"Maybe Eternium really can work miracles. Which is exactly what I'll need if Craddock was speaking the truth. Something is coming, Jeremy...something I won't be able to handle alone."
—Carter Hall/Hawkman
Black Adam - The Justice Society Files is a 4-part comicbook series that serves as a tie-in to the Black Adam film that's set in the DC Extended Universe.
The series has three major arcs:
- The Justice Society: After an encounter with one of Intergang's mercenaries ends with a priceless artifact shattered and hints of an impending danger heading towards Earth, Hawkman sets about reforming the Justice Society.
- Teth-Adam: Follows the early days of Teh-Adam before he was chosen as Champion and began his quest for vengeance.
- Adrianna Tomaz: Adrianna is a history professor by day and master thief by night. When she beats Intergang to the punch and steals an artifact made of eternium, Adrianna realizes she's bitten off more than she can chew.
Tropes
- Actor Allusion: Teth Adam uses Dwayne Johnson's trademark cocked eyebrow to charm a merchant into selling him an extra apple.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Intergang are the overarching villains. It's hinted that something even more powerful might be waiting in the shadows.
- The Caper: Intergang plots to steal artifacts made of the precious mineral eternium. They send James Craddock to obtain some from a museum, only to alert Hawkman to their actions. They then focus on Kahndaq, where they're foiled by Adrianna.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Maxine's episode revolves around the divide between humans and metahumans. The people who take the most issue with metahumans are all white while Maxine, Hawkman, an empowered human and any civilian that accepts metahumans are all of African descent.
- Mythology Gag: Gentleman Ghost briefly shapeshifts into his classic invisible man form.
- Nightmare Sequence: Gentleman Ghost subjects Hawkman to some horrific visions based on his fears. Hawkman's fear that his old-school brand of heroics is considered a thing of the past, so he finds himself trapped in a glass case in a sinister museum. Two patrons tell him to his face that the Justice Society are a relic, then they're murdered by Gentleman Ghost. Doctor Fate is another prisoner, but beneath his helmet he's decomposed into a skeleton.
- Noodle Incident: The last time the Justice Society worked together, they took down a supervillain called Naeco the Destroyer.
- The Reveal: The Atom Smasher issue reveals that Intergang is collecting Eternium because it will lead them to a mystical crown hidden in Kahndaq. The same crown that appears in the Black Adam teaser.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: In part one of Adrianna's story we see a vampish-looking woman and a large man in a mask, not unlike Faora and Nam-Ek from Man of Steel.
- Wretched Hive: Cyclone and Atom Smasher's first heroic adventures involve dealing with more mundane criminals like crooked cops and The Mafiya. As both heroes are canonically based in New York it's not the most flattering picture of the USA's most famous state.
