Mezco Black Adam PX Review (1000 Words or Less)

What can one say about the Mezco Black Adam? For every yin, there is a yang. For every Ron Howard, there is a Clint Howard. So goes the universe, riding that big turtle’s back in the sky.

Amen.

Shazam’s nemesis (I hate calling him Shazam. The wizard was Shazam. He’s Captain Marvel. Except he’s not anymore) is a particularly brooding gentleman who goes by Black Adam. His real name given to him a couple thousand years ago is Teth-Adam. If the name didn’t give it away, he springs from a city named Khandaq which is either set in Egypt, or a fictitious version of ancient Egypt, like Metropolis is a comic version of New York. If you really want to explore his background, start here.

Black Adam is on the very short list of bad guys that I love, love, love to see forced into the “good guy” role. That list consists of Magneto, Lex Luthor, Thanos, and Darkseid in addition to my boy, Teth. Black Adam, as well as his Yang (ha… yang sounds funny…), Captain Marvel, both, have near Kryptonian power levels. Their powers are magic based, awarded to them by saying the magic word.

Shu
Heru
Amon
Zehuti
Aton
Mehen

Adam, Marvel, the Marvel Family (including Uncle Dudley and the animals) were originally all part of Fawcett comics prior to DC buying the characters, throwing them on Earth S (S for Shazam… get it?) before eventually destroying their universe in the Crisis and tossing them all on one big earth with everyone else (man, that sentence was one helluva ride, right?). This led to one of my favorite comic runs, the Geffen and Maguire Justice League.

Like most older characters, he was pretty generic for the first 30 years or so he existed. It wasn’t until Geoff Johns took the helm of the monthly JSA title and really added depth to Adam, making him an almost sympathetic character as opposed to the embodiment of evil. Adam feels he IS the hero of the story. Most good villains do see themselves that way. If you’ve not read any of Johns’ JSA run, and are interested in seeing Adam’s evolution as a character, start here.

Believe me, this is a simplified, watered-down version of his origin. Today, we are looking at the Mezco One:12 Collective Black Adam Previews Exclusive review. Say whatever magic word you want, I ain’t stoppin’.

What’s in the Mezco Black Adam PX box?

A better question would be, what IS the box for the Mezco Black Adam? It’s a fancy shmancy tin, like a variety case of Pepperidge Farm Cookies. This is common for PX figures as I understand it, but this is my first PX figure. I liked it. It seemed special. Like a fancy fella like myself deserves.

The figure comes with three sets of hands, the “call the lightning” effect that Captain Marvel has, and finally the base and flight stand. I always assumed that PX versions had a lot of accessories. the Mezco black Adam came with less for the same price. No extra head sculpts. Let’s take a look what we’re dealing with…

Mezco Black Adam PX — I feel like this is kind of a non-committal bad guy face. I understand why they wouldn’t want their only sculpt to be more animated. An easy way to fix that would have been to give us two head sculpts. Marvel got three, My boy, Teth can’t get two?

I know we got one of these lightning effects already with Marvel, but I still feel like it’s a unique piece.

Can we give this guy a hand? Or nine?

What doesn’t work with Mezco Black Adam?

As I mentioned, his face suffers from the same disease a lot of the “main” heads suffer from in this line. Apathy. The head doesn’t look bad, it’s just not as intense as I’d like to see with someone like Adam. Outside of that, not to belabor the point, but as I mentioned in my Deadpool review, I feel like we are getting less for our money these days.

What works with Mezco Black Adam?

Coming off the Wolverine review, it was refreshing to see that his uniform had no unsightly seam issues. Of course, it is a onesie. The cape/hood is really nice. The hood has a wire in it for posing, not unlike Green Arrow’s hood. Because Adam hasn’t changed his look since he first appeared in December 1945, you can easily replicate your favorite Black Adam era.

Yeah, I said that with a straight face. You know there are Black Adam super fans out there.

Should you get him?

There is nothing outstanding here. He is a nice figure. Is he a “great” figure? No, but honestly, it’s as good as I would expect for a Mezco Black Adam. He just doesn’t have a lot of gadgets or powers that lend themselves to glow in the dark eyes or whatnot. If you’re a completionist, pick him up. If you’re one of the aforementioned Black Adam super fans, pick him up. Otherwise, it’s probably an easy pass. If you want to grab him, you can do it here: