<\/p>
Earlier this month, legendary comic book writer Alan Moore \u2013 the man behind such greats as Watchmen and V for Vendetta \u2013 made headlines by saying that the popularity of superhero movies among adults could be a \u201cprecursor to fascism\u201d<\/a>. The statement was deemed a tad hyperbolic even by those sympathetic to his utter exhaustion with the genre. But the worldview of Black Adam<\/a>, the latest chapter in the ailing DC Extended Universe<\/a>, actually poses a heap of problematic questions along those lines.<\/p>\n The film follows Dwayne Johnson\u2019s eponymous antihero as he rises to become unelected ruler of a fictional Middle Eastern nation called Kahndaq, where he wields absolute power and brutally murders anyone who dares oppose him. This narrative could work as the origin of a super villain (which Black Adam generally has been in the source material), but that\u2019s not what we get here. Despite the character\u2019s repeated claims to the contrary, he is very much painted as the \u201chero\u201d of this story.<\/p>\n We\u2019re supposed to whoop and cheer as he ruthlessly dispatches any and all adversaries in excruciating slow motion, whether by hurling their puny bodies hundreds of feet into the air or simply zapping them until a charred skeleton is all that remains. The script\u2019s flimsy moral debates \u2013 largely held between Black Adam and Justice Society leader Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) \u2013 do little to meaningfully challenge these condemnable actions.<\/p> Rather, most conversations between them quickly devolve into yet more violence, with both characters stuck in a perpetual state of squaring up as they vie to prove who has the most testosterone coursing through their body. Of course, Black Adam wins that battle as he does every other with relative ease. But it\u2019s a truly embarrassing display of performative masculinity, in which the antihero becomes a kind of \u00fcbermensch figure for lesser subjects to bow down before.<\/p>\n Watching Dwayne Johnson tear through waves upon waves of enemies in this film also brings to mind the alleged contract he had in place for Fast & Furious: Hobbs and Shaw. According to The Wall Street Journal<\/a>, it dictated the number of physical blows that could be landed on Johnson\u2019s character, while also specifying that he could never be seen on screen to \u2018lose\u2019 a fight. That obsessive focus on appearing near-invulnerably tough certainly carries over to this project, but does it no favours at all.<\/p>\n