Black Adam is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, and is a primary adversary of the superhero Shazam, formerly known as Captain Marvel. Black Adam was created by Otto Binder & C. C. Beck in 1945 as a one-shot villain for the first issue of Fawcett Comics' The Marvel Family comic book; however, Black Adam was revived as a recurring character after DC Comics first licensed and then acquired the Fawcett characters and began publishing Captain Marvel/Marvel Family stories under the title Shazam! in the 1970s.