Black Adam #3 Review

BLACK ADAM #3 (of 6)
Written by Peter J. Tomasi
Art by Doug Mahnke & Christian Alamy

This book just keeps getting better and better. The fight with Hawkman, as depicted on the cover, is brutal and deadly and quite easily one of the best moments of the week for me.

As seen last issue, Faust has given Teth Adam the ability to transform back into Black Adam again. However, it requires channeling the last remaining powers of Isis, which are contained in her bones. The more he uses the power, the quicker it drains her body of the energies which are required to revive her. This becomes important later on. For now, Faust gives him a marking on his hand that will show him the way to Isis' amulet, which is all Faust needs to help Adam bring Isis back to life. This brings us to the main event - the battle with Hawkman.

Hawkman has been given a piece of the amulet for safe keeping. Adam tries to convince him to just let him go about his business of reviving Isis, but Hawkman cannot overlook the genocide Adam has committed after her death and proceeds to fight him. While Adam tries to simply leave, so as to not use up the energies of Isis his transformation requires, Hawkman will not let him leave and strikes him from behind as he is fleeing. Adam seeks to end it quickly and proceeds to beat down Hawkman over the span of 3 or 4 pages in a brutal fight that ends with Adam tearing the wings from Hawkman's back and letting him fall several 100 metres to the ground below, smashing into a car in a bloodied heap.

Learning from this encounter, Adam decides to forgo the use of his powers from now on unless absolutely necessary. However, while in human form as Teth Adam, he is shot multiple times by the mysterious group that Batman and Superman were investigating last issue with that sniper outside the Khandaq embassy. Talia al Ghul was present in this issue and alerted to the use of a Lazarus Pit, which was Black Adam's doing earlier in the series, and makes me think the League of Assassins might be behind this attack on Teth.

This mini-series continues to impress and is cementing Black Adam as one of my favourite characters. I'm kind of upset that he goes through all this and it's been revealed he gives Mary Marvel his powers in Countdown at the end of this journey. However, this does not detract from this book nearly as much as I thought it was going to. Originally, when he was revealed in Countdown and the ending to this series was spoiled, I wrote this book off prematurely. I'm glad I stuck with it as this is easily one of the best books coming out of DC at the moment.

Verdict - Must Read

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