Adam Strange is the hero of two worlds: Earth and his adopted homeworld Rann, which he saved from alien invaders, the Pykkts. Following the publication of his memoir, allegations of war crimes surface about Adam’s actions during the Pykkt war and his squeaky-clean hero image is called into question. Adam’s life is strange… but is it fiction?
Tom King, Mitch Gerads and Evan Shaner’s Strange Adventures is a mixed bag of good and bad stuff, but, like Mister Miracle, King’s managed to write a fairly decent book about a relatively-unknown DC character.
This is a book about duality - about the versions of ourselves we present to the world and the reality behind that image. Adam is the hero of two worlds. Gerads/Shaner split art duties with Gerads drawing the more realistic, gritty present and Shaner drawing the idealised, more cartoony, possibly fictional, past, presenting us with two sides of the same character’s life. And, as Mister Terrific discovers, there is much more to Adam’s story than he lets on.
Mister Terrific/Michael Holt is the surprise addition to this story. He plays a large role here and he’s also by far the best part of this book. Given that there aren’t many books on this character out there (and I’ve only read the New 52 Mister Terrific book), it’s interesting to learn about him essentially from scratch. He’s got a sad past, he works his mind as rigorously as he does his body through constant quizzing from his T-Spheres (kinda like flying Alexas), and King writes the character very similarly to his Batman (who also cameos here and there). I like that he’s an unabashed iconoclast and his investigation into Adam is easily the most entertaining part of the story.
Mitch Gerads and Evan Shaner’s art is fantastic throughout. I especially liked the way Gerads drew the Earth invasion scenes in the third act and Shaner’s art is a revelation - so many gorgeous splash pages on Rann, showing the landscape beauty and incredible battle scenes. Hats off to both artists for producing such a stunning comic.
I’m gonna stop here for anyone who hasn’t read the book yet and say SPOILERS because I can’t talk about my criticisms without giving away huge plot points. For those of you who’re dipping out now, I’d say Strange Adventures is long-winded and tedious at times, but there are enough decent moments here to be worth the journey - but don’t expect a masterpiece.
Alright - (Catherine) zeta-(Jones)beam in 3, 2, 1…
By far the biggest flaw is how heavily Tom King leans on contrivance at major story beats, glossing over aspects and underwriting others to make his shaky story structure work. The Pykkts are THE stock bad guys from Central Casting. They’re invading Rann for no other reason than ‘cos, and then they’re invading Earth later on, again just ‘cos. That doesn’t make for compelling villains though, nor does it make their behaviour understandable in the least. Why Rann? And, if not Rann, why Earth - a planet 25 trillion miles away with who knows how many other planets in between?!
The distance is relevant to note as this is a key reason for Adam’s motivation. So he’s only able to get to Rann for brief moments once a week thanks to the mysterious zeta-beam that teleports him there - I don’t know the character that well so I don’t know why this is, it’s just how it is. Then the Pykkts invade Rann and Adam’s stuck on Earth waiting for the beam to send him back so that he can help repel the invasion.
First of all, Adam is just a dude with a jetpack and laser gun - how is he the saviour of an entire planet?! If it’s just the power of the jetpack and laser gun, why not give it to some dude on Rann who won’t get teleported away again every week? I never understood why Adam is considered such an amazing figure - he always seems so ordinary.
So he approaches the Justice League for help in getting to Rann to join the fight rather than wait for the zeta-beam and they all shoot him down. Which is a very convenient excuse from characters who have many times previously dropped everything to go save some random aliens. But that gives him his motivation for selling out Earth to the Pykkts - because the superheroes didn’t help him in his hour of need so he’s bitter.
Well, and also because the Pykkts are holding his daughter Aleea captive, so he’s ensuring she’s kept alive at the expense of EVERYONE ON EARTH! Hmm.
Here’s what happened: Rann was losing the war against the Pykkts until Adam negotiated to give them Earth in exchange for sparing Rann. The Pykkts took Aleea to ensure Adam followed through. But why do the Pykkts want Earth more than Rann? And, if they were going to defeat Rann, whom Adam’s wife Alanna describes as being far more technologically advanced than Earth, why would they need any help from anyone - including Rocketeer Flash Gordon - in defeating Earth anyway? That’s what I mean by underwriting - we have no idea what these villains want or why, they’re just whatever the plot needs them to be in the moment.
You might be asking yourself, how does Adam Strange make the difference in winning or losing in a war against Earth? So it’s implied that Adam would betray Earth by giving away secrets of Batman’s plans (he’s apparently the Supreme Commander against the Pykkt invasion), and, without Adam, the Pykkts lose. Which assumes that Batman would share every detail of every defence plan with Adam, a character he’s heavily suspicious of - that’s one helluva assumption to base a full scale invasion on!
But Adam also wanted to be found out and stopped before that happened, hence why he asked to be investigated. But if that was the case, why not just come right out and ask Batman/Mister Terrific/anyone all about this - lay his cards out on the table? Because Alanna and Terrific have no trouble freeing Aleea once they know she’s being held captive!
Speaking of Alanna, she’s the worst character here. She’s either a generic love interest in the Shaner sections or a complete idiot in the Gerads sections. It’s her moronic claim that the Pykkts are invincible when they’re clearly not - and easily manipulated to boot. And her “reasoning” in palming off her daughter onto Michael (which has a kind of poetry to it I suppose, given Michael’s own loss) is absurd, putting Adam’s death on Michael and criticising his choice to save Earth instead of letting the Pykkts win! She was awful and always managed to drag the story down.
Adam and Alanna pushing back against Terrific’s investigation almost immediately, and after they insisted on it, made no sense. Rann keeping Pykkt records that held damning evidence against Adam made no sense, even if no-one could translate it - they obviously didn’t know about Terrific’s handy brilliance. Just destroy it - problem solved. Why Adam published a memoir in the first place is unclear. To be found out, maybe - except why get Alanna to write it then?!
And, as beautifully illustrated as Shaner’s sections were, nearly all the flashbacks are utterly pointless. It’s just Adam and Alanna doing corny Edgar Rice Burroughs/Princess of Mars crap over and over. It added little and rarely entertained - they’re in love, I get it already! All it did was repeatedly underline the duality theme and beef up the page count unnecessarily.
I did like how Tom King essentially trashes Adam’s character so badly that it makes me wonder that, despite death hardly mattering to superheroes, whether Adam’s death won’t stick because he does so many irredeemable things in this book - as if DC were like, sure, turn Adam Strange into a Nazi equivalent, we weren’t gonna use him anyway! It’s probably because Adam Strange is such a minor character in the DC Universe that they allowed King to portray him as such a loathsome person, but it’s still refreshingly different to see something this ballsy in a mainstream superhero comic.
There’s the pseudo-mystery of the man at the book signing right in the opening chapter cussing out Adam and then shortly winding up dead with a laser gun blast to the head. Yup, Adam killed him. Because he thought he was a Pykkt in disguise! So King is saying that all the shit that Adam goes through has completely warped him and he’s suffering from PTSD, which is why he commits so many war crimes and betrays Earth. That aspect of the book was compelling but kinda one-note too - what are we meant to make of this? Is his behaviour excused? Is this a banal anti-war message? It doesn’t seem to be anything beyond what you see on the surface.
Strange Adventures is not a particularly deep or entertaining book. It’s far too long, huge stretches of it are irrelevant or repetitive or both, and the plot is convoluted to say the least. It’s not wholly boring though with occasional sections here and there that are compelling, and the art and Mister Terrific parts are certainly standouts. As a Tom King fan, I’d say it’s not amongst his best books but it’s also worth checking out - head in with expectations lowered and a lotta patience and you’ll get something out of it.
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