Strange Adventures

Checking out two Tom King/Mitch Gerads works from the same library trip wasn't planned. It was at first a happy coincidence. Completing the Riddler: One Bad Day book was a read that while it cemented my favorite Batman rogue into a more sadistic frame of mind, was still an enjoyable read. Getting into this book, I was pumped. Tom King was going to do it again! It's going to be awesome. 

Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth.

After a terrible battle on Rann which results in the death of Adam Strange's daughter Aleea, the hero of two worlds and his wife Alanna retire to Earth. Adam has just written a bestselling memoir of the war and warns that the same empire that devastated Rann is heading to Earth. At one of the signings, a man makes a huge scene claiming to know the truth behind how Adam Strange won the war, including war crimes such as torture and the killing of innocents. At first, the media passes this off as the rantings of a crazed person seeking attention. However, when the man is found death from what looks like laser blasts, public sentiment changes and Adam Strange is fingered as the murderer. If this man did indeed know stuff and Adam Strange killed him, just what was the hero trying to hide?

Adam Strange enlists Batman to investigate both the murder and the battle on Rann. However, because of his past history in Justice League business, the Dark Knight feels that he couldn't be impartial to Strange. So he enlists Mister Terrific to head this private investigation. As Mister Terrific digs into the mystery, not only will Adam Strange's crimes come to light, so will a secret covenant that threatens to destroy two worlds!

I knew something was amiss when I noticed that the spelling of Adam and Alanna's daughter changed over the course of the first issue. Maybe it was an innocent typo. I think it might have been a Freudian slip. Regardless, that's when I knew that something in this story was total BS. Tom King does throw in a few red herrings and man, does one major metropolitan area on earth become toast. Still, for someone who grew up on the Silver Age adventures of Adam Strange, I did not like how this book ended.

Strange Adventures is a Black Label imprint release. Stories printed under this imprint are supposed to be non-canonical. However, that hasn't always been the case as a couple of Black Label stories have later been revealed to have been set in the main DC Universe. Tom King swears that this story isn't canon. I'd like to believe him. But I also don't want this story to later get retconned and become eventually true either. 

Once again, Mitch Gerads does a phenomenal job on the artwork. However, he's not the only artist on this book. Gerads illustrates what happens in the present, which is gritty and realistic. The fantastic Evan 'Doc' Shaner captures the events of the past with such an epic nod to the early days of comics of my dad's that I used to read. Shaner's work has thicker lines, is much cleaner and is literally timeless. Carmine Infantino would be so freakin' proud.

Let's be honest here: Tom King is a great writer. I'm just tired of him trying to make everything under the DC sun to reflect in the present day 2020s. King is ex-CIA. I am sure being counter-terrorism, Tom King saw a lot of terrible stuff. While having Adam Strange succumb to using any means necessary to save the people of Rann, Tom King didn't have to turn one of my favorite B-listers into Benedict Arnold! If my count is correct, Tom King has killed off Mister Miracle through suicide, basically kept Bruce Wayne and Selena Kyle from ever being man and wife, turned the Riddler into a madman more destructive than the Joker and now ruin one of the most purest hearts in all of DC Comics history. 

Awwww, crap, I just realized that Tom King penned Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow and I haven't read it yet. How'd he screw her up? I wish I knew one of Tom King's childhood icons so I could write a terrible story about it and mess up his happy childhood memories with his father... (Sorry, ranting!)

There was so much promise for this book. It seemed like it was going to be timeless fun. Instead, we get yet another post-9/11 retooling of something innocent. Sure, MASH told us that war wasn't something to glorify and in the pages of countless volumes of Strange Adventures, Adam Strange fought a lot of wars. I can accept that even good guys turn bad in the middle of great conflicts. But did Tom King have to make Adam Strange make a move so unforgivable that if this story is true, it will prevent the character from ever having a noble place in comics ever again?

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.

Scooby Apocalypse and Hanna-Barbera Preview Edition #1

From 2016, this preview book gives glimpses into 4 of DC's Hanna-Barbera reboot titles. Readers get a look at the Mystery Inc. gang taking on the hordes of zombie undeed in Scooby Apocalypse. Mark Russell's modern retelling of the greatest stone age family of them all, The Flintstones, are examined as is a Mad Max take on Wacky Races in Wacky Raceland. Finally, the epic team-up of nearly a dozen of Hanna-Barbera's more dramatic properties in the Jeff Parker/Evan 'Doc' Shaner venture Future Quest.

I had already read the entire run of the rebooted Flintstones run that took an innocent family from the time of dinosaurs and gave them 21st century problems such as PTSD and gender equality. It wasn't a bad read. But it lacked the humor and heart of the original 1960s series. 

I don't think I like my Scooby-Doo to be so gosh darn violent. If you took the original gang with their yuks and silly montages of being chased through a haunted house and placed it all in the middle of The Walking Dead, I would be okay with it. But again, this book is missing the retro humor which makes reading Scooby-Doo comics a guilty pleasure for me.

Wacky Raceland looks fun. Maybe it's because I don't have cemented fond memories of that series like I do with the Flintstones and Scooby-Doo. Or maybe it's a cartoon show that was destined for a gritty reboot that seems to have no rules. Regardless, I really want to read it. 

Future Quest is a series I've been collecting. Yet I've not been able to find those missing issues for the right price. But I am always on the eye for those holdouts every time I make a run at the bargain bins. Plus Shaner and Parker were so nice and inviting when I met them at a panel a few years back. I've got a loyalty towards approachable folks such as they!

I enjoyed this glimpse of titles. But I think my days of owning preview books are over. When  I first started out with my second collection of books, freebies such as these were a great way to boost my long boxes while giving me affordable looks at potential series I would want to use my hard earned cash for. Now that I have over 11,000 comics, storage room is at a premium and I think newer, younger readers would benefit more from titles such as this one.

Worth Consuming! 

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

Adam Strange/Future Quest Special #1

In this story, after a Zeta Beam malfunction, Adam Strange is sent back to earth. Only this is unlike any earth that the space travel has ever known. On this parallel earth, there is no Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman. But there is a daring young boy named Jonny Quest who just might have the means to get Adam back to his universe. 

Then in the back-up feature, that sly feline Top Cat is detained by the Batman. Here, Top details how a talking cat wound up in Gotham City. 

Both stories were quite good but the Jonny Quest story was better. It takes place almost immediately after the end of Future Quest. I've not read all of that story yet. Thankfully, this book really doesn't spoil too much so I still have the rest of that amazing miniseries to finish someday. This book also takes place right after the Death of Hawkman mini. I hadn't been keeping up with that, so any spoilers revealed that might ruin reading that book, I am unaware of at this point.

Top Cat's story was very interesting. I didn't so much get the feel that it's going to inspire a sequel like the Jetsons reboot has in the pages of the Booster Gold/ Flintstones special. But the seamless blending of cartoon funny animals with the gritty DC Universe has led me to believe that this was in some way the inspiration for Tom King's brilliant crossover of the Dark Knight and Elmer Fudd.

When this book debuted in March there really wasn't a lot of press. This Hanna-Barbera reboot crossover was a underrated delight to read. Marc Andreyko's ability to blend the worlds of Adam Strange and Jonny Quest was masterfully done and I thought the art in both stories was quite exceptional. Phil Winslade and Steve Lieber do great jobs on their persepective tales. But look at this cover by Evan 'Doc' Shaner. Wow- that's great stuff. I wish he had done the Future Quest story inside as he was the main artist on that project and did a kick-ass job.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Future Quest #1 (Family Comic Friday)

  Normally when I review a book for Family Comic Friday, I make as many attempts as possible to find an all-ages rated book. However, this week, I decided to review a comic that was based on something from the 70s that would have been all-agesback in the day, but in it's rebooted form is now considered rated for readers aged teen and up.

    Earlier this year, DC Comics announced that they were releasing 4 new comics based on classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons from the 60s and 70s. The 4 titles were reboots of the Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, Wacky Races, and many more animated shows that adults from my generation just adored. Of the reboots, I chose the one that is considered by fans to be the least retooled (and closest to the original source material): Future Quest.

   The comic, being a reasonable facsimile to the original shows of which the characters that star in this series originated, has the crossover of all crossovers. When a series of temporal paradoxes explode over the Florida Everglades, Jonny Quest and his friends investigate. In these portals are characters such as Space Ghost, the Herculoids, Mightor, and many more of your favorite Hanna-Barbera action and sci-fi heroes from years past. But quick on Jonny's heels are the forces of his arch-enemy, Dr. Zin, and they have the tools  to collect the strange beings bleeding over into our universe and the resources to make them an army of unmatchable power!

    The brains behind Future Quest are X-Men: First Class' Jeff Parker, along with Adventures of Superman artist Evan 'Doc' Shaner, and living legend Steve Rude! They did a fantastic job bringing the heroes of my past into the present and made them exciting and new without changing the formula too much. Many reboots of cartoons from the 70s are done tongue-in-cheek or barely resemble the original with updated outfits or modern trends. Here, everybody looks classic but with just that little modern day touch of class and there's one very good reason for this- Darwyn Cooke.

    Just before Darwyn Cooke (Justice League: The New Frontier) passed from his horrible fight with cancer, he developed all of the designs of characters to be used in this book. As it is with all of his works, Cooke was very devoted to nostalgia but he wasn't afraid to change things up when warranted. Even though Darwyn didn't get to personally complete this project, his deft hand is evident in each and every panel.

     I loved this first issue. Was I 100% sure who everyone was or had a complete understanding what was going on? No! But, I liked what I saw and I and very much willing to continue with this series. Of the 4 reboot titles, this one spoke to me the most. There's no goofy Mad Max element or veiled allegory to the economic disparity of poor and the 1% as in Wacky Raceland or retooled The Flintstones. This felt like something that I would be proud to share to the next generation of readers and it's why I shared my review here with you now.

    Speaking of the next generation, this book is rated Teen. Under DC's personal guidelines, the book is recommended for ages 12 and up. But other than a couple of panels of mild violence, there's nothing really objectionable. Sex appeal is at a near zero. The language was extremely tame. The idea of inter-dimensional crossover between universes is perhaps the most grown-up thing in the book. I mean, we are talking about quantum physics here, folks.

    So if your child hands you a copy of Future Quest and asks you to A) buy it or B) read it with them- choose option C and do both! This was a fun trip down memory lane and I am sure that the guest stars that keep popping up over the course of this series will continue to thrill and delight. Who knows, for a Space Ghost Coast to Coast fan like me, I might luck out and get a chance to see my old buddies Borak and Brak!

   Worth Consuming

   Rating: 8.5 out of 10.