After battling a devestating earthquake in San Andreas, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is getting ready to play Black Adam in the DC superhero movie Shazam. We don't know all that much about the on-screen iteration of this comic book villain, but the hulking actor is so confident in his strength and powers that he believes he could best a Marvel hero with a similar name: Black Bolt. And it just so happens that The Rock's Fast and Furious buddy Vin Diesel is rumored to play him in the upcoming Inhumans movie. So, this should shower some sparks over the blogosphere.
In an interview with MTV UK, The Rock was asked whether Black Adam would win in a fight against Black Bolt. Neither he nor the reporter knew what the abilities of this Inhuman were; Johnson playfully couldn't get the name right, calling him Black Tote and Black Boat. Nevertheless, the actor is confident that Adam would "crush" Bolt.
If you're like The Rock, and you have no clue what the Marvel hero can accomplish, here's what Black Bolt can do. In the Marvel canon, the leader of the Inhumans doesn't speak all that much, because even the slightest whisper can unleash his power. Black Bolt can draw in electron energy from his surroundings, which gives him a number of abilities, the most prominent and destructive being sonic sound waves. At full power, his voice can unleash the devastation of a nuclear weapon, which is why he wears an antennae on his forehead in order to better control and focus his ability. His other abilities include flight, super-strength and the ability to unleash energy blasts.
As for Black Adam, he essentially has the abilities of Superman -- super-strength, super-speed, flight, invulnerability, superhuman hearing and healing -- but he also can wield magic. His whole schtick is that he used to be the chosen warrior of a council of wizards, who bestowed him with great power. But he was corrupted by that power and now he's constantly in pursuit of more. Fans of both Black Adam and Black Bolt can debate the real victor till the end of time, but here's The Rock's full statement on the matter.
The Rock will appear as Black Adam in Shazam, which is currently slated for April 5, 2019. No other casting, including for the title role, has been announced yet. Diesel's casting as Black Bolt has not been confirmed, though -- as Diesel loves to do -- he continues to tease his involvement. After voicing Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy, the actor told fans on his Facebook page that he's had meetings with Marvel about an exciting new project coming down the road. Knowing that he's a fan of the Marvel character, his followers assumed he was talking about the Inhumans movie. Since then, he's been hinting at Black Bolt whenever possible. We recently saw Paul Bettany get an upgrade from J.A.R.V.I.S. to The Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron, so it's not entirely out of the realm of possibilities for Diesel to play two characters in the MCU.
We're still waiting to hear more about Inhumans, scheduled for release on July 12, 2019, but we have a lot more films to worry about before then. Ahem, Civil War.
