Who Is Hurut in ‘Black Adam’? Is He the Original Character?
Warner Bros. Discovery and DC Studios have full hands of work this year with wrapping up the DC Extended Universe and developing a soft reboot franchise officially known as DCU. Although DCU is announced as a reboot that will be built from the ground up, there’s still a chance that some DCEU actors will continue to play their roles in the new franchise. However, one actor who hoped to play his role in a lot of movies, and now there’s a good chance he’ll never play that role again, is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who debuted as Black Adam in the homonymous movie last year. In this article, however, we’ll put more focus on the character of Hurut, who had an important role in the movie’s plot twist. So who is Hurut?
In the Black Adam movie, Hurut is the son of Teth-Adam and Shiruta. Hurut was depicted as the original Champion chosen by the Council of Wizards, which the movie didn’t reveal until the plot twist. It turns out that Hurut had given the powers of Shazam to his father before Ahk-Ton’s assassins killed him. Enraged, Teth-Adam destroyed Ahk-Ton’s temple, becoming the Black Adam, who the Wizard Shazam found unworthy of the powers, locking him inside Black Adam’s tomb, where he remained until the present day.
Hurut is not an original character since New Earth’s Black Adam from the comics had two sons, Gon and Hurut. However, there are some major differences between the comics and the movie since Hurut was the son of New Earth’s Black Adam, and the movie mainly follows the story of Prime Earth’s Black Adam, which had no children. Therefore, the movie is a loose adaptation of Prime Earth’s Black Adam with some borrowed aspects from the story of New Earth’s Black Adam.
Dwayne Johnson was first attached to play Black Adam in 2007. He waited 15 long years to play this role finally, and the final result was probably far from what he expected. The movie received a mixed reception from critics and audiences and was a box-office disappointment. On top of it all, in light of James Gunn’s newly formed DCU, Johnson’s plans to eventually fight Henry Cavill’s Superman on the big screen have crumbled like a house of cards.
What do we know about Black Adam’s sons in the comics?
In one of the previous articles, we talked about Black Adam’s age in the comics, and we mentioned two different incarnations of Black Adam in the source material; New Earth’s Black Adam, which existed until 2011, and Prime Earth’s Black Adam, which was introduced in 2012. We’ve mentioned some of the major differences between those two versions. However, Dwayne Johnson’s live-action Black Adam was mainly inspired by Prime-Earth’s Black Adam, but some character elements were borrowed from New Earth’s Black Adam.
New Earth’s Black Adam was introduced in The Power of Shazam in March 1994. This incarnation of the character was born circa 1200 BCE. Teth-Adam was depicted as the young prince of Kahndaq and the son of the pharaoh Ramses II of Egypt. In this origin story, The Wizard Shazam was a high priest to the pharaoh, who was looking for a champion worthy enough to inherit his powers. When Teth-Adam uttered the magic word “Shazam!” he didn’t get the powers of the Wizard because of Blaze’s deal with the god Set, but he was blessed with the powers of Shu, Heru, Amon, Zehuti, Aton, and Mehen.
New Earth’s Teth-Adam became a superhero of Egypt, but that drew him away from his wife, Shiruta, and their two sons, Gon and Hurut. In DC Comics, the capital city of Kahndaq was named after Adam’s first wife, Shiruta. Over a millennia later, Teth-Adam’s home was destroyed, Ahk-Ton killed his family, and Adam allied with Prince Khufu (later Hawkman). Eventually, Adam captured Ahk-Ton and killed him. However, after Adam appointed himself a ruler of Kahndaq, the Wizard Shazam, thinking that Adam was corrupted by Blaze, imprisoned Adam in Ramses II’s tomb, where he would remain imprisoned for all eternity. In his death, Teth-Adam was called Khem-Adam, meaning “Black Adam.“
When the Flashpoint ended the continuity of New Earth in 2011 and started Prime Earth as the mainstream reality in DC Comics, the entire slate of DC comic books was relaunched. Prime-Earth’s Black Adam was introduced in August 2012, and his origin story was very different than his New Earth counterpart. Teth-Adam was born on Prime Earth in the 26th century BCE, and unlike his New Earth counterpart, he was an ordinary child who was enslaved with his whole family by Ibac. His whole family was eventually killed by slavers, except his nephew Aman.
While escaping from imprisonment through the underground, Adam and Aman found themselves at the Rock of Eternity, where the Wizard Shazam offered Aman the powers of Shazam. Later, Adam and Aman contemplated how to use the powers; Aman wanted to save the enslaved people and make peace, while Adam was only interested in exacting revenge against Ibac. Unwilling to listen to Aman, Adam killed him and took the powers of Shazam for himself. Although he became a superhero to the people, Adam eventually turned against the Council of Wizards and killed all of them except Shazam, who named him “Black Adam” and cast him beyond the universe’s farthest star.
Something New Earth and Prime Earth Black Adams have in common is that they had Shiruta as their first wife and Adrianna Tomaz as their second wife. However, while it’s known that New Earth’s Black Adam had two sons, Gon and Hurut, Prime Earth’s Black Adam had children, but their names are unknown since they were killed in slavery.
As we can see, Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam was partially inspired by both New Earth and Prime Earth’s incarnation of Black Adam. Although, of course, the movie made up some things on its own. For example, Black Adam’s son Hurut was never a champion picked by Wizard Shazam. Hurut existed only on New Earth, where his father was given the powers, but he didn’t receive them due to Blaze’s interference. And Prime Earth’s Black Adam took powers from his nephew Aman before he killed him. In the movie, we see that Hurut was chosen as the Champion, and he gave the powers to his father to protect Kahndaq before Ahk-Ton’s assassins killed him. That’s the power of the movie adaptation; it can fuse several comic book incarnations into one and add some original content.
The Black Adam movie, starring Dwayne Johnson, is now streaming on HBOMax.
