Adam Strange: Between Two Worlds The Deluxe Edition

by Richard Bruning, Andy Diggle, Andy Kubert (Illustrator)

Once the greatest hero of the distant planet Rann, he's now a wanted man on Earth.

Pursued by the police and hunted by aliens, Strange has learned that his adopted planet has been destroyed. With his wife and daughter gone, is there any hope left, or is this the end of the space hero?

Sit back for a thrilling ride that takes one man on a trek though the DC Universe to rediscover the remnants of the L.E.G.I.O.N., the Darkstars, the Omega Men, and more as he faces a threat that will herald a galactic war!

Adam Between Two Worlds collects Adam Strange #1-3 (series 1990), Adam Strange #1-8 (series 2004), and JLA #20-21 (series 1998).

Genres: Comics, Science Fiction, Adventure, Action, Dc Comics

408 pages, Hardcover

Published March 14, 2023

About the author

Richard Bruning is an American graphic designer and comics creator who is currently the Senior Vice-President-Creative Director of DC Comics.

In 1979 he opened a design firm in Madison, Wisconsin called Abraxas Studios. In the early 1980s, he was a key part of Capital Comics' staff, acting as Editor-In-Chief and Art Director over such publications as Nexus, The Badger and Whisper until they ceased operation in 1984.

After a year of freelancing in San Francisco, he moved to New York City in 1985 to become DC Comics’ Design Director. For the next five years he supervised and/or contributed to the design of titles including the landmark series' Watchmen (by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons) and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (by Frank Miller), as well as editing the DC-produced official sequel to the ITC TV series The Prisoner, Shattered Visage (by Dean Motter and Mark Askwith).

In 1990, he left DC to form Brainstorm Unlimited, Inc. a freelance graphic design and corporate communications firm in New York. The company’s client list included HBO, Fine Line Films, Xerox, Children’s Television Workshop and others. He also wrote the Flash Gordon Sunday newspaper strip for King Features. Of particular note was his branding of and logo design for the new Vertigo Comics mature readers comics line for DC Comics, and overseeing "the development and packaging of the upscale graphic novel and prestige format as well as the development of DC's first collected editions".

He returned to DC full-time in 1996 as VP-Creative Director responsible for overseeing the creative efforts of the entire company. He was promoted to Senior Vice-President in 2002/2003.[2] He was instrumental in the creation of DC Comics’ new company logo in 2005.

Bruning has also written comics, as well as acting in a behind-the-scenes role, writing in 1990 the Prestige format miniseries Adam Strange: The Man of Two Worlds, which revived the titular classic DC Sci-Fi character. The three issues were illustrated by the brothers Kubert, Andy (pencils) and Adam (colors). He also wrote and lettered (with versatile fellow-editor, and all-round artist Mark Chiarello pencilling and coloring) the Eisner-nominated short story "Electric China Death" for Gangland #4.

Bruning is married to fellow-DC employee Karen Berger.

Reviews

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read. I have always enjoyed reading stories involving Adam Strange whenever I had a chance (and one of these days I'll get around to reading the Adam Strange omnibus). This particular compilation involves three stories combined into one volume. The artwork was hit-and-miss for me, but the stories were all pretty good overall. I would say the character development as pretty good as well but that is because I am not really that familiar with Adam as a character (having only read sporadic stories where he is on Rann but usually he is "somewhere else" and assisting other heroes in some endeavor); Adam's character is a bit different in each story but I would say it still develops and grows, overall.

Regarding the first story: The first story is pretty crazy. It is a three-issue series written by Richard Bruning and reminded me of the last few issues of Marvel's Strikeforce: Morituri series (published in their "bookshelf format"). The story features artwork from both Andy Kubert and Adam Kubert (so you know the art's going to pretty awesome to behold; I was not disappointed). The story starts out with Adam and Alanna having a picnic; Adam's wife is pregnant with their first child and Adam has been "zapped" with a stronger beam (a "mega-zeta beam") that will allow him to remain on Rann permanently when he returns for the final time. It is a bit of a "bitter story" (or "grittier" story, or maybe both) in that his father is on his death bed and his sister is bitter that Adam has not been around to assist with their invalid father let alone visit him in the hospital. Adam is having what appears to be a weird "midlife crisis" - I could not decide if it had to do with his "finally" leaving Earth and having second thoughts or if he regretted not being around for his surviving family more than he had been. He ends up getting drunk and having an affair with the doctor treating his father; despite it being a "one-night stand", he somehow convinces the doctor (whose name is Evelyn Fox but goes by "Eve") that there was a possibility of something more between them before he disappears and returns to Rann. Intentionally or accidentally, he leaves his notebook behind at her place and she uses the notes to have herself beamed to Rann as well in the second issue. We learn that Alanna (Adam's wife) is pregnant with Rann's first natural pregnancy in generations, and we also meet Delaken, Alanna's former lover and guardian of Rann's council. Upon Adam's return to Rann, he has some kind of "episode" and nearly kills his father-in-law Sardath before fleeing. In the second issue, a group of insurrectionists decide the time is ripe to overthrown the city council with Sardath in a coma. The city begins to descend into chaos with no firm leadership from Sardath's clones and Sardath in a coma. Two of the insurrectionists continue to foment dissent and chaos in their bid to take over the city government; the rest of the group is too fearful to actually seize the moment and try to take command. Alanna is having a hard time holding it together as she worries about Adam and why he attacked her father before fleeing and what may happen to him if he is found before he can surrender by the city's 'militia'; Daleken spends a lot of time with her and she beings to rely upon him quite a bit for comfort and support, but he is never presented as taking advantage of the moment which is cool. Adam discovers there is a group of those who have been exiled from the cities that live in a secret valley where vegetation is growing naturally and they are able to survive outside the cities; Sardath's ex-wife leads this group. The people also give birth naturally, and their population is growing. The council clones begin killing each other while fighting over who will control the council and city government. Back on Earth, Strange's older sister is bitter that he has again disappeared in addition to blaming Dr. Evelyn Foxx for failing in her duties to take care of her ailing father because of her infatuation with Adam. Eve is feeling the blues herself, having fallen hard for Adam. She decodes the notes Adam left behind and goes to South America to catch the "final beam" that was Adam's last chance to return to Rann if he had missed the prior beam. She arrives as the capital city is attacked. Alanna goes into childbirth too early and needs medical help; nobody is able to assist her until Eve arrives and is able to assist with the childbirth. She also learns that Adam is married and that the woman she is assisting in childbirth is Adam's wife. The ending of the second "book" is so sad - Adam's older sister is sitting in his room, surrounded by his things and weeping as she tries to clean out the house before it and the items inside are sold. In the third book, everything comes to a head. Adam and Bantteir (Sardath's ex-wife) return to Ranagar (the capital city) only to find it under attack. The insurrectionists fail in their bid to take over the city when the city is attacked. Eve saves Adam's baby but cannot save Alanna. She is angry with Adam for deceiving her (even though both were drunk when they copulated during his last night on Earth) but is willing to do what it takes to save Adam's child. Sardath comes out of his coma at the end of the second issue and this issue/chapter activates a failsafe that sends the city into orbit (with a protective dome surrounding the city). By the end of the story, Bantteir is now in charge and relies upon Eve for support (and Sardath to a lesser extent) as she tries to get the survivors to work together (both the city's inhabitants and the survivors of the invading forces). Eve confronts Adam and tells him to stop being a douche and take care of his child, to not abandon his daughter like his family "abandoned" him (because he was so much younger than everyone else, including his siblings). The issue ends with Ranagar floating over the planet.

It felt like the author was going to create a new relationship between Eve and Adam as the only two humans on the planet; it was fitting due to their names being the first Man and Woman as recorded in the Book of Genesis and their being able to procreate when most of the citizens of Ranagar were not able to do so. In my mind, that was definitely the direction he was going had he been able to continue with the second story, but the author never got to finish "his story" and Adam's story took a turn back to what his life had been like before meeting Eve (in most respects; at least he was able to keep his daughter).

The second story in the compilation was from Grant Morrison's JLA run, #'s 20-21. It was written by Mark Waid and the artwork is . . . subpar (to put it mildly; I think Andy and Adam's artwork spoiled me a bit). In this story, Adam kidnaps the Justice League and forces them to create some kind of device that will save Rann from an imminent invasion. As it turns out, Alanna is "mostly-dead" but "not-quite-dead"; Eve was too unfamiliar with her alien physiology to recognize that Alanna was close to being dead but more in a coma than actually "dead" dead. Sardath takes Alanna off-world to save her life; in the process, he surrendered Alanna to a race of telepathic conquerors called the En-Tarrans to save her life. He did not expect them to use the residual zeta0-beams in Alanna's body to find Rann; they planned to use Rann's teleporter technology to allow them to teleport anywhere in the universe to conquer it (assuming they figured out how to counteract the effects of the zeta-beam wearing off and sending their forces back to Rann or wherever they transported from). Adam Strange creates a giant teleporter on Rann and uses his body as a giant prism to transport the incoming invaders to some prison planet near Apokolips; they will not return because the prism he created burned out all of the "mega-zeta beam" energy. This would ensure the would-be conquerors would not be able to escape their new prison, but it forced Adam to return to Earth. The story was okay; the best part was finding out that Alanna was still alive AND so was their daughter (I still would not have minded seeing Adam and Eve involved in a relationship, but Alanna's return would have ruined THAT idea). I'll be honest; the artwork was horrible and nearly killed the story for me. However, the story was good enough (strong enough?) it was able to override the crappy artwork (granted, which was still better than I could do).

It is interesting that Adam always returns to Earth when the force/energy of the zeta-beams wears off; it is not like the Earth is in the same place in space as it was when he beams to Rann. Not only that, but there is a huge time difference between Rann and Earth; it is something like every ten minutes that passes on Earth is 4.5 years on Rann (I assume it has to do with the amount of distance both Adam and the beams have to travel). So, yeah, Adam is pretty lucky that he actually returns to the planet Earth and not just the place Earth was 4.5 years ago when he is beamed from Earth to Rann.

The third story I was on the positive side of ambivalent. I kinda liked it, but kinda not. The artwork was decent; it was better than the two issues from JLA (but I also realize that is not much of a compliment). The artwork was actually good; I enjoyed it (maybe JLA was so bad it made me like the third story's art more than I expected). Enough about the artwork! I will say this: that image of Alanna appearing was da bomb! That was a beautiful image, and it also reminded me of some pretty awesome images of Kitty Pryde of X-Men fame when she is shown to be phasing through objects).

This story takes place sometime after the events in JLA and Adam is marooned on Earth. Then he finds out that Rann is possibly destroyed in a supernova but refuses to believe it. He is kinduva douchebag in the series, though, with his attitude towards Earth and how he treats fellow humans. I realize he misses his wife and child, but those are due to choices and decisions "he made" and he doesn't need to take it out on others like he does. In any case, the series involves him trying to solve the mystery of what happened to Rann (as the elements of the supernova do not match up with the elements of Rann's sun, which leads him to believe the planet has either been stolen or been moved). Some alien bounty hunters are hunting for him on Earth; he beats them and takes their "zeta-beamer" which allows him to return to Rann (or, the space where Rann should be). A warship from Thanagar shows up just in the nick of time to save Adam from being barbecued by the remains of the supernova in order to put him on trial and execute him. A renegade Thanagarian commander saves him, however, and the two of them begin searching for what happened to Rann. I don't remember which, but he is either given a set of coordinates or finds a set of coordinates he thinks will take him to where Rann might be, but instead finds a nearly abandoned space station. He goes onboard, is attacked, finds more clues, and teams up with a group called The Omega Men to solve the mystery. We find out that the renegade Thanagarian Wing Commander Sh'ri Valkry worships a mysterious devourer who sounds a lot like Galactus but doesn't have the same dazzling, fashionable attire that Galactus wears. The plan is to use the device that transported Rann to an "empty" universe to transport Luciphage (this entity that she worships) into either a corporeal form or into the physical universe so that it can once again feed and destroy another universe by sucking it dry of all life and/or energy. Adam finds an "omega-beam device" on the space station and realizes it was used to not only transport Rann and the three suns of Alpha Centauri into a dead universe but also transport a dying red giant about to go supernova into Rann's place to hide the fact Rann had been heisted. The problem is, the dying red giant was stolen from the territory of a race called "the Spider Guild", and they want either their sun back or the equivalent level of energy. Adam and the Omega Men detonate the device while escaping, destroying the Spider Guild Swarm (fleet) that attacked the station and flee to take refuge on Maltus while searching for another clue - Maltus being the HQ planet of L.E.G.I.O.N. (some kind of interplanetary law enforcement agency) led by somebody named Vril Dox. Adam finds one of Sardath's clones and takes him back to his hideout; there, one of the Omega Men attacks the group because its body had been taken over by a creature called a Durlan; they used Adam's portable zeta-beamer to send the spy to Rann's old system to be killed by the remnants of the supernova. Adam and his friends are captured by Vril Dox and L.E.G.I.O.N. Adam is able to bluff his way to freedom, using the zeta-beamer to beam himself, Tigorr and Broot back to their hideout, but Vril Dox leaps after them and ends up in their hideout. That is when Alanna shows up, looking as beautiful as ever.

This Luciphage, this "Starbreaker", is said to be the most powerful creature in the universe - what a load of crap! Guy is just a puissant Galactus-wannabe, and there ain't no way he's stronger or more powerful than the god that is behind the creation of the DC Universe (as various species of alien races having living gods that watch over them, and those gods are said to have created the universe in some form or another).

Anyway. Sh'ri Valkyr's spies had found out about this new Rann technology, the Omega-Beam, and wanted to use it to bring their dark god into the known DC universe. This would allow Luciphage to destroy the universe in an instant. Rann's goal was to transport the planet and its accompanying technology to a dead universe to prevent Luciphage and his minions from finding Rann and their super-advanced beaming technology. The beamers were supposed to be destroyed before they were discovered, but the second one was destroyed after it was discovered. Adam and Co. beam into the dead universe to find Rann, but little do they know that the dastardly diabolical Sh'ri Valkyr had placed a homing device in some of Adam's technological devices, and her small fleet follows them to this dead universe. Vril Dox "flees" only to return with reinforcements (a L.E.G.I.ON. assault fleet, the rest of the Omega Men, and the three strongest members of the Darkstars) and a battle royale commences. Adam destroys the renegade Thanagarian Commander's cruiser by beaming into its energy room and leaving behind a bomb that blows up. After the strongest member of the Darkstars is killed, Vril Dox tells the two survivors to use their suits to absorb Luciphage's energy to weaken him. It works, but the Darkstars giving up their lives allows Rann and the rescue fleet to beam back to "this" (the DC) universe and leave Luciphage behind in the dead universe, trapped for eternity. Sh'ri Valkyr is killed by Alanna, but not before Sh'ri Valkyr changes the coordinates for Rann's final teleportation (and leaving behind a grenade to destroy the Omega-Beam technology to ensure Rann cannot be beamed somewhere else). The story ends with the reader discovering that Rann is now in Thanagar's system and that Thanagar has been displaced from its orbit and is "plunging into" its sun. My understanding is that this is what leads into the Rann-Thanagar War limited series, but I could be wrong about that.

So. I typed a lot more about the compilation than I originally; meant to do. That is okay. Overall, I enjoyed the stories inside and it does kinda make me want to find the rest of the story lines after this that Adam Strange shows up in. I also looked his character up and he does go through several more subsequent retcons, especially with DC's more recent reboots. In any case, it was a fun compilation to read, and I am glad I picked it up to read. I probably like it enough to rate it 3.5 stars but not enough to rate it 4 stars (that JLA story really did it in for me, and I was not a big fan of the "cliffhanger ending" of the third story; it really should have had a "solid ending" to the compilation, in my opinion, and not like it did). In any case, it was a fun read and a relatively quick read, and I am glad that I read it.