Of space mysteries and strange adventures

I don´t think I can do a third Gardner Fox post Today but I have to at least do one more about his great passion : science fiction. It is the reason why his most successful superhero titles have to do with science or aliens like THE ATOM, FLASH, HAWKMAN, GREEN LANTERN or all of the above in the JUSTICE LEAGUE which often featured Adam Strange.

Speaking about Adam Strange - we´ll return to him in a moment - he appeared in quite a few different DC publications, one of them being STRANGE ADVENTURES which was rechristened THE ADAM STRANGE ADVENTURES. Going through all the covers I noticed that some stories from MYSTERY IN SPACE - another series Adam Strange appeared in and which was one of Gardner Fox main sci fi comic books - where reprinted here and it´s interesting to compare the old covers with the new ones.

The new covers are certainly more dramatic and action packed but the design and storytelling is much clearer in the original ones and you can almost get the story without reading the words. As you can see, stories from STRANGE ADVENTURES were in FROM BEYOND THE UNKNOWN.

And speaking about " strange " adventures, one of the most popular space heroes of DC, Adam Strange fought his way through quite a number of different titles which shows that you can´t keep a good space man down.

And speaking about STRANGE ADVENTURES, another cult science fiction series that appeared in that anthology was The Atomic Knights who lived in the post - apocaliptic world of 1992. The comic by writer John Broome and Murphy Anderson became very popular because Murphy´s art was very detailed and gave each member individual suits of armor. It was also one of the first teams that included a female member and while there still were some stereotypes of that era involved she was very independent and even rescued the other members on occassion. You can find all of these stories reprinted in one of DC´s best showcase books, SHOWCASE PRESENTS : THE GREAT DESASTER FEATURING THE ATOMIC KNIGHTS. Unlike most of the Showcase books this collection has all the stories involving the great disaster and it´s worth it for the Atomic Knights.  

Another comic in STRANGE ADVENTURES that features a character I can recognize is Captain Comet also written by John Broome and co - created with Julius Schwartz and Carmine Infantino. He was in a few superhero teams like the LEGION series with the date in the title - I think - and the last I saw of him was in the relaunched MYSTERY IN SPACE that featured Bernie Wrightson´s The Weird and in the RANN THANAGAR WAR. Initially I wanted to get the US trade because they are usually cheaper but then I bought the german version because it included both US trades in one.

Another well known recurring DC science fiction hero was Space Ranger who was not only written by Gardner Fox but also by Edmond Hamilton who created Captain Future and wrote for LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES.

Now I´m not sure about the next two guys. They don´t look familiar to me but either they appear on a lot of covers or the artists drew many characters who just happen to look the same and wear the same outfit.

I´m not going into every science fiction comic Gardner Fox has worked on but as the title suggests he was on a lot of strange books from the already mentioned STRANGE ADVENTURES to STRANGE SPORTS STORIES, STRANGE PLANETS and even STRANGE WORLDS. Of course he could not leave out classic EC titles like WEIRD FANTASY and WEIRD SCIENCE. He also wrote for their horror books but we will cover that in another post.

Gardner Fox has written a lot of science fiction among the over 4.000 comic stories he did and one of his greatest legacies is the introduction of the multiverse in Flash of Two Worlds, a concept DC is driving into the ground with their NEW 52 and the plethora of MULTIVERSITY mini series. 

So this was my second post in a row but I don´t think I can make a third one. Thankfully I have already covered all the birthdays of Today in my last post so I can just go with science fiction stuff. So let´s get right into it so I can spend the rest of the weekend in an exhaustion induced coma.

Although this episode of The New Adventures of He Man can also have that effect. I wanted to save this for my next Guardians of the Galaxy post since the title is The Galactic Guardians. Who are they again ?



Speaking about bad taste in entertainment I always think about Battle Beyond The Stars when I hear about Starcrash. But I haven´t seen Starcrash yet, I only know that Hammer Film babe Caroline Munro is in it.

To tell the truth I don´t remember much about Battle Beyond The Stars besides that it was another adaption of Akira Kurosawa´s Seven Samurai - this time in outer space. George Peppard had this belt with an almost inexhaustable reservoir of alcoholic beverage in it but I guess the movie owed most of my enjoyment of it to Sybil Danning´s suggestive costume.

Sybil really is a babe and a half and like all hot centerfolds from the 90s she was in an Andy Sidaris movie : Malibu Express. She also took her top off in The Howling II but I can´t post that GIF here because it is NSFW.

Anyway, I´m very curious to find out if it deserves the bad reviews.



Since I already posted all the videos from ComicBookGirl19 where she talks about Alejandro Jodorowsky´s Incal universe here is her cool 5th Element cosplay although I personally prefer her epic Zealot cosplay.



Every time I mention Edmond Hamilton in a post there will be a Captain Future video included. Here is a video from Das Phantastische Projekt ( sorry to my non german speaking readers about that ) this time about the genesis of the pulp series and how it was adapted into other media.



And it is high time to wrap things up with Elton John´s Rocket Man.



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