Back in the early 1960s, I was an avid reader of DC comics. The Flash was my favorite, followed closely by Green Lantern. But, I was also fond of Adam Strange, a man from Earth who traveled to the planet of Rann by means of a “Zeta-beam.” Adam Strange falls in love with Alanna and spends much of the comic book series saving her and her planet from invasions of weird aliens.
I also enjoyed the stories by Gardner Fox and the scintillating artwork by legendary Carmine Infantino. Most of the Adam Strange stories had a mystery within them that Strange needed to solve in order to save the planet.
This is the second Archive Edition of Adam Strange and I found it just as enjoyable as the First Archive Edition. If you want to take a walk down Memory Lane, this is a good place to start! Did you have a favorite comic book series as a kid? GRADE: A
I was never much of a DC reader when I was a kid; I especially detested the soap opera-y take that Batman, Superman, and their close associates (Lpis Lane, Lana Lang, Jimmy Olsen, Batmite, Bizarro, Mr. Mxyzptlk, and various pets — super or otherwise; I didn’t mind Supergirl that much because she was hot!) — and don’t get me started on Wonder Woman! I did have a fondness for some of the minor DC characters, particularly Congorilla and the Challengers of the Unknown. I know I must have read some of the Adam Strange adventures, but I simply don’t remember them.
Jerry, if I find an Adam Strange Archive, I’ll send it to you. I think you’d enjoy the mystery aspects to these comic book adventures!
I don’t think I had a specific favourite. I read the superhero, Western, SF, and war comics indiscriminately, whether DC, Marvel, Charlton, Dell, or Gold Key, along with Classics Illustrated. Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko always delivered. I have the huge Adam Strange Silver Age Omnibus published in 2017, bought it on impulse when Amazon temporarily lowered the whopping price tag.
Fred, I had a feeling you might be an Adam Strange fan!
Not really. Never read Adam Strange. I asked Jackie her favorite and she said the Archie series. My brother was big on DC and early Marvel. I was never a fan of the Batman, so most of the modern movies have left me cold.
Oh, one can be a fan or former fan of various Batman adaptations, and still find the Christopher Nolan films, particularly, an overblown waste of time.
The a/v versions I’ve liked best in the last decade or so have been television series: GOTHAM, PENNYWORTH and THE PENGUIN (all more or less laying groundwork for Bruce Wayne’s vigilante career). And the animated series have often been rather good, not least the feature-length film MASK OF THE PHANTASM.
I missed Adan Strange altogether, but did enjoy the ’70s version of Challengers of the Unknown, who struck me as an even more angsty version of the Fantastic Four at the time (they were, I believe, a backing feature in DETECTIVE COMICS at the time, along with ManBat. Carmine Infantino was mostly an editor by that time, IIRC.
I was a horror-seeker in comics as well, so was drawn to WEIRD WAR STORIES, WEIRD WESTERN/JONAH HEX, THE SPECTRE, and to some extent HOUSE OF MYSTERY and the other horror comics at DC (particularly the fat issues which reprinted 1950s stories–THE WITCHING HOUR was often good there). Aside from the Spectre, Batman was probably my favorite hero character, but I would pick up a few issues of Marvel’s WEREWOLF-BY-NIGHT (and reprint comic DEAD OF NIGHT) and others on occasion, and Gold Key (TWILIGHT ZONE) and Charlton’s (HAUNTED gave my first exposure to translated manga) horror anthology comics, read random EC reprints, et al. But the first comic I recall reading might well’ve been a ’69 or ’70 issue of JOURNEY INTO SPACE…it was definitely a DC sf book leaning toward horror, with a lead story about a multi-species kid’s summer camp where some skullduggery was going on behind the scenes, and a backing story about a vaguely hippy artist type wandering through a WW3/atomigeddon scenario. Still trying to locate that one.