Showing posts with label Adam Strange. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adam Strange. Show all posts
Thursday, July 9, 2026
Remembering Artist Murphy Anderson
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Remembering Artist Lee Elias
Not exactly prime time for the Earthman transplanted to Rann, but some oddities worth taking a look at!
Mystery In Space #95 and #97 (November, 1964 and February, 1965)
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Mystery In Space #98 and #10 (March and September, 1965)
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Thursday, February 27, 2025
Celebrating Artist Andy Kubert
A chance to take a realistic look at the famous (on Rann) Earthman, bringing his interstellar adventures back down to reality with the death of his wife, Alanna, and birth of his daughter, Aleea. (Don't worry, fans, Alanna got better!).
Adam Strange #1 (March, 1990)
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Adam Strange #2 (June, 1990)
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Adam Strange #3 (July, 1990)
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Mystery In Space Change
...with a short run of horror related space stories, usually with a cover by Joe Kubert.
Mystery In Space #112 and #113 (October and November, 1980)
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Mystery In Space #114 and #115 (December, 1980 and January, 1981)
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Mystery In Space #116 and #117 (February and March, 1981)
Saturday, February 12, 2022
Shadows Of Adam Strange
Shadow People Of The Eclipse
The Deadly Shadows Of Adam Strange
Monday, January 3, 2022
Mysteries In Space
A shame, but here's what did....
Monday, May 24, 2021
Remembering Artist Carmine Infantino
...becoming DC's editorial director, then publisher...
...before moving over to Marvel to work on Spider-Woman, Nova and Star Wars (and others), before coming back to the Flash when Barry Allen got ready to face the Crisis.
Detective Comics #327
....the first of the "new look" Batman (including the yellow oval), Batman and Robin faced a mystery menace with a red X on their foreheads...that allows crook Frank Fenton to paralyze them and escape.
The Elongated Man story (also by Infantino) was reprinted elsewhere.
Flash #148
...where he comes home to find a Fred Dallman in his apartment....a bank vice president who tells Barry that another man will go to prison for a crime Fred committed. Barry works to clear the man, but also discovers Fred died in a car crash....before Barry met him in his apartment!
Infantino also co-created Captain Boomerang!
Adventures Of Rex The Wonder Dog #29
...where Bobo has to disguise himself as a human scientist to catch crook Larry the Lynx at a scientific convention!
Bobo, the Detective Chimp really had little involvement with the rest of the DC Universe until he showed up in Gorilla City during the Crisis On Infinite Earths (having long life as he and Rex found the fountain of youth in a DC Comics Presents back up years before).
Mystery In Space #57
...where Adam and Alanna faced giant aliens called the Rhollians who were affected by a material called Orichalkum, that made them grow to giant size. The aliens try to sink the island, and the island eventually does go underwater after Adam and Alanna gave them chase to let the island sink naturally.
Adam Strange and his adventures on the far away planet of Rann were still only a small part of Mystery In Space at this point, with two other stories in this issue.
Brave and the Bold #45
...wherein a series of Strange Sports Stories ran in B&B...with the "Challenge Of The Headless Baseball Team" was the first story, where uniforms were playing the game without their players!
The DC Special also had a summary of Carmine's career up to that point!
Thursday, May 3, 2018
Kanjar Ro JLA And Adam Strange Foe
His beginnings seem simple enough, but Kanjar Ro quickly evolved into a much bigger threat over time.
Let's go back to the beginning, and follow this criminal through his career....
Slave Ship Of Space
Kanjar Ro, the dictator of Dhar, wanted to recruit the JLA to fight for him against three rival rulers: Queen Hyathis of Alstair, King Kromm of Mosteel and Emporer Sayyar of Llarr; when the JLA captures these reprehensible rulers, Kanjar Ro would free the citizens of Earth after taking them around on his slave ship he controlled with his Energi-rod. The Martian Manhunter makes Kromm his prisoner, Wonder Woman and Aquaman capture Hyathis and Flash and Green Lantern defeat Sayyar....and thankfully, the JLA members recorded the voices of each of them, as them all saying Kanjar's name was what was needed to free the citizens of Earth, which Ro tried not to do. After Superman, Batman and the rest of Earth was freed, the four rulers were imprisoned on a plant created by Superman and shielded by Green Lantern to keep the rest of the universe safe, all in the last mission of the charter members of the JLA in their own title.
The Planet That Came To A Standstill
This tale has Kanjar Ro escaping the planet Superman created with his Energi-rod of Dhorite, and heading to Rann to power up to face the JLA.
While there, he captures Adam Strange and Alanna, but Adam escapes, and uses Kanjar's slave ship to go to Earth, catching a Zeta Beam on Earth to go back to Rann.
The JLA find the slave ship on Earth, and half of them (Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Batman) go to Rann to fight Kanjar Ro.
Strange defeats Ro using his Energi-rod, made of the material of Ro's home planet, which Adam deduces would be a harmful to Kanjar Ro as Kryptonite is to Superman, but pays a price, being hit with part of a beam from the rod, resulting in his being unable to stay permanently of Rann, thus going back to traveling there temporarily by Zeta Beam.
Decoy Missions Of The Justice League
Ro escaped by creating an aural duplicate of himself thanks to some newly gained mental abilities, then menaces the Earth with imperfect doubles of JLAers Aquaman, Atom, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Flash, stealing the entire Earth (and replacing it with its aural duplicate). Adam Strange discovers Kanjar Ro's escape, and returns to Earth as his Zeta Beam wears off (with his aura drawn to aural Earth, and his body on regular Earth, he's able to find the JLA, find Earth and reunited everyone with their duplicate, defeating Kanjar Ro, as the brain stimulating radiation he had absorbed to allow him to do this wore off).
The Parallel Perils Of Adam Strange
A contingent of JLA members (Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, Black Canary and Elongated Man) are in the South Pacific and find themselves accidentally transported to Rann by a Zeta Plus Beam, where they end up being the planet's champion for a bit, as Adam is depressed after having lost his fiancee, Alanna, to one such menace (the same enlarged magnifying glass that melted them all!). Problem is, the same menace that took her life...and convinces her father, Sardath, to use the beam to send him and the League members empty uniforms back to Earth (as Kanjar Ro, who reconstituted these menaces, such as the robot Borg, giant bird Kallula and two giant items, continues his plans against the people of Rann, free of interference).
Adam, a master of tact, appears in the JLA Satellite, to tell the JLA members Batman, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Atom and Hawkman of the fate of their fellow heroes, but that does not go well. Still, menaces wait for no man, and trouble comes in as a cloud creature forms on Earth attacking a city, prompting the JLA to go into action, leaving the dejected Adam Strange behind.
Adam Strange -- Puppet Of Time
Alanna comes to inform the JLA that Adam Strange has been bouncing around in time thanks to being overcharged with Zeta Beam radiation, and is a menace to the 73rd Century. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Flash go to investigate, where they meet the Green Lantern of the 73rd Century to stop Adam and drain him of his access energy...
...but things get bad as the JLA members return home.
But wait, where's Kanjar Ro?
All well and good, but where was Kanjar Ro?
Hint, hidden in plain sight (as that Green Lantern of 73rd Century was a little too helpful...including using his Power Ring against yellow items....but, that wouldn't be a problem for a disguised Energi-rod, would it?).
Mystery In Space
Hawkman and Hawkgirl were on their spaceship trying to contact their homeworld of Thanagar, when Adam Strange invaded their ship, asking them to go into hyperspace to get away. The couple does, after escaping Adam's alien foes, then, he explains the situation. Rann had been invaded by an army of past invaders allied together, including the Vantors, the Kirri, the Arverse and the Dust Devils. Something had allied these forces and Adam was headed to Earth to get the help of the JLA. Problem is, the Thanagarian ship was headed to Rann, with Hawkman thinking Adam had sabotaged it, until realizing they had been boarded by an old foe of his, the Shadow-Thief, which they quickly defeat, but still have to make an emergency landing on Rann...where they discover the main invaders are...Thanagarians!
The heroes are found by Sardath, who Zeta Beams them to safety, and he explains the person who has taken over Rann has captured Alanna in Ranagar. Adam goes to free her, as Alanna meets her captor, Kanjar Ro, who had allied the alien races to take control of Rann. Hawkman, Hawkgirl and Adam work with the resistance to free Alanna, but realize Kanjar Ro is already gone...to invade Thanagar!
Here, the reason Kanjar Ro is attacking Thanagar is revealed, as it is Hyathis who now rules Thanagar, as she had freed them from their Equilizing Plague after escaping the planet Superman made, and the Thanagarians made her their leader. Kanjar Ro attempts an assassination on Hyathis, as Hawkman fights former foes Shadow-Thief, shape-changer Byth and the Manhawks, eventually arriving with Hawkgirl and Adam Strange to stop Kanjar Ro. In gratitude of the current end to the Rann-Thanagarian War, Hyathis does not kill the trio, but does banish Hawkman and Hawkgirl from Thanagar, while Adam Strange returns home to free the Rannians from the invading aliens still there.
Death At The Dawn Of Time
....this as the united villains of the remaining Earths first faced the rest of the heroes, then had to work with them to prevent the Anti-Monitor from destroying the Multiverse!
Still, that classic Kanjar Ro look would return as well, appearing in flashback tales like the Silver Age, DC Retroactive: JLA and DCU: Legacies.
Beyond
If there is menace in the galaxy, likely Kanjar Ro will be around, plotting away...
Thursday, March 22, 2018
Superman Meets Adam Strange
But, both of these men were able to find love on their new homes, as well as plenty of menaces to face as well, Superman with his powers and morality, Adam Strange with a few weapons he picked up on the planet and his scientific knowledge.
Though they originally met via the Justice League of America, they did have two adventures together....
DC Comics Presents 3
It was found out that the planets switched when an experiment of Sardath's on the currently Rann-locked Adam Strange that somehow switched the planets positions (with Adam remaining where he was). On Earth, Adam Strange stopped a few threats of his own, meeting Lois Lane, and getting information at the Daily Planet, which led him to the source of the transformation, and the man behind it, Kaskor, who had once tried to rule Rann, but now wants to destroy it. Kaskor stabilized the Zeta-Bean energy on Earth, so it wouldn't move, while Rann's charge would wear off, causing both planets to occupy the same space and explode. Superman traveled the distance between Earth and Rann, arriving in time to free Adam, and the two came up with a plan to move a space warp just in front of Earth, to allow it to move to its original position if Superman gave it a little nudge, when Adam Strange detonated a ship to move the warp to that point in space as his Zeta-Beam charge wore off (so he would be back on Rann as the ship exploded). The plan worked, with Clark Kent on air giving thanks to Earth's "newest" hero, while Adam got to enjoy time with Alanna as he was finally home again with her.
DC Comics Presents 82
Adam's wife, Alanna, had been having dreams about Rann exploding and speaking in Kryptonian, so, Adam called on Superman for help. When Superman arrived, he confirmed that Alanna was speaking his people's dead language, and that Rann was now occupying the same relative space as Krypton did when it exploded. Alanna was also being possessed by a Kryptonian demon, Zazura, who planned on exploding Rann like Krypton. Superman and Adam had to work together to free her, but found her dreams weren't being caused by Zazura, but by the spirits of the Kryptonians who had perished, who helped Superman against Zazura, allowing Adam to have his wife back, free of catastrophic dreams.
Who Is Adam Strange?
This series continued through the next two issues of Showcase, then became a regular feature in Mystery In Space, starting with the August 1959 53rd issue, with stories still by Fox, art now by Carmine Infantino, and usually inked by Murphy Anderson, though the first was by Joe Giella.
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