Strange Adventures #1 Discussion/Spoilers

[Rakzo]

A new miniseries handled by Tom King arrives and I was curious about it to say the least. As you might already know, I'm not a Tom King fan, in fact I consider his work on Batman and especially Heroes in Crisis some of the worst comics in recent years but at the same time I was pleasently surprised by his Mister Miracle book which pretty much corrected all of his mistakes. Now, he apparently was going to follow the same Mister Miracle style in the current Strange Adventures title in every way possible and I must say he's faithful in that regard so far.

First of all, you already know how King works, he tries to make his protagonists as miserable as possible to create an interesting character development, sometimes he can succeed and at others he can fail as mentioned in the previous examples. Here, the story tries to create a parallel between the past and the present, especifically the glorious time when Adam defended Rann and the current day where he has to suffer the consequences.

King knows how to showcase the difference in both eras both in terms of writing and tone with the scenes on Rann having a more classic sci-fi comic style and the ones on Earth having a more grounded feel. Both segments present a mystery, about what happened and what's about to happen and all of this seems intriguing so far.

About the characterization, is pretty solid with staples like Adam and Alanna being portrayed appropriately based on their history with the typical depressing King twists that are bound to be developed. Batman also gets a little cameo and I must say that in a little scene King wrote Bruce better than in the entirety of his own Batman run.

There are a few problems though like the classic King repetition which can be seen during the "Hi, I'm Adam" panels which are not as bothersome as other examples from King but they're still noticeable and serve no purpose.

Mitch Gerads handles the present section while Doc Shaner is in charge of the past and I must say that this was a good choice due that Shaner's style is more fitting to the cosmic scenes on Rann while Gerads' semi-realistic style is perfect for the more serious scenes.

Promising overall, I just hope things only go better from now on.

[chamber-music]

So are they going to make Adam Strange some war criminal or something?

[millernumber1]

I am very curious where this goes. I really hope King can make me care about Adam and his family and Mr. Terrific, the way he has with almost all of his other characters. As someone who loved his Batman, liked Heroes in Crisis, disliked Mister Miracle, and loved Vision and Omega Men, I'm very curious to see where it goes!

[AJpyro]

I'm checking this out. It seems interesting and i want t o know the strange Deeds Adam has probably done.

[K. Jones]

Comic has good art and an interesting premise. Another Silver Age bang-zap-pow Adam event feels a little trite these days, and another "let's make a big sloppy eventized mess" out of Adam and Rann also feels shameless. This at least has me interested.

I want to say that while I'm vehemently and probably brutally critical of King's Batman run ... Grayson is one of my all-time favorite comics, Omega Men and his slightly different riff on Kyle Rayner, his Hal Jordan one-shot about not wanting to be a god, Mister Miracle, and so forth? I've really liked almost all of them. A lot. And so I'm more accepting of his diehard structuralism in something like this, a Black Label art-house book showcasing a character with a lot of room to work with as far as trading in themes and narrative and playing around with structure.

I like it so far. I like the root premise of paralleling the styles of Gerads and Shaner on Earth and Rann. But I also like the grandiosity versus the mundane. I like the Sixties optimism versus the kind of messy digital Now on Earth because it's speaking about the kinds of stories we reflect on and need told nowadays. And actually I genuinely think there's room for a lot more riffs on internet/media outcry and fallen hero type public discourse within the books themselves in comics these days. Many of these are definitely very autobiographical areas for Tom King and so they have an authenticity and a believable sequence of events quality that his Batman never really ever had, where you can make a logical leap in your own head about how we get from Day 1 to Day 2's events without filling in every blank ever. The details of "how" are pretty intrinsic to our real-world recollection of how these things often play out.

And we've got a couple mysteries. What's happened to Aleena? Aleea? What's up with the protesty guy's murder? Is there any way this could be in continuity or reconcile with oh, let's say Adam's recent guest spots in Bendis's Superman or Morrison's Green Lantern (The answer is no; this is clearly only as "In Continuity" as Mister Miracle was. Where either it's an Elseworlds or it's all happening in Adam's mind as he's split between Omega Beams somewhere)

Anyway, I liked Issue # 1.

[CaptCleghorn]

A new miniseries handled by Tom King arrives and I was curious about it to say the least. As you might already know, I'm not a Tom King fan, in fact I consider his work on Batman and especially Heroes in Crisis some of the worst comics in recent years but at the same time I was pleasently surprised by his Mister Miracle book which pretty much corrected all of his mistakes. Now, he apparently was going to follow the same Mister Miracle style in the current Strange Adventures title in every way possible and I must say he's faithful in that regard so far.

First of all, you already know how King works, he tries to make his protagonists as miserable as possible to create an interesting character development, sometimes he can succeed and at others he can fail as mentioned in the previous examples. Here, the story tries to create a parallel between the past and the present, especifically the glorious time when Adam defended Rann and the current day where he has to suffer the consequences.

King knows how to showcase the difference in both eras both in terms of writing and tone with the scenes on Rann having a more classic sci-fi comic style and the ones on Earth having a more grounded feel. Both segments present a mystery, about what happened and what's about to happen and all of this seems intriguing so far.

About the characterization, is pretty solid with staples like Adam and Alanna being portrayed appropriately based on their history with the typical depressing King twists that are bound to be developed. Batman also gets a little cameo and I must say that in a little scene King wrote Bruce better than in the entirety of his own Batman run.

There are a few problems though like the classic King repetition which can be seen during the "Hi, I'm Adam" panels which are not as bothersome as other examples from King but they're still noticeable and serve no purpose.

Mitch Gerads handles the present section while Doc Shaner is in charge of the past and I must say that this was a good choice due that Shaner's style is more fitting to the cosmic scenes on Rann while Gerads' semi-realistic style is perfect for the more serious scenes.

Promising overall, I just hope things only go better from now on.

I was a huge fan of the Miracle series and this does appear to be in a very similar style. I will disagree on your assessment of the repetition aspect of the "May I sign a book for you?" panel. The situation the panels were portraying was a repetitive situation. The same pose and line was symbolic of the monotony of the situation. It may have been heavy handed and inelegant, but it was certainly fitting for the story.

The Adam and Scott Free roles seem very similar as regards King's two stories, but where Scott preferred a home life to adventures, it seems Adam is preferring adventures to a home life despite book tours. There are certainly details I missed on my first cursory reading but there are many similarities and many differences between the two heroes in each series. I'm not as impressed as I was with Mr Miracle, but considering Mr Miracle, that's understandable. I am certainly looking forward to the remainder of the series.

And this isn't as intense as the Richard Bruning mini-series.

[Robotman]

First issue was solid. King’s Mister Miracle was one of the best comics I’ve read in years so I’m very excited about this series. This type of character study isn’t for everyone but it’s a stand alone series so you don’t have to force yourself to read it if your aren’t a fan.

War is obviously a complicated thing that is often made to be simplified in comics. Good guys vs bad guys. It will be interesting to see how King examines the comic book space war and relates it to his real life time in combat.

All this plus Mr. Terrific! Hope Mr. T has a significant role in the story.

[Yohei72]

I'm a huge King fan, and even more a King/Gerads fan. Mister Miracle is in my all time top 10, easy, and Sheriff of Babylon isn't far behind. I mostly liked his Batman a lot, and am eagerly anticipating Batman/Catwoman. I liked even Heroes in Crisis more than most people seemed to have. All in all, Strange Adventures was my most anticipated title of the year.

At least on one reading, #1 is a disappointment. It was paint-by-numbers King to me, and more heavy-handed than anything he's done to date in its deconstruction of both hero archetypes and war mythology. I was bored, honestly. It almost feels as if someone systematically reverse-engineered Mister Miracle and just made a rote product based upon that template.

It might have helped a little if I'd had an inkling who the character was that Adam encounters on the last page. Is that supposed to be someone we know?

There's still plenty of time to develop things more interestingly, and King has earned my hanging in there for a while. Fingers crossed.

[Vordan]

Pretty interesting first issue but if King is going where I think he’s going, the Internet discourse on this is going to get ugly fast. I’m seeing a pretty clear parallel between Strange’s adventures on Rann and King’s CIA service. Even the aliens Shaner draws look vaguely Arabic in the big desert fight scene spread on page 6.

Art is fantastic on both Gerads and Shaner’s ends.

I'm a huge King fan, and even more a King/Gerads fan. Mister Miracle is in my all time top 10, easy, and Sheriff of Babylon isn't far behind. I mostly liked his Batman a lot, and am eagerly anticipating Batman/Catwoman. I liked even Heroes in Crisis more than most people seemed to have. All in all, Strange Adventures was my most anticipated title of the year.

At least on one reading, #1 is a disappointment. It was paint-by-numbers King to me, and more heavy-handed than anything he's done to date in its deconstruction of both hero archetypes and war mythology. I was bored, honestly. It almost feels as if someone systematically reverse-engineered Mister Miracle and just made a rote product based upon that template.

It might have helped a little if I'd had an inkling who the character was that Adam encounters on the last page. Is that supposed to be someone we know?

There's still plenty of time to develop things more interestingly, and King has earned my hanging in there for a while. Fingers crossed.

...have you seriously never heard of Mr. Terrific? That’s kind of surprising, I know he’s not A-List but he’s been in cartoons so I figure he’d be slightly more well known.

[Jody Garland]

A quick theory regarding the Pykkts. I think there is a good chance they ARE Rannians. The Infantino quote at the end talks about three layers of Rann civilization, like the Jetsons. Pykk is a close to a simple Caesar substitution of Rann, by moving the letters upwards. I think they are from one of the other civilization layers.

[Robotman]

A quick theory regarding the Pykkts. I think there is a good chance they ARE Rannians. The Infantino quote at the end talks about three layers of Rann civilization, like the Jetsons. Pykk is a close to a simple Caesar substation or Rann, by moving the letters upwards. I think they are from one of the other civilization layers.

Good catch. Sounds very plausible. So Adam Strange is defending the main city of Rann as well as his family but basically killing the oppressed lower strata who are potentially trying to rebel.

[Doctor Bifrost]

I found it interesting, but I also found it hard to believe that Adam's actions in a war on another planet - one that people on Earth know little about, and aren't invested in in any way - would make him such a huge hero on Earth.

I'm guessing that the Pykkts turn out to be the indigenous people of Rann (or, at least, one subgroup of indigenous people of Rann).

[Jody Garland]

A quick theory regarding the Pykkts. I think there is a good chance they ARE Rannians. The Infantino quote at the end talks about three layers of Rann civilization, like the Jetsons. Pykk is a close to a simple Caesar substitution of Rann, by moving the letters upwards. I think they are from one of the other civilization layers.

I should also say that it's an obvious sci-fi'd version of Pict, the native people to Scotland from the late Roman era. Some of the Pykkts designs hearken to some illustrations of the Picts. I'm not sure if this is important or not.

[CaptCleghorn]

I found it interesting, but I also found it hard to believe that Adam's actions in a war on another planet - one that people on Earth know little about, and aren't invested in in any way - would make him such a huge hero on Earth.

I'm guessing that the Pykkts turn out to be the indigenous people of Rann (or, at least, one subgroup of indigenous people of Rann).

The book's popularity seems odd to us. But this is a world where superhero battles occur regularly. I can certainly see "tell all" or adventure stories from the heroes as being media the population of DC Earth would flock to. I'm also more inclined to believe actual memoirs from superheros (or villains) to be relatively rare. To me, it was an intelligent observation of what could happen in such a world or King just used the Hollis Mason "Under the Hood" from Watchmen idea.

[iron chimp]

Pretty interesting first issue but if King is going where I think he’s going, the Internet discourse on this is going to get ugly fast. I’m seeing a pretty clear parallel between Strange’s adventures on Rann and King’s CIA service. Even the aliens Shaner draws look vaguely Arabic in the big desert fight scene spread on page 6.

Art is fantastic on both Gerads and Shaner’s ends.

I dont think theres any doubt thats the rocky road he's going down. Fair play to him for tackling it but its going to have to be a hell of a story if hes looking for redemption for what he was part of.

Lets see if there is a hans blix character ...