Black Adam was a movie filled with awesome superhero violence. From Black Adam’s destructive intro fight in slow motion, all the way to the end when he uttered his incredible catchphrase. It probably had some of the most violent and creative fight scenes we’ve seen in a superhero movie for a while. Black Adam is a villain, after all.
Dwayne Johnson brings incredible ferocity to his role. As Black Adam crashes through the movie, everyone else is just in his way. He certainly lives up to his name as one of the most powerful villains in the DC universe.
But throughout the movie, there’s one guy who keeps putting himself in Black Adam’s way: Hawkman. He can’t seem to catch a break. Hawkman tries to explain why the Justice Society is there to help, but Black Adam doesn’t care what he has to say. Hawkman probably takes more hits than any bad guy or group of bad guys that Black Adam attacks. Hawkman can definitely take a punch in his Nth metal armor, but he gets thrown around like nobody’s business.
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Hawkman Is Outclassed but Doesn’t Back Down
DC Comics
We get a cool intro on Hawkman. He’s rich, he has a spectacular mansion, and he has a super cool jet. He also seems like he really wants to fight Black Adam. Hawkman is an impressive member of one of the core DC superheroes, but despite all the cool gadgets and armor, his power level isn’t that high. Hawkman may have magical metal, but Black Adam has abilities on par with Superman.
Right off the bat, Hawkman makes himself an enemy of Black Adam. He saves two people who are supposed to be bad guys in the movie and gets angry at this new metahuman he’s seen. He makes the case that all this extra-judicial killing isn’t the way superheroes should act. Black Adam, of course, doesn’t care, but Hawkman has a point. Black Adam is just going around killing everybody, after all. So Hawkman flies into battle against Black Adam, despite being hugely outclassed. He lands a big flying punch straight in Black Adam’s face, but it barely phases him.
He can only beat him when the rest of the Justice Society comes in to help, and they can only take him down for a moment. Later, Hawkman fights with Black Adam about the same issue inside a little boy’s bedroom. He gets thrown through walls and punched in the face a lot. Then, when he’s racing against Black Adam to find the right hoverbike, Black Adam throws him off into the distance.
Hawkman finally manages to land a good hit when he’s fighting Sabbac, the big bad guy at the end of the movie, but then Adam comes in and steals the kill from him. Hawkman can’t catch a break, but he keeps squaring up to Black Adam again and again.
What Are Hawkman’s Powers?
Warner Bros. Pictures
To be fair, Hawkman isn’t the most powerful superhero out there. He straddles the line between intellectual and fighter. Though he is, for the most part, a normal human, he discovered a secret Nth metal, of which his suit is made, that can resist gravity and allows him to fly.
In the comics, Carter Hall has been a number of different types of Hawkman. Sometimes he has been blessed with powers of infinite resurrection by Egyptian gods, and other times he has been an alien police officer sent to Earth to save it. In Black Adam, though, it seems the DCEU has gone for the more realistic billionaire philanthropist. He has a huge estate and a self-built superjet that rises from the ground in front of his mansion. The jet is like any other superhero mode of transportation, it has ultra-futuristic technology, and it’s completely made out of Hawkman’s calling card, the Nth metal.
Almost everything Hawkman carries is made out of Nth metal. His jet, his armor, even his mace. Because Nth metal is nearly indestructible, the armor allows him to take a punch well, which he needs in this movie. And the mace may look like it’s magic, but it just keeps changing forms. These Nth metal components of Hawkman’s gear are all controlled by his mind. The Nth metal can resist gravity but does so only on Hawkman’s command.
He can flap the wings of his suit using movements from his shoulders, but everything about the Nth metal Hawkman controls telepathically. His mace, though it may appear magical, is also made of Nth metal and can therefore be shaped and reformed at will, which is how Hawkman can change it into an axe in that one scene. Despite all of this cool weaponry, he’s just outclassed by Black Adam, who has power levels on par with Superman. But that doesn’t stop him from getting into the fight over and over again.
