Dwayne Johnson’s Enemy In Black Adam Is Based On Satan
Who else could he face?
It’s been made clear that whether you call him an anti-hero or a straight-up villain, the character Dwayne Johnson will be playing in the upcoming Black Adam will be a lot more brutal than the leading men we’re used to in superhero movies. In the comics, Black Adam has not only fought superheroes but has killed a number of them, including superheroes who were technically children. So who do you get to act as villain to someone like that? Well, according to a new merchandise ad, the Black Adam filmmakers chose a bad guy based on someone even worse than the Teth-Adam — the devil himself.
As reported by The Direct, a merchandise listing from McFarlane Toys for a new action figure has revealed that at least one of the antagonists Dwayne Johnson will face in Black Adam is Sabbac. With dark red skin, horns sprouting from his forehead, and a pentagram seemingly carved into his chest; the physical similarities between Sabbac and modern interpretations of Satan are pretty obvious. You can see some of the promotional images of the Sabbac figure below.
There have been a bunch of different versions of Sabbac over the years. He first appeared in 1943’s Captain Marvel Jr. #4 as the polar opposite of Captain Marvel (Shazam’s original name) and the Marvel family. McFarlane’s official description of the character makes it clear the Sabbac Dwayne Johnson will face is more in line with the more recent incarnations of Sabbac; which rendered him the Seven Deadly Sins brought to life in one powerful demon. The description also reveals that Sabbac will–as he almost always does in the source material–possess a human host, though we don’t get the name of that character. You can read that description below.
“Possessed by a demon, a military Intergang leader transforms into Sabbac, the only being whose powers are equal to those of Black Adam. Determined to take over Kahndaq and maybe the whole world, Sabbac must be stopped, and the fiercely autonomous Black Adam may need the help of some unlikely allies to outmatch him.”
The description not only tells us who Dwayne Johnson will lock horns with in Black Adam, but exactly why he’s choosing to join forces with the Justice Society. It also lines up with an unconfirmed report from a couple of years ago. We know Marwan Kenzari (Aladdin) will appear in Black Adam, but the name of his part has yet to be revealed. However, in 2020 The Illuminerdi claimed a source had let them know Kenzari would be playing Ishmael Gregor. In the comics, Gregor is a Russian mob boss who is possessed by Sabbac, though “Russian mob boss” could easily be switched out with “Intergang leader” without too much trouble.
With this news, it becomes clearer why, as he recently revealed, Dwayne Johnson fought to keep Black Adam out of 2019’s Shazam! The notion of Teth-Adam teaming up with the Justice Society to face a villain who is as close to the actual devil as you can get is a much more epic and impressive way to introduce the character than as an antagonist to the sweet but bumbling young hero of Shazam! We’ll see how the conflict goes when Black Adam arrives in theaters on October 21.
