dam Strange, one of legendary DC editor Julius Schwartz's many brainchildren, is a space-age hybrid of Flash Gordon and John Carter who, as is typical in Schwartz's comics, tends to outwit rather than outfight his adversaries.
In the 1950s, archaeologist Adam Strange discovers a lost city while exploring the Andes. He is attacked by Inca warriors, who want to kill him lest he divulge their secret to the outside world. To escape he leaps across a chasm, but just as their spears are about to reach him, he is hit in midair by a mysterious ray—the "zeta-beam," intended to be used for communication by its alien inventors, but "some unknown space-radiation converted it to a teleport beam!"—that transports him instantaneously to its source, the planet Rann, third planet from the star-sun Alpha Centauri, 25 trillion miles from Earth. There he befriends the beautiful Alanna (who rescues him from a predatory animal upon his arrival) and her father, the scientist Sardath.
Soon after Adam's arrival, Rann is threatened by alien immortals seeking a rare life-giving metal, vitatron. Adam and Alanna foil their scheme, just as the zeta radiation wears off and Adam is whisked back to Earth. Adam had foreseen this and had memorized the coordinates of other zeta-beams (which take 4.3 years to reach Earth). Henceforth, Adam crisscrosses the Earth to connect with the zeta-beams, yearning always to be reunited with his lover, Alanna.
Adam's visits to Rann are never peaceful, as every time the world faces a new threat. Aided by his courage and intelligence, Adam, with the intrepid Alanna at his side, becomes Rann's champion, defeating menace after menace.
This hardcover edition, part of the DC Archives Editions series, reprints Adam Strange's earliest adventures, circa 1958-61, from Showcase #17-19 and Mystery in Space #53-65.
Strange shouldn't be a stranger
Of course, this is very silly material. As much as I enjoy it, I can't deny that. But it's also very potent, almost mythic, as the hero comics of that era often were.
Rereading the comics of our childhood can be a jarring experience. So little of the grandeur that we remember is actually there on the page. But, as latter-day comics creators such as Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross have demonstrated in their creative readings and reinterpretations of the comics of the Silver Age (mid-1950s to early 1970s), these comics suggested much more than they showed, and most readers filled in the blanks—and often even utterly misread the material—in eerily identical ways.
The art team most associated with Adam Strange is that of penciller Carmine Infantino and inker Murphy Anderson. Infantino's kinetic angular approach combined with Anderson's lush and sensual style to create vibrantly evocative renditions of Rann and its heroes, Adam and Alanna. But Adam Strange's original artist was Mike Sekowsky (best known for his decade-long stint on Justice League of America), whose bulky style failed to capture the proper mood for this series. When Infantino took over (on page 88 of this book), he fashioned new and definitive looks for Adam, Alanna and Rann—but his earliest inkers, Bernard Sachs and Joe Giella, didn't bring the touch of sophistication so essential to Adam Strange's charm. The gradual addition of Anderson, firmly in place by the end of this first volume, completed the successful formula.
