process of sorts, this doesn't mean he's going to fully get on board with the more hopeful morality of the Justice League. Black Adam's past and mythological origins make him tailor-made to go it alone, butting heads with any other metahumans he runs into along the way.

To be sure, James Wan has previously likened Aquaman to the Justice League's answer to Wolverine, and there are clearly shared traits between the two, exemplified in Arthur Curry carrying a chip on his shoulder and his own practice of keeping others at arm's length. However, Black Adam embodies the path of Wolverine from a different angle, from his past being filled with pain and torture to his lifespan being well in excess of the average human's. All told, it wouldn't be off the money to describe Black Adam's origin as Wolverine's told on a deified scale.

Black Adam may straddle the line between hero and villain, but his origin story being such a blend of misery and triumph makes him a great candidate for the DCEU to take down the same road as Wolverine. His story can be one of an embittered but determined man whose conflicts arise out of the injustice he sees in the world and his uncompromising methods for correcting it. Though Black Adam will introduce the JSA (along with Johnson also continuing to tease an eventual showdown with Superman), the fact that he works so well as a solo character could make him perfect as a narrative nomad in the same vein as Wolverine.