Published on May 26th, 2021
Adam Strange was introduced in 1958, though I never heard of him until this series. His character is pretty much a ripoff of Edgar Rice Burrough's John Carter, the American transported to Mars to fight aliens and fall in love with an alien woman. Burrough's also wrote Tarzan, so he definitely was pretty creative. I'm not sure "creative" is the word I would use to describe Tom King. This book is similar to his Rorschach book in that they're both unfolding mysteries that take a really long time to unfold. We're at #10 of #12 and we've finally solved the mystery of this book. The basic premise is that Adam Strange turned into a sadistic murderer to defeat the alien race, the Pykkts. This has seemingly got him into trouble with the Justice League and a superhero called Mr. Terrific because of the killing of innocents and what-not. In this issue, Mr. Terrific tells Adam's wife, Alanna, that Adam's true, secret plan was to make a deal with the Pykkts. He would be able to win the war on Raan, the alien planet, if he would give them Earth. Also, Adam Strange faked his daughter's death and the Pykkts have her as collateral in case the deal falls apart. And that's the whole book. I guess Adam Strange is officially a villain now? Either way, he's another Tom King character that's flawed and has "problems." If it wasn't for the spectacular art by Mitch Gerads and Ethan Shaner (my pick for Best Art of 2020 was this book...it started way back in March 2020), I'm not sure I would care about this book or even continue reading it. Every issue is split between the current time on Earth and the past time during the war on Raan between Adam and the Pykkts. Even with two stories going on, most of the issues in this series feel like filler. Like every Tom King book, it seems like he could do a 12 issue mini-series in half the issues and you wouldn't lose anything. The book is also a little bit too depressing, dark, and ugly for my taste. I've never read an Adam Strange book before, but I kind of think back in '58 he was probably a happy-go-lucky superhero doing fun superhero things. And now he's evil, broken, misguided, a shell of a man. I'm not sure what the point of this book is, and that's kind of a deathblow for me. *1/2
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