Legacy of Shazam

Life, Identity

Shazam creates his first successor—granting one of Rameses’ sons, Teth-Adam, access to his own gods-given powers. The new “Mighty Adam” serves loyally, and arranges a major treaty with the Hittites.

Later, the time-lost hero Stripesy is briefly stranded and enslaved in Egypt, until rescued by Starman, Hourman, and the Batman (aided by a young Prince Khufu). Then, on a time-jump from the future, Jay (Flash) Garrick encounters Prince Khufu Kha-Taar of Egypt, his bodyguard Mighty Adam (aka Khem Adam/Black Adam), and the court magician Nabu. They show him a crashed Thanagarian spacecraft, and for his return trip give him a gauntlet of “Nth Metal” (an anti-gravity substance discovered in the wreck), to aid in a prophesied battle.

During the Theban Dynasty of the Egyptian New Kingdom, Prince Khufu Kha-Taar rules his kingdom with wisdom, advised by the wandering hero Teth-Adam, chosen champion of Shazam, and the wizard Nabu. When Vandal Savage returns and attempts to reconquer Eqypt (alongside evil priest Ahk-Ton and his Orb of Ra), he overruns the Kahndaq region (killing Teth-Adam’s family), and attacks the temple city of Karnak. Khufu, Adam and Nabu fend him off—aided by Mr. Terrific, Captain Marvel, and Hawkgirl from the future, and the god Ra himself. Savage is defeated by Prince Khufu and time-traveling members of the Justice Society of America, but Teth-Adam stops Savage’s most powerful minion by killing him. Disappointed, Shazam withdraws his power from Teth-Adam into an amulet, burying both the amulet and his body in the tomb of Ramses II, where they will lie until the present era when the hero is reborn as Black Adam.

Having found a Thanagarian starship after it crashed in the desert, Prince Khufu labors to forge the alien Nth metal found inside the ship into fantastic artifacts with equally incredible abilities. Yet the Nth metal is also forged into a dagger cursed by the priest Hath-Set, secretly Vandal Savage, who uses it to murder Khufu and his beloved Chay-ara, locking the lovers and the priest into a cycle of reincarnation that lasts into the modern day, when the prince and his lover are the heroes Hawkman and Hawkgirl.

Vandal Savage then tricks the people and becomes Khufu and has a son.