Superman vs Black Adam: Who Would Win in a Fight?
It’d be the showdown of the century, but could the Mighty Adam really take on the Man of Steel in a Superman vs Black Adam battle? Dwayne Johnson faced an 8-year struggle to bring Black Adam to the big screen. Now, Johnson’s patience and dedication have paid off. In its first four days at the box office, Black Adam brought in $67 million domestically, becoming the best opening weekend performance of any movie with Johnson in the lead role. Notably, the character Johnson portrays, Black Adam, is one of the most powerful in DC Comics. Of course, the biggest buzz behind Black Adam is Superman’s brief cameo at the very end of the movie. 
It’s a match made in heaven. In the comic books, both characters possess superhuman strength, speed, hearing, healing, and stamina. But the movie’s tease of a Superman vs Black Adam showdown has fans wondering who will ultimately win. When these two juggernauts come to blows in the DCEU, there’s no one on this planet that can stop them.
Unique Abilities
One critical difference in a Superman vs Black Adam fight is that Adam can discharge lightning bolts as projectiles while engaging his enemies in battle. It might not ever need to come to that, though, because Black Adam has an immediate edge over Kal-El. The Mighty Adam’s most significant unique advantage over the Last Son of Krypton is that he is immortal. Superman seems ageless, but Kal-El does grow older, albeit at a prolonged rate, due to the sun’s effect on his Kryptonian cells. It might take centuries or even longer, but Clark Kent will eventually succumb to death from natural causes. If a brawl between these two super beings ever escalated, theoretically, Black Adam could just wait it out until Superman keels over from old age. 
Superpowers and Weaknesses
Since a millennial-long wait does not make for very good storytelling, however, there must be a more immediate determination of a winner in a Superman vs Black Adam battle. For his part, Superman can put up one heck of a fight. His debut in Action Comics 1 back in 1938 saw Superman able to leap 1/8 of a mile with skin that could be broken by nothing less than a bursting shell.
By contrast, the Superman of more recent days has been seen lifting quintillions of tons single-handedly, flying so fast that time moves backward, and punching holes in the fabric of reality. Writers have gone back to the Superman loses his powers well so many times that it’s become a full-blown trope. Mostly because it’s hard to write a high-stakes story when your hero can’t be beaten. And that might just be where Black Adam comes into play. While everybody knows that Superman is vulnerable to kryptonite, he has another weakness that people often forget about: magic. In Superman 14, the Man of Steel was put under a trance by malevolent fish people, and in Superman Volume 49, a piece of magical Kryptonite strips him of his powers. In Superman 171, he outright laments that his invulnerability can’t protect him from a sorcerer’s spell. This brings us to Black Adam. Adam has gone through his own growing pains over the years, but one aspect of his personality has remained solid: His powers are magical in nature; he just caught a rocket.
Magic vs Kryptonite
They were given to him by the same wizard who turned Billy Batson into the world’s mightiest mortal, and they stem from the abilities of ancient gods, sometimes Greeks, sometimes Egyptian, but always very, very powerful. If Black Adam plans on defeating Superman, he should travel to Smallville, Kansas, where Kal-El’s vessel crash-landed on Earth and where he may find Green Kryptonite. Green K is among the most common and powerful iterations of Kryptonite because it can weaken and kill the Man of Steel with prolonged exposure. If the Mighty Adam wants to take out Superman once and for all, though there’s only one shade of Kryptonite, he should bother searching for gold. Kryptonite, the most formidable weapon Black Adam, or anyone else for that matter, could ever hope to wield against Kal-El. Gold K will permanently strip Superman of all his powers. Black Adam will have to get up close and personal to use it, but Gold K is another potential way to victory. With all the advantages Black Adam has over the Man of Steel, the simple truth remains: Superman is stronger. If it comes down to physical combat, the Mighty Adam will fall. Even inferior alternate versions of Superman have beaten Black Adam in the comic books.
Superman's Brutal Side
In Shazam Volume 3, 14, the evil Superboy Prime easily defeats not only Black Adam but all the Marvels on his own. And that was the second time Superboy Prime bested the mighty Adam. He also made quick work of him during the Infinite Crisis crossover event. Ultraman, Kal-El’s alternate darker half from Earth Three, ended his fisticuffs with Black Adam by breaking his jaw in Forever Evil 3. And don’t think Superman will have any problem dealing out punishment against his new foe. Kal-El has abandoned his morality on multiple occasions to do what is necessary to save the world and those he loves. In an alternate reality, Kal-El slaughtered Wonder Woman in 2004’s Superman/Batman: Absolute Power and the Man of Steel. He wiped out the Joker, Black Canary, Green Arrow, and even Shazam in the far-reaching Injustice saga. Finally, in Man of Steel, the first official installment of the DCEU’s big-screen adventures, Superman is forced to break General Zod’s neck to save a group of civilians. Bottom line, Superman is not above killing. Although Dwayne Johnson put in a lot of work to get Henry Cavill back in the game.
The Final Showdown
The answer to this question is simple. Given the right conditions, Black Adam would beat Superman in a fight, funnily enough. However, Johnson doesn’t necessarily agree. In an interview with Jake’s Takes, he said, “We will create Black Adam for him to be the most powerful and unstoppable force on this planet. The most powerful and unstoppable force in the entire universe has been on the sidelines for too long.” So what’s going to happen when Superman and Black Adam finally get their showdown? Looks like we’ll just have to wait to find out.
