Black Adam gets a DC comics shake up just in time for The Rock’s movie

What does it take? Black Adam, the Warner Bros. movie starring Dwayne Johnson, plan to bring the character’s modern aspect to a movie mostly about his origin story? This is the question. But as for DC’s Black Adam miniseries, timed to coincide with the movie, writer Priest and artist Rafa Sandoval show they’re doing whatever the heck they want to right in the first issue. It’s a stance Adam himself would be proud of.

For trailers Black Adam seem to focus on Adam’s release from his ancient prison and initial … well, let’s say “adventures” in the modern world, clashing with the Justice Society of America. But to anyone who’s been reading comics for the last couple decades, Black Adam isn’t a rogue antihero — he’s the supreme god-king of a made-up Middle Eastern country who occasionally deigns to testily collaborate with the Justice League. A kind of true-neutral Doctor Doom, paternalistically defending his people’s borders as he is worshipped as a deity.

Priest and Sandoval present this version of the character to the public. It is the one that plays with the ideas of power total and justice. Black Adam #1. And they also introduce Washington D.C. medical resident Malik White, Adam’s descendant, who seems about to inherit his power.

Is there anything else happening inside our favourite comics’ pages? We’ll tell you. Welcome to Monday Funnies, Polygon’s weekly list of the books that our comics editor enjoyed this past week. It’s part society pages of superhero lives, part reading recommendations, part “look at this cool art.” There may be some spoilers. It may not provide enough context. There will still be some great comics. You can also read the previous edition if you haven’t seen it yet.

US Senators grill Teth-Adam/Black Adam, who relaxes in a chair in his mortal form, wearing a suit. “Lord Adam,” he explains how the senators should refer to him, “Lord Theo Ramses Djoser Teth-Adam. But ‘Lord Theo’ will do.” in Black Adam #1 (2022).

Priest, a creator who’s been bouncing in and out of and around superhero comics since the ’70s, is a writer with a, shall we say, distinct style. Sometimes, it works for me, sometimes it doesn’t. But he always has something to say, and he doesn’t seem to ever hold back from saying it, which can make his books fascinating reads regardless.

Magneto offers the challenge of a fight to the death to a grey-skinned, red-eyed mutant in a giant arena. In the stands, Sunspot says slyly to the colorfully dressed mutant next to him “I bet you Tarn wins.” in X-Men Red #3 (2022).

It was a joke that I made up the final five pages X-Men Red #3 might be better than sex, and well, that’s hyperbole, but then again … Writer Al Ewing and artist Stefano Caselli pull one of those tricks where it looks like they’re just playing in the sandbox, until the moment you realize they’ve had a stick and a ball and a tee here the entire time, which is the exact moment of the crack of the bat.

“Do you see that?!” bellows Newburn, a suited private eye with grey temples, pointing at a terrified couple as they embrace, “That fear?! They know me! You don’t!!” in Newburn #8 (2022).

Writer Chip Zdarsky and artist Jacob Phillips’ Newburn wraps up its first arc with a promise of more, and I’m happy to know it found enough of an audience to continue. The eight issues hooked me with the elevator pitch of “the mafia’s private detective,” and held my interest even as the story sort of meandered casually through a series of almost anthologized disconnected stories. All that wandering led to somewhere. And that somewhere was all the crime-story standbys like crooked cops or thorny deals and dark favors.

Steve Rogers/Captain America sits in a life drawing class, as the young students around him politely give him advice on how to use a drawing tablet, warning him not to push the pen through it with his super-strength in Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #1 (2022).

Frankly, I don’t know why every Captain America comic doesn’t have at least a little bit of him chilling with normal people. It’s delightful.

A shocked teen girl looks on as an old man holds a cigar box in one hand and a huge black sword in the other in a dingy hallway. “And that’s how Howard and I first met,” says a narration box in The Lonesome Hunters #1 (2022).

The Lonesome Hunters was something I didn’t know about before going in. Turns out, it’s “young hero refuses call to adventure, grows old, has to fight demons as a lonely old man,” plus a young partner. Creator Tyler Crook’s colors really sell the dirty urban fantasy vibe, and I look forward to more.

A young girl cries as her wrestler mother is taken out of the ring on a stretcher and in a neck brace. On the other side of a television screen, a man in shutter shades watches it unfold, grinning maniacally in Do a Powerbomb #1 (2022).

With Beta Ray BillAnd Jurassic LeagueDaniel Warren Johnson, writer and artist, has purchased a lot currency with me. I was therefore ready to receive his. Do a PowerbombHe is a comedian who was born out of the experience of being swept into professional wrestling fandom. From the real world of kayfabe and performative wrestling, the daughter of a champion who was fatally injured in the ring is roped into an actual supernatural wrestling tournament inside a castle run by a necromancer who’s promised to bring back her dead mom. Yes, please.