*DC: In 1958, DC Comics presented a new science fiction hero, the latest in a line that stretched back to John Carter of Mars and Flash Gordon. Like his famous predecessors, Adam Strange was a contemporary Earthman transported through space for adventures on an alien world. Indeed, the banner heading for Adam’s first appearance in Showcase #17 was ‘Adventures On Other Worlds’ (it wasn’t until #19 that it changed to ‘Adam Strange’, the one and only time in the classic Silver Age that his name appeared at the masthead on a comic cover, since all subsequent appearances came in Mystery In Space).

Adam Strange was created by editor Julius Schwartz and (visually) Murphy Anderson. It was Schwartz (himself a veteran of science fiction magazines) who conceived the idea of an Earthman repeatedly traveling to a planet in the Alpha Centauri star system using a ‘Zeta-Beam’.  Since Adam Strange was the first Earthman on another planet, he named his character Adam after the Biblical first man. Schwartz assigned the scripts to Gardner Fox (although the plots were dreamed up between them) and the artistic duties to Mike Sekowsky. Schwartz, being a science major, gave Fox scientific pointers which lent the series a plausibility far greater than other science fiction comics of the time.

In Showcase #17, Adam Strange is presented as an archaeologist, an Indiana Jones-type figure searching for a lost city of the Incas in the Andes. Pursued by natives, he risks a twenty-five foot leap across a chasm, but never lands. Instead he is struck by a mysterious beam from space and transported to the planet Rann of the star system Alpha Centauri 25 trillion miles from Earth. There he meets the lovely Alanna and her scientist father Sardath in the city of Ranagar. They explain that their ‘Zeta-Beam’ was a communication device sent to Earth four years previously in an attempt to establish contact; due to some unnamed ‘space radiation’, they postulated that the beam had somehow been converted into a teleportation beam. No sooner is Adam starting to settle in than Rann is invaded by a race called the Eternals (!) who are after a rare metal for their home world. Using his spacecraft piloting skills (where did he get those from?) and his wits, Adam is able to trap the Eternals permanently in the fourth dimension, as you do. Just as he succeeds, however, the Zeta-Beam charge wears off and he is teleported back to Earth.

Never fear though because Sardath had previously been able to advise where and when all subsequent Zeta-Beams would strike the Earth (they took four years, but he’d already sent loads!), so Adam was able to beam back to Rann in time for his second adventure and the second alien invasion in the second story in Showcase #17, wherein Adam got the spacesuit, rocket jets and ray-gun by which we came to recognise him.

We’re delighted to present, from the Bute Collection, all three of Adam Strange’s adventures in Showcase.

PICTURED: SHOWCASE
#17 GD/VG £500 Cover has excellent colour and gloss and is virtually unmarked. It’s off the lower staple and the spine is cleanly split to slightly above that. Remainder of spine is attached, but a little weak with a few small holes. There is some corner blunting and edge wear, but little of note except for a 3 cm crease top centre which breaks colour. There is a slight puckering along a few cms of the right edge. Both staples are firm at centrefold, and the top firm at cover as well. Supple pages are a very clean white to off-white. High resolution images are available on request. SOLD
#18 VG+ £160 Nice unspoilt cover image with just reading wear, corner blunting and a couple of diagonal creases across bottom right, one of which faintly breaks colour. Solid spine with staples firmly attached, and at centrefold. Supple pages are a very clean white to off-white.
#19 VG+ £170 Nice unspoilt cover image with just reading wear, corner blunting and a short 2 cm crease across bottom right, which just breaks colour. Solid spine with staples firmly attached, and at centrefold. Supple pages are a very clean white to off-white.