Week Forty-Six
This week, Black Adam arrives at Oolong Island, the desert island that’s home to the team of mad scientists who are responsible for unleashing the Four Horsemen on the Black Marvel Family, which resulted in the deaths of Isis and Osiris. They don’t exactly throw out the red carpet and send over the Welcome Wagon, though, and it’s a brawl for all, as they take Black Adam to the mat.
Elsewhere, Lex Luthor attempts to send that shape-shifter guy Hannibal to jail in his stead, but mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent realizes the plot and alerts Steel, who bashes down the lead door the real Luthor’s hiding behind, and it’s off to jail for that poor schmuck. Not sure why they included this bit.
The main chunk of the action takes place on Oolong Island, naturally, as the mad scientists really do take a stand and beat the piss out of Black Adam. Professor Morrow also wins his online auction for the Red Tornado’s head, which was put into part of an art sculpture awhile back. After putting Black Adam on the floor, Doctor Sivana instructs some toughs to take him to Sivana’s laboratory for some extra fun torture.
This week closes with the JSA (what’s left, anyway) assessing the damage in Bialya, which Adam destroyed last week. The assessment? Two million dead. No survivors. Atom Smasher shows up on the scene and requests to be put back on the JSA roster to help take down Black Adam.
Man, everybody wants to take down Black Adam. I’m guessing that once he breaks free of whatever torture the mad scientists want to put him through, he’s going to be awfully angry. Maybe even start a war. A world war, perhaps. Nah, they wouldn’t do that. That would be boring. I guess we’ll see in, oh, four weeks or so.
Next week’s preview shows Natasha Irons in her new steel costume, Animal Man flying fast, Nightwing perched on a broken window-sill ala Rorschach in the first few pages of Watchmen, and Montoya looking at something. I guess that means we’ll be heading back to Gotham to give Black Adam a few weeks to rest up.
See ya in seven.
I wasn’t sold on this issue (like last one, it seemed to non-epic for something featuring Black Adam on a rampage), but it won me over with the allusions to someone behind the crime syndicate, a big bad pulling the strings.
Of course, DC probably already gave away that it’s Darkseid with their Countdown ad campaign, but it’s still cool.
Also, my guess is that now Black Adam will be under the control of the mystery supervillain (Darkseid).