June 1938: A Superman for the Underdog

On the newsstands in May 1938, browsers had their choice of Tarzan in Comics on Parade, Popeye in King Comics, daredevil aviator Captai...

Sunday, May 5, 2002

May 1962: The Man Who Bested the Justice League

In Justice League of America 4 (April-May 1961), the Flash proposed Adam Strange for membership, despite the fact that no one on Earth appeared to be aware of the secret spaceman’s interplanetary heroics.

Readers who questioned this got their answer in Mystery in Space 75 (May 1962), and this prequel proved to be one of the better stories in the archeologist-adventurer’s run.

“Adam Strange teams up with the Justice League to fight Kanjar Ro, a villain who uses Rann's triple suns to give himself Superman-like powers,” noted comics historian Michael E.  Grost.  “This is a sequel to (Gardner) Fox's The Slave Ship of Space (Justice League of America 3, February-March, 1961). That tale introduced Kanjar Ro, and his battle with the Justice League.”

Kanjar Ro’s powers are, in fact, greater than Superman’s. Justice League superheroes throw themselves against him uselessly while the powerless Strange just stands around, seemingly at a loss.

In fact, Strange is concentrating on the problem at hand. 

Just as the alien despot is about to destroy him, Strange hurls one of Kanjar Ro’s old tools, instantly overcoming the tyrant. Strange had reasoned if material from Superman’s home planet weakened him, the same might be true for metal from Dhor, Kanjar Ro’s world.

Strange’s brains bested the JLA’s brawn, prompting Wonder Woman to remark, “To think I felt sorry for you, seeing you standing there — so helpless.”

The spaceman replies, “I had no super powers to fight with, so I had to take some time out and — think!”

As Mike W. Barr observed, “It’s hard not to be impressed by a guy with no super powers who nevertheless does a job the entire JLA can’t.”

“I've been so frequently disappointed by many of the modern day appearances of Adam, in which the writers downplay his intellect and basically just make him a Shoot-First-And-Ask-Questions-Later space cowboy,” wrote comics historian Gene Popa. “They clearly did not read and grasp his original stories, sad to say.”



21 comments:


  1. Bruce Kanin wrote:
    Finding the JLA in, of all books, MYSTERY IN SPACE, was an unexpected delight. Plus we get Carmine Infantino's pencils and Murphy Anderson's inks. What more could a fan ask for?

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  2. Bob Doncaster wrote:
    A guy in the JLA with no super powers? Preposterous.

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  3. Dave Newhouse wrote:
    Yes. In the Mystery in Space Adam Strange adventures, it’s ALWAYS Adam’s intelligence that saves Rann and Alanna from destruction.

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  4. Lou Mougin wrote:
    And it really was a trip to see Carmine Infantino draw the JLA!

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  5. Mark Engblom wrote:
    Nice to remember that era when characters other than Batman could use their minds to save the day. The imperative to always make Batman the smartest guy in the room probably explains the dumbing down of Adam Strange.

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  6. Paul Zuckerman wrote:
    Planet is a great example of creators making lemonade from lemons! Rather than simply saying oops, Schwartz and Fox came up with one of the greatest stories of their comic careers.
    For those readers who thought all comics were linear in timeline--as was apparently the case at Marvel, we find out that Adam's stories were not in sync with the JLA, since this story has to fit between JLA 1 and 4, over a year earlier.
    Adam was, as you note, depicted as the thinking man's hero. He always found a way to overcome the menace by using his brain instead of brawn. It was one of the things that I liked most about DC at the time--heroes used their brains instead of just beating up people as often the case at Marvel. Very writers have gotten Adam correctly since Fox gave up his typewriter. Even in the one new Strange story that appeared during the early 70s Strange Adventures reprint run, Denny O'Neill had no idea how to handle Adam (despite great art by Kane). In the most recent series, Adam has been shown to be a murderer of an alien race. Oy!!!!
    Fox and Schwartz also had to deal with a sticky issue--how to get Adam off of Rann since he didn't use the Zeta Beam to get there--and without the beam, the basic premise of the series would have changed. Kanjar Ro's weapon affects Adam so that he cannot stay on Rann for more than a year so the JLA has to bring him home. Why Alanna couldn't come to Earth wasn't explained but it did mean that we are left with a sobbing Alanna crying into her pillow, beautifully drawn by Infantino/Anderson. Who said that these characters had no personalities?

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  7. Rich Vincent wrote:
    I always got the feeling in the later stories that the writers didn't understand the appeal of Adam Strange and hated being assigned to write the character. So they took revenge by trying to desconstruct and destroy the franchise.

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  8. Johnny Williams:
    It was in truth Adam’s intellect that was the big draw of my fandom for him. Well, that and his ‘rocket pack’ (of course).

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  9. Bruce Kanin:
    What a terrific story — plus we got Infantino drawing the JLA! (Of course, The Flash looked like his usual self).

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  10. Sam Kujava:
    Well written! DC created the best characters -- the first, the most iconic -- and later, lesser talents squandered and squashed their potential.

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  11. Mark Amundsen:
    It’s interesting that Batman was so often at a loss in the early JLA run, especially since Fox did so much to develop the character from very early days. In the Justice League’s early run, Batman is not particularly good at solving problems or puzzles. And in the origin given in issue 9, Batman is the one who proposes forming the League!

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  12. Dean Miller:
    To me, the main attraction of the story is the JLA drawn by Carmine Infantino. Just beautiful artwork.

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  13. Andrew Oshtur:
    SCIENCE! could solve things in the Silver Age!

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  14. Vincent Mariani:
    Lucky break, guessing the only analogy to Superman's weakness in the history of DC Comics lore. And just in the nick of time.
    Nevertheless, one of the very memorable Silver Age comic books. Unfortunately, the elegant artwork totally overshadowed the clunky Sekowsky/Sachs drawing on the regular JLA series.

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  15. Paul Zuckerman:
    Some editors would have said that it was an error and chalk it up to that, but Schwartz and Fox ran with the idea that somehow Flash knew who Adam Strange was and came up with a classic story and, I believe, the first full-length Strange tale.
    What a classic and how excited I was to see it! Infantino did a great job of drawing the JLA. I think it was his first time drawing Batman, in fact. But not his last.
    Of course, we always thought that all comic stories in any month were chronologically concurrent but this tale showed that was not the case. Adam's stories were many months behind the JLA.
    Superman doesn't actually appear in the story except in robot form. I think it took a while for Fox and Schwartz to actually get a handle on Superman's power levels and how to come up with opponents that could challenge him without throwing some kryptonite at him or casting a magic spell.
    Gene and Rich's comments are on the money. Even Denny O'Neill, in his one Strange story during the Strange Adventures run, simply had no idea how to handle the character, and the modern writers have destroyed him, with the most recent deconstruction series by Tom King being the latest ill-conceived story that mistreated Adam and Alanna. As if Adam would ever betray the earth!
    Fox often threw little messages into his story about using your brains over your brawn, and this was one of the best example. Adam knew that he didn't have the physical powers of the JLA but he could use his brain. That was what Batman usually did in the JLA -- I guess he just wasn't thinking this time! 🙂

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  16. Mark Engblom:
    With Silver Age DC’s editorial fiefdoms making it tricky to do inter-company “crossovers” of their respective characters, the complete absence of the JLA on the cover is more evidence that DC was still getting the hang of how to properly cross-pollinate their titles.

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  17. Joseph Lenius:
    “WHAT IF — Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson Drew the Justice League of America Instead of Mike Sekowsky?” 😀

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  18. Paul Zuckerman:
    And to add to my comments on your post elsewhere - isn't that just a great ad!! What kid would pass that up. I can tell you - not me! And I didn't! My copy was missing a couple of pages and the cover when I was a kid (and it was one of the ones later stolen from my basement) but I have a couple of nice copies of it now, and the reprint from a few years later.
    Interesting that the reprint showcases the JLA - with Superman front and center - and they don't appear on the cover of the original!

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  19. Burns Duncan:
    So many times I have wished that when 48 pages for a dime had become unfeasible, publishers had begun increasing the price incrementally (as would happen later) instead of going first to a 32-page standard. There are so many really good characters that should have been around for years as back-up features. (Sigh.) This story is remembered as one of the best stories from the Silver Age. Not only was it an expanded-length Adam Strange story where a throwaway JLA villain became a considerable antagonist--because the art was by the regular team of Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson, arguably the publisher's finest at the time, it was for years the only JLA story that was well-drawn.

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  20. Bob Ruprecht:
    Great post - have all 3three issues referenced and love this Silver Age era of Adam Strange, brought to life by the talents of Fox and Infantino.

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  21. Nelson Fox:
    Great analysis of Adam Strange as the Original Thinking Man's Superhero. Most modern appearances treat as a dolt or just as a primitive sperm donor for a dying world.

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