How Cool Is What? by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #107
March 9, 2009 Mike Gold 1 Comment
After a week’s silence I find myself all warm and squishy, reflecting back as I often do on my wistful youth. Actually, I was inspired by a conversation with my wife, Linda, after we saw this week’s episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
Linda finds Adam Strange’s costume to be one of the coolest ever in comics, so, of course, I launched into a history lesson. Adam Strange had one of the finest artistic pedigrees of all DC heroes: his costume was designed by Murphy Anderson, his Showcase try-out issues were drawn by Mike Sekowsky, the regular series was pencilled by Carmine Infantino (usually inked by either Bernard Sachs or Murphy Anderson), and the early covers were drawn by Gil Kane. Later work has been provided by guys like Neal Adams and Jim Starlin.
Wow. Not too shabby.
Murphy’s costume design was straight post-WWII science fiction and not at all dissimilar to his work on the Buck Rogers comic strip. In other words, it was as awesome as it was appropriate for its time … and because it was so appropriate, that’s the image burned into our brains a half century later.
I first encountered Adam Strange in a house ad, one that grabbed my sense of wonder by the short hairs and pulled my attention to every newsstand I would pass until the book came out. I finally found it at a drug store next to my pediatrician’s office – one that I had never been to before – and I pestered and annoyed my mother until she understood that it was easier to drop a dime for the comic book than it was to fight me. The location was the northeast corner of Peterson and Bernard on Chicago’s northwest side, and it was 50 years ago.
Yep. 50 years ago and I still remember where I found that book. That’s how much I was looking forward to that comic. I was not disappointed in the least. Adam Strange has continued to be one of my favorite characters, and I’m enjoying Starlin’s current efforts.
Adam Strange appears on next week’s episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and Linda and I will be there. It better be good – you do not screw with somebody’s hallowed childhood memories.
Adam Strange. How cool is that?
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Mike’s Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind rants can be heard every Monday and Friday on The Point podcasts, available right here at www.michaeldavisworld.com, as well as at comicmix.com, getthepointradio.com, zzcomics.com, and ravenwolfstudios.com. You can subscribe to The Point at iTunes by searching under “The Point Radio.”
marc alan fishman
March 9, 2009 - 10:33 am
How cool indeed. For my generation, Adam Strange is largely considered a dated, bland, banal sci-fi knock off… how sad my generation is sometimes. Adam in recent years in the DCU has been bounced from mini-series to mini-series… He was redrawn with “lantern-esque contructs” not a few years back in a vain attempt to ret-con him into a steller mercenary who might appeal to the younger DCU fans. I love the editorial staff of Dan Didio sometimes… They figure old dead heroes like Barry and Hal should come back to let fans see the old guard in their glory… where older characters like Adam who were largely left alone when I was growing up all need ridiculous retcons.
And now Vic Sage is dead, Boston Brand is all but forgotten, and the Tattooed Man is an anti-hero.
Mike, how is it after only a year of knowing you, I now feel like an olda angry guy? 🙂
But suffice to say, I’m LOVING the Brave and the Bold (and the new Sensation Spider Man) because of their embrace of the older concepts. Sometimes, we need to remember, a good superhero story can just be a man fighting a monkey, eh?