Wow. Through #9 on Strange Adventures and it’s starting to feel like I’m part of a dying breed.
Adam Strange always had a bit of a colonialist narrative. When I fell in love with the character as essentially space/science Batman with a cool pulpy feel, I was way too young to have grappled with those kinds of ideas. Even now, I admit I’m still clinging to the nostalgia of the character. Space Adventurer uses his wits and (comically silly) science(!) to save the day.
Unless there is some MASSIVE pay-off buried in this story, it seems like King had a story to tell and why not use Adam Strange because either a) he has this colonial history and people should accept he’s a terrible character, or b) he doesn’t have enough fans to care what I do with him.
I’m all for examining the colonial narrative, telling a more adult, complex story and ending with Adam as a more modern, if flawed character…but this is just an assassination. There’s nothing in here that resonates with Adam’s character history (except his love for his family). This dude feels like Adam in costume-only. What’s sad is there seems like just about zero backlash for it.
The art is nice, tho.
4 Likes
Tom King can’t create anything, he just deconstructs and leaves the charactors broken.
3 Likes
I do hope that we get something more than just “Adam Strange and Alanna are bad”, for sure. I think we will, but it does look very bleak.
3 Likes
You know I necessarily don’t believe that. Adam Strange is deconstructed but he is very much the kind of character who comes up with schemes like the ones presented in Strange Adventures. He doesn’t carry a gun for amusement. He’s been in wars.
This is the guy who tricked telepathic villains that he turn redcoat and helped capture the justice league in Grant Morrison run of JLA. I’m sure that he would have done something similar with the pyks toward the end.
Now this kind of pulp hero has always been my favorite as well. What is appealing about Adam Strange is his intelligence and determination, ordinary Si-fi man able to compete with the strongest people out there. I even think that someone like him should be leading some space team.
I understand the nature of this series is to paint a more cynical view on the character but I really don’t see that much difference from this series and Richard Bruning 90s miniseries, so anything here isn’t much of a betrayal of his character, but a natural evolution.
Your not the last Adam Strange fan and whether a darker portrayal or something more light-hearted I will hope to see more of his character if he ever returns.
1 Like
I like the DC Archive Edition stuff
1 Like