
The next Black Adam movie could position its main character as DC’s equivalent of Wolverine. Although Black Adam has taken quite a while to get going, the first day of DC FanDome gave a peak of what audiences can expect, from naming various members of the Justice Society of America making appearances to Dwayne Johnson emphasizing the tough origins of the title character. Johnson’s description of Black Adam himself may also offer insight into the role he will fill in the world of the DCEU.
Johnson would place special emphasis on the fact that Black Adam was a slave who achieved his freedom after receiving the power of the gods and who now seeks to unleash his own brand of justice on the world. Aside from Black Adam’s moral ambiguity, Johnson has also repeatedly spoken of him as a game-changing figure in the DCEU with the power level at which he operates. Meanwhile, with the way Black Adam is presented as a character, he could have some notable parallels to Wolverine.
To be clear, this doesn’t come down to Black Adam’s moral compass, considering Wolverine is known as an honorable, if gruff hero willing to use deadly force. Where Black Adam is similar to Wolverine is in the tragedies and pain of his past, which makes the two of them strangers, even among other superpowered characters. More importantly, this also makes them apt to work alone without needing to be part of larger teams.

Although Wolverine is one of the most recognizable members of the X-Men, he’s also clearly a loner even among other mutants, which made making him into solo movies a no-brainer. In the same way, although it has also been said that Black Adam is going through some kind of redemption process, this does not mean that he will fully join the more hopeful morality of the Justice League. Black Adam’s past and mythological origins make him tailor-made to go it alone, clashing with any other metahumans he meets along the way.
No doubt James Wan has previously compared Aquaman to the Justice League’s response to Wolverine, and there are clearly shared traits between the two, exemplified by Arthur Curry wearing a chip on his shoulder and his own practice of keeping others at bay. distance. However, Black Adam embodies Wolverine’s path from a different angle, from his past filled with pain and torture to his lifespan that far exceeds that of the average human. All told, it wouldn’t be out of place to describe Black Adam’s origin as told by Wolverine on a deified scale.
Black Adam may cross the line between hero and villain, but his origin story, which is a mixture of misery and triumph, makes him a great candidate for the DCEU to take the same path as Wolverine. His story may be that of a bitter but determined man whose conflicts stem from the injustice he sees in the world and his uncompromising methods of correcting it. Though Black Adam will feature 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.