Adam Strange
Adam Strange is the title of a series of comic stories published by the US publisher DC-Comics since 1959.
The focus of the series, which is a mixture of science fiction / fantasy and adventure comics in terms of genre , is the American archaeologist Adam Strange, who by chance came from an alien ray of light (the so-called zeta ray) many light years away from Earth Planet Rann is transported, on which he from then on experiences a multitude of fantastic adventures with the help of his extraterrestrial equipment and his scientific knowledge. The main role models for the Adam Strange stories are most likely Edgar Rice Burroughs ' stories about John Carter of Mars and Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon .
Adam Strange as a feature in Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures
Adam Strange and his world go back to the ideas of the American writer Gardner Fox , who designed the concept for the series in the 1950s. After the senior DC editors Jack Schiff and Julius Schwartz had approved Fox's ideas and had decided to publish some Adam Strange stories on a test basis in the showcase anthology series, which changed from issue to issue , the illustrator Mike Sekowsky took on the visualization entrusted by Fox's ideas. Sekowsky subsequently designed the optical designs for Adam Strange, his fictional home planet Rann and its inhabitants, which to this day have essentially been adopted by all the draftsmen who have worked on the series over the years.
The first Adam Strange story was finally published in Showcase's issue # 17 in November 1958 . After two more showcase editions dedicated to the adventures of Adam Strange achieved satisfactory sales figures, DC decided to incorporate the space adventurer as one of several permanent features in the science fiction series Mystery in Space from August 1959 . Adam Strange stories were published there from 1959 to 1965 (in issues # 53 to # 100 and # 102), with Strange scoring most of the series' covers up to # 87 as the most popular hero of Mystery in Space , before the increasingly popular one Ousted Feature Hawkman .
The Adam Strange feature later switched to the Strange Adventures series, in which Tales of the dashing scientist appeared in issues # 217 to 244. For the most part, however, these stories were re-uses of older material previously featured in Mystery in Space . Only issues # 222 and 226/227 brought previously unpublished stories. While Fox wrote all of these stories, Sekowsky was increasingly replaced as a draftsman by the artist Carmine Infantino , who over time gave Adam Strange his own distinctive visual touch. Much of the ink drawings for these stories were obtained from the Incans Murphy Anderson and Joe Giella . One of the other draftsmen is Lee Elias in particular .
Publications under the Adam Strange title
After Adam Strange was continued as a backup feature in various science fiction series in the 1970s and 1980s , the material was retold in the three-part mini-series Adam Strange published between March and May 1990 . The series was written by Richard Brunning and the naturalistic artist Andy Kubert was entrusted with the task of drawing .
After the Adam Strange series from 1990 received good reviews in the press, but only moderate sales figures, it was not until 2004 that the publisher managed to publish another mini-series on the subject: between November 2004 and May 2005, eight issues of one of Andy were published Diggle (author) and Pascal Ferry (draftsman) designed the new series. Over a long period of time, she tried to modernize the concept of the old series both aesthetically and dramatically. The appearance of Adam Strange and his world - which so far had been based practically unchanged on the science fiction fantasies of the 1950s - was "spiced up" in a contemporary way and the naive charm of the original version was exchanged in favor of a more action-heavy "more realistic" setting.
action
The plot of the classic Adam Strange stories
The Adam Strange stories begin with the archaeologist Strange being hit by a mysterious alien beam of light called the zeta beam during an excavation in a ruin site in South America. This beam, which comes from the depths of space, turns out to be a teleportation beam that within a short time carries Strange to the alien planet Rann , many light years from Earth , a planet that orbits the star Alpha Centauri.
In Rann, a dream world in which futuristic technology blends with landscapes of idyllic antiquity, Strange finds a highly developed civilization that promptly selects him as its hero and protector. From then on, Strange is constantly busy averting all kinds of dangers from Rann and his people: He fights against native monsters, alien invasion fleets or civil unrest. In order to be able to survive in the fight against his enemies, he draws on his extensive scientific knowledge, which continually reveals new, original problem-solving possibilities, as well as on high-tech equipment given to him by the Rannians, which includes a rocket backpack - which allows him allows you to fly - and includes a laser pistol. A high point of the early adventures is issue # 75 of Mystery in Space (May 1962), in which Strange gets to do with the alien Kanjar-Ro and he gets superman, Batman and the other heroes of the Justice League to join theirs "Superhero Club" is asked - an invitation he declines with thanks. His closest friends - and thus the most important supporting characters in the series - eventually become the wise official Sardath and the beautiful Alanna .
A particular piquancy in the first years of the Strange comics was that the zeta ray only had a limited half-life, so that after a few days on Rann, Adam Strange was suddenly returned to earth and on the next "hit" of a zeta Strahls had to wait on earth to be able to return to Rann. For a long time, it was a running gag that Strange was suddenly sent back to earth at the end of a story, when he had averted a danger to Rann's safety and was about to get his reward kiss from Alanna.
The plot of the more recent Adam Strange stories (1980 to 2008)
In the 1980s, the author Alan Moore gave Strange's travels to Rann a new, far more cynical justification: Moore varied the background story of the space adventurer so that Strange was not caught by the zeta beam by chance, but deliberately selected by the Rannians and targeted with the beam as a "breeding stallion" to counteract the extinction of the Rannian population, which was in decline due to the dwindling fertility of the locals.
After Alanna is killed in the 1990 Adam Strange miniseries, Strange temporarily turns away from Rann and returns to Earth. Even later, in a two-part series JLA published in 1998, it turns out that Alanna survived and she and Strange and their daughter Alleea begin a family life on Rann.
In 2006, the six-part miniseries The Rann / Thangar War portrayed an interplanetary war between Strange's homeworld and the planet Thangar, which is inhabited by graceful hawks.
In the series 52 from 2007, a community adventure, an adventurous space odyssey, is portrayed on which Adam Strange goes together with the environmental activist Animal Man - who can transform into any animal he knows - and the yellow-skinned space amazon Starfire. During their journey together through the vastness of space, the three of them end up on a fantastically beautiful planet similar to a paradise garden - which ultimately turns out to be a trap of the diabolical giant Devilance the Pursuer, who created the planet especially for this purpose - they meet on the bounty hunter Lobo, the living planet Mogo and the undead legions of the despot Lady Styx. Adam Strange experiences this adventure partly as a blind man after he loses his eyeballs in a teleportation accident, but later - after returning to Rann - receives new, artificial eyes that Aleea made for him.
Web links
- toonopedia about Adam Strange (English)