I really love the coloring for this cover(drawn by Ernie Chua)--you don't see a lot of this greenish-blue in comics, so it immediately gives you that alien world feel, perfect for a story starring Adam Strange and Kanjar Ro!The Story: "The Parallel Perils of Adam Strange!" by Cary Bates, Dick Dillin, and Frank McLaughlin. The JLA are in New Guinea wrapping up a case, when Flash shows them something odd--a cave painting of their old friend Adam Strange.
Suddenly the JLAers themselves are hit by Zeta Beams, and transported to Rann, just like Adam Strange. They are attacked by a giant, floating ray gun, which blasts Green Lantern.
Luckily Adam Strange shows up, helps the JLA disarm the weapon. But all is not well on Rann, since Adam tells his friends that his beloved Alanna is...dead!
Adam tells them that earlier, Alanna was blasted to atoms by a strange solar heat ray, similar to something Adam fought once before, just like the ray gun. That gets Ralph nose twitching...
Turns out its their old foe Kanjar Ro who beamed the JLA to Rann, to get revenge on both them and Adam. They are attacked by a giant robot, which blasts the JLAers into dust!
Kanjar Ro hopes that Adam Strange will do exactly what he does...go to Earth to get help from the rest of the Justice League! To be continued!
Roll Call: Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Atom, Black Canary, Elongated Man
Notable Moments: The letters page features a missive from someone named Dan Jurgens...?
Adam Strange always made for a great guest-star, and after a long absence from the book it's cool to see him again, even if he does inadvertently get half the JLA killed. Oops, my bad!
Awesome cover, awesome story, and the art....Dillin and McLaughlin were at their height at this time. The run of issues from 117 through to about 129 or so are the most consistently nice looking art Dillin-McLaughlin ever got.
ReplyDeleteDon't know if that was the intent, but in color, composition, etc., it looks like a cover from a decade earlier.
ReplyDeleteBest,
-Craig W.
I've always thought this one looked like an old Schwartz SF cover too.
ReplyDeleteErnie Chua/Chan is a great artist, but he did so many covers for DC back then, I suppose he was swamped and very few of them have any background at all. Lots of white covers coming up!
Chris
>>The run of issues from 117 through to about 129 or so are the most consistently nice looking art Dillin-McLaughlin ever got.<<
ReplyDeleteI agree 100%, and I particularly think 120-121 and 128-129 are the best of this run. Sometime in the 130s, DC switched from metal printing plates to plastic printing plates, which didn't reproduce fine-line artwork very well.
>>Ernie Chua/Chan is a great artist, but he did so many covers for DC back then, I suppose he was swamped and very few of them have any background at all. Lots of white covers coming up!<<
Unfortunately, a lot of his covers looked rushed. But this one is really nice.
Funny, I don't like this cover at all. That horrid shade of blue-green...the awkwardly posed Adam Strange, Superman's body being out of proportion (legs too short!).
ReplyDelete