By Zack Quaintance — Writer Christopher Priest and artist Rafa Sandoval will launch a new Black Adam series with a #1 issue slated to drop on June 21. The book will also feature painted covers by artist Irvin Rodriguez as it explores a long-time DC anti-hero who is now getting a push in advance of a new movie due out later this year. In addition, the first issue also features a half dozen variant covers (check out the full gallery below).

Black Adam as a character seems a natural fit for Priest as a writer, whose most prominent work has arguably been in the service of deconstructing cold, authoritative men, most recently with Deathstroke and perhaps most prominently with Black Panther, back in the Marvel Knights era. Black Adam almost seems like a combination of the themes present in the two, with Black Adam serving as a superhero head of state much like Black Panther, and, obviously, Black Adam being a sort of villain who has a complicated past and present as it relates to the rest of the DC Universe, much like Deathstroke.

Priest deploys an interesting comics scripting style in most of his work, at least of late, one that uses time jumps, small details that later become more significant, and title cards to set scenes, often many times in a single issue. And Sandoval, who is also the artist behind next month’s oversized Justice League #75 (Death of the Justice League), is very good, especially one it comes to splash pages and two pages spreads, the sort one imagines might apply to a character as powerful as Black Adam.

This all continues a push for Black Adam linewide, which has seen him sort of reluctantly joining up with the Justice League in the now-concluded Brian Bendis Justice League run.

You can check out the preview text via DC Comics official announcement below, followed by the aforementioned gallery of variant covers for the first issue…enjoy!

There is no forgiveness for Black Adam. This is the reality Teth-Adam, immortal man of indomitable will, must face when he discovers he has been infected with an incurable plague destroying his immortality. Haunted by the specter of centuries of dark deeds, Black Adam transfers his powers to a worthy successor who will redeem Adam’s legacy and defend their ancestral homeland of Kahndaq, only to subsequently become mystically “handcuffed” to him when Adam’s plague is arrested, giving birth to perhaps the most volatile and dysfunctional super-team in DC history!

And now the covers…

*Variant cover by Travis Mercer and Danny Miki.*

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He has written about comics for The Beat and NPR Books, among others. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.