#sardath

Strange

Adam Strange 8 (2005) by Andy Diggle & Pasqual Ferry

Cover: Pasqual Ferry

I’ve been reading comic books for a looooooonnnnnngggggggg time, and while I enjoy (most) of what I read, rarely do any of the stories touch my shriveled little, black lump of a heart.  Certainly not enough that I will remember the story details over 35 years later.

However, DC Comics Presents #82 is one of those tales.

For those of you who don’t know, Superman for the longest time was DC’s flagship character, and arguably their most popular - except for the brief Bat-mania period in the 1960s when the live-Action Batman television show was taking America by storm.

Batman was starring in The Brave and the Bold, where he teamed-up with a different character every month.  Around the time of the first Superman film, when Superman’s popularity was at its zenith, DC decided to give Superman his own team-up book, and DC Comics Presents was born.

DCCP was at a slight disadvantage compared to B&B.  For the longest time, B&B stories were produced by writer Bob Haney and artist Jim Aparo.  Say what you will about Haney’s stories (and I could, but that’s fodder for a long post by itself), but even after he left the title Aparo remained on the art chores, giving B&B a consistent quality (and there are few artists - then or now - who could draw a better Batman).

DCCP started off strong, with the fantastic Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez handling the art, but he soon left after a few issues.  After that, the stories were handled by a different writer/artist team.  Sometime you had a great story saddled with mediocre art; sometimes you had a mediocre story joined with great art, sometimes you got mediocre everything, and on rare occasions you got a great story and great art.  No consistency at all.

Despite being a life-long Superman fan, DCCP was a title that I would thumb through at the newsstand first (comic book stores had only started springing up, and were few and far between) to determine whether I would purchase that particular issue or not.  The exception to this rule was when I was stationed in Germany.  I was so starved for reading material that I would buy every single comic book sold at the the Stars & Stripes military bookstores.

That was where I picked up this little gem.  At first glance, it just looks like a routine team-up between Superman and Adam Strange.  

Writer Cary Bates was no stranger to either character, having been one of the long-time writers on Superman, Action Comics, and Superboy, as well as having penned several stories for Justice League of America featuring Adam Strange.  

Artist Klaus Janson, his star rising due to his (then) recent work with Frank Miller on Marvel’s Daredevil (he would work again with Miller on Ronin and The Dark Knight Returns very soon after this), is not an awful artist, but his work has a muddy quality and is too “scratchy” for my taste.

 Anyway, the story entails Adam Strange trying to enjoy his happily ever after on the planet Rann with his wife, Alanna, whom he married in one of the aforementioned JLA tales written by Bates.  Except Alanna keeps having terrifyingly vivd nightmares of Rann’s destruction, and is speaking Kryptonese (a language she shouldn’t know) in her sleep.

Adam and Sardath, Alanna’s father, send a message to Earth asking for Superman’s assistance in translating whatever it is Alanna is saying.  In a weird sequence that makes no sense at all, Superman flies to Russia (the the Soviet Union) inside a metal eggshell in order to intercept a Zeta Beam that will teleport him the 25 trillion miles to Rann.  The disguised Superman is spotted on Soviet radar, and fighter jest are dispatched with orders to -and I’m quoting here - “Shoot down that egg!”  The Soviet missiles strike Superman at the same instant as the Zeta Beam, and the Soviet pilot thinks he’s hallucinating.

Superman arrives on Rann and greets Adam and Sardath.  He explains that he had to disguise himself before flying into Soviet airspace to “avoid an international incident.”

Okay, this is pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths, so: a) Superman could fly to Rann by himself without the need of a Zeta Beam; and b) the United Nations had unanimously made Superman a citizen of the world, meaning he was welcome in every country.  Certainly the USSR would have no reason to shoot at him if he flew over.

I digress.

Superman speaks to Alanna and soon determines that she is possessed by Zazura, an ancient space succubus who lived off other other beings’ life force, and who had plagued Krypton for centuries.  Zazura made her home just outside Krypton’s atmosphere and devoured all astronauts and explorers that left Krypton.  This lead to Krypton to abandoning its space program for centuries until resuming it during his parents’ lifetimes (Lara, Superman’s mother, was an astronaut).

Zazura attacks Superman, and explains that because Krypton was destroyed so unexpectedly she was cheated of the opportunity to consume the life-force of all the Kryptonians.  Zazura plans to destroy Rann in such a manner that she will be able to consume all their life forces.  Then she will be strong enough to escape where she is trapped and travel to galaxy. She then escapes, still in possession of Alanna’s body.  

The heroes are curious as to why the demon is attacking Rann now.  Sardath figures out that, due to galactic rotation, Rann’s solar system is now occupying the same space Krypton did when it exploded.  Zazura, in her weakened state, had been unable to leave that sector of space.  Superman states that the Kryptonians learned that red crystals from Krypton’s famous Fire-Falls were harmful to Zazura, and in enough concentration could destroy her.  The Kryptonians seeded their atmosphere with trillions of red crystal particles, which kept Zazura unable to attack the planet, and explained why Krypton had red skies.

Sardath devises a method to collect the red crystal particles that are still in that sector of space and keeping Zazura trapped.  Armed with the crystals, Superman and Adam embark on a mission to stop Zazura and rescue Alanna.

They’re heroes, so of course they succeed.  Par for the course, and a pretty standard superhero story.  Then we get to the last three pages.

Hopefully, there’s no need to identify those two red sprites circling Superman are.