History ComicBook / StrangeAdventures2020

* BittersweetEnding:[[spoiler: Humanity repels the Pykkts and Alanna and Mr. Terrific rescue Aleea, with Alanna preparing to return to Rann to help prepare for the Pykkts inevitable revenge while leaving her daughter in Michael's safe care on Earth. Adam Strange is dead; a tragic, desperate man who was broken through fighting a brutal war, ultimately betraying the Earth to save his adopted family and world, leaving him responsible for countless deaths amongst other crimes. Alanna ruminates that she now must live with all the blood-soaked wrong she helped her broken husband commit out of unaware love, the image and story she had of him and herself entirely destroyed.]]

* BittersweetEnding:[[spoiler: Alanna and Mr. Terrific rescue Aleea, with Alanna preparing to return to Rann to help prepare for the Pykkts inevitable revenge while leaving her daughter in Michael's safe care on Earth. Adam Strange is dead, a tragic desperate man who was broken through fighting a brutal war, ultimately betraying the Earth to save his adopted family and world, leaving him responsible for countless deaths amongst other crimes. Alanna ruminates that she now must live with all the blood-soaked wrong she helped her broken husband commit out of unaware love, the image and story she had of him and herself entirely destroyed.]]

* {{Deconstruction}}: Just like how Tom King and Mitch Gerads' [[ComicBook/MisterMiracle2017 last DC series]] gave the New Gods a reality check, ''Strange Adventures'' doesn't hesitate to show the dark side of Adam Strange's spacefaring escapades, a light-hearted space hero

* {{Deconstruction}}: Just like how Tom King and Mitch Gerads' [[ComicBook/MisterMiracle2017 last DC series]] gave the New Gods a reality check, ''Strange Adventures'' doesn't hesitate to show the dark side of Adam Strange's spacefaring escapades.

** [[spoiler:It becomes clearer later in the series that the the conflict was much closer to BlackAndGreyMorality, with the Pykkts (particularly their leadership) being brutal conquerors while Rann committed their fair share of brutal (if understandable) acts and outright war-crimes to survive, with it being reveled that Adam being a double-agent for the Pykkts in a later invasion of the Earth being the main reason they did.]]

* BittersweetEnding:[[spoiler: Alanna and Mr. Terrific violently rescue Aleea who is finally reunited with her mother, who prepares to return to Rann to help prepare for the Pykkts inevitable revenge while leaving Aleea in Michael's safe care on Earth. Adam Strange is dead, a tragic desperate man who was broken through fighting a brutal war, ultimately betraying the Earth to save his adopted family and world, leaving him responsible for countless deaths amongst other crimes. Alanna ruminates that she now must live with all the blood-soaked wrong she helped her broken husband commit out of unaware love, the image and story she had of him entirely destroyed.

* AdaptationalVillainy: [[spoiler:Adam Strange himself, according to Mr. Terrific's letter in issue 10.]]

** Issue 10. [[spoiler:Alanna reads Mr. Terrific's letter explaining that Adam made a deal with the Pykkts to throw Earth under the bus in exchange for Rann and Aleea being spared. [[{{Understatement}} She is not pleased about this.]]]]
** Issue 11. [[spoiler:Adam and Alanna's relationship crumbles to dust when she grills him into admitting he made a deal with the Pykkts to spare Rann and Aleea in exchange for Earth. Adam resorts to holding Alanna at gunpoint to keep her from calling the Justice League, but there's a struggle and Adam is shot in his midsection. Holy crap...]]

''Strange Adventures'' is a 12-issue miniseries by Creator/TomKing (''ComicBook/BatmanRebirth'', ''ComicBook/MisterMiracle2017''), Mitch Gerads, and Evan "Doc" Shaner as a part of the Creator/DCBlackLabel imprint. While the pair's last collaboration focused on the New Gods, this is a look into another one of DC's space heroes: ComicBook/AdamStrange.

Adam has recently retired to Earth with his beloved wife Alanna, where he has written a memoir of his escapades on Rann and is on tour to promote it while signing copies. But the good times and good news come to a screeching halt when a man angrily confronts Adam over what happened on Rann. To make matters worse, that same man was later found murdered not long after by a space gun.

* BitchSlap: Issue 4 has Sardath giving one to Mr. Terrific when the latter asks where Aleea Strange is. [[spoiler:Mr. Terrific responds with a slap hard enough to knock Sardath onto the floor]].

* CavalryRefusal: Issue 4's flashbacks throw Adam in the wringer but HARD. He calls for [[ComicBook/GreenLantern Hal Jordan]] AND ComicBook/{{Superman}} to give him a ride to Rann. For Hal, it's due to the Guardians of the Universe dictating that the Green Lantern Corps' stance on the Rann-Pykkt war was total neutrality. In Superman's case, it's because Mongul was coming to Earth, and just getting to Rann would leave Earth wide open. Needless to say, Adam is more than a little sore about both declinations.

* DeathOfAChild: Adam and Alanna's daughter, Aleea. Issue 2 reveals that Adam's book is dedicated to her memory. [[spoiler:Except Mister Terrific begs to differ. And Issue 10 confirms it was faked.]]

%%* GoodAllAlong: [[spoiler:The Pykkts]] orchestrated all of Adam's supposed war crimes in a complex gambit to conquer both Rann and Earth.
* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Alanna and Adam's attitude to everything they did in the Rann-Pykkt War is this. When it comes to [[spoiler:the Pykkt invasion of Earth,]] Alanna goes on TV and suggests they need to adopt this attitude a second time.

* TranquilFury: In Issue 10, after reading Mr. Terrific's letter, Alanna goes through an entire day of meeting the President, be in press conferences, and taking photos with soldiers [[spoiler:until she punches her bathroom mirror and shoot a DeathGlare at an unaware Adam at the end.]]

* ADayInTheLimelight: While Issue 2's Rann segments still focus on Adam and Alanna, the Earth segments are more focused on Mister Terrific and how he spends a few days reading Adam's book. Issue 2 ends at the same point as Issue 1 did, with Mister Terrific meeting Adam Strange.

* ArtShift: The book switches between art styles frequently. Scenes occurring on Earth are drawn by Mitch Gerads while scenes on Rann are by Evan "Doc" Shaner. This also extends to the covers, which have Doc Shaner doing fantastical covers and Gerads doing gritty ones.

* BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: Maybe not ''evil'' (maybe), but being tortured by the Pykkts is when Adam switches from fighting against the Pykkts to committing war crimes against them.

* ColdBloodedTorture: The flashbacks in Issue 7 show what happened to Adam when he was captured by the Pykkts for a few months. Exposed to the Tower of Rainbow Doom, which overcharged his ability to teleport through zeta beams, Adam was teleported to random locations around the universe over and over, with no rest inbetween. We see him go inside a volcano, underwater, in the middle of a frozen tundra, and most cruelly [[spoiler:back to his family before he's teleported away again.]] His captor idly mentions that, when he was put through the same process, he was teleported inside an animal's stomach.

* DeathOfAChild: Adam and Alanna's daughter, Aleea. Issue 2 reveals that Adam's book is dedicated to her memory. [[spoiler:Except Mister Terrific begs to differ.]]

* GoodAllAlong: [[spoiler:The Pykkts]] orchestrated all of Adam's supposed war crimes in a complex gambit to conquer both Rann and Earth.

* TheReveal: [[spoiler:Adam did indeed kill the guy who yelled at him at the book signing. Unfortunately, it was a cruel misunderstanding as Adam thought he was a Pykkt scout in disguise and shot him, only to discover he really was just a regular human. But it also turns out he was RightForTheWrongReasons as there is indeed a Pykkt invasion of Earth underway, just completely unconnected to the bookstore incident.]]
* ShoutOut: One of the people asking Adam to sign his book is also buying a copy of ''Mister Miracle'' and ''The Sheriff of Babylon'', both titles also by Tom King and Mitch Gerads.

** [[spoiler: Batman and Mr. Terrific interrogate a Pykkt captive after they invade Earth who states that Adam Strange and Rann inflicted genocide on his people, including Adam Strange personally executing their noncombatant women and children.]]

Adam has recently retired to Earth with his beloved wife Alanna, where he has written a memoir of his escapades on Rann and is on tour to promote it while signing copies. But the good times and good news come to a screeching halt when a man angrily confronts Adam over what happened in Rann. To make matters worse, that same man was later found murdered not long after by a space gun.

* BitchSlap: Issue 4 has Sardath giving one to Mr. Terrific when the latter asks where Aleena Strange is. [[spoiler:Mr. Terrific responds with a slap hard enough to knock Sardath onto the floor]]

* DeathOfAChild: Adam and Alanna's daughter, Aleena. Issue 2 reveals that Adam's book is dedicated to her memory. [[spoiler:Except Mister Terrific begs to differ.]]

* DrivingQuestion: The story in general asks "Exactly what happened on Rann?" Issue 2 asks another one: [[spoiler:"If Aleena isn't dead, what happened to her?"]]
* FemmeFatale: When Adam isn't around, Alanna behaves like one in the present, at least when it comes to Mr. Terrific's investigation on Adam. Issue 4 alone sees her [[spoiler:already having broken and entered Mr. Terrific's house as he comes back from Rann, casually ]]. It's a ginormous contrast to how she behaves in the flashbacks...

* MythologyGag: The two frogs Aleena have (had?) are based on her dad's pet frogs Stranger and Strangest, who have only ever appeared in the DC Super-Pets Character Encyclopedia.
* NeverFoundTheBody: Alanna reveals that Aleena's body was never recovered and rather than a burial a monument was erected. Mr. Terrific finds this interesting.
* PreciousPhoto: Adam has one of him with Alanna and their daughter, Aleena. It's splattered with blood...

-->'''Alanna''': Adam, you shouldn't listen to that crap. It's toxic.

* BitchSlap: Issue 4 has Sardath giving one to Mr. Terrific when the latter asks where Aleea Strange is. [[spoiler:Mr. Terrific responds with a slap hard enough to knock Sardath onto the floor]]

* DeathOfAChild: Adam and Alanna's daughter, Aleea. Issue 2 reveals that Adam's book is dedicated to her memory. [[spoiler:Except Mister Terrific begs to differ.]]

* DrivingQuestion: The story in general asks "Exactly what happened on Rann?" Issue 2 asks another one: [[spoiler:"If Aleea isn't dead, what happened to her?"]]

* MythologyGag: The two frogs Aleea have (had?) are based on her dad's pet frogs Stranger and Strangest, who have only ever appeared in the DC Super-Pets Character Encyclopedia.
* PreciousPhoto: Adam has one of him with Alanna and their daughter, Aleea. It's splattered with blood...

* WrittenByTheWinners: Implied as such by the fact that Rann is suspiciously insistent on the Pykkts' barbarism and villainy in both behavior and culture. Mister Terrific doesn't buy it for a minute, especially when he manages to learn their language while Rann claims it's too complicated for them to translate.

* BitchSlap: Issue 4 has Sardath giving one to Mr. Terrific when the latter asks where Aleena Strange is. [[spoiler:Mr. Terrific responds with a slap hard enough to knock Sardath onto the floor]]

* DeathOfAChild: Adam and Alanna's daughter, Aleena. Issue 2 reveals that Adam's book is dedicated to her memory. [[spoiler:Except Mister Terrific begs to differ.]]

* DrivingQuestion: The story in general asks "Exactly what happened on Rann?" Issue 2 asks another one: [[spoiler:"If Aleena isn't dead, what happened to her?"]]
* FemmeFatale: Alanna behaves like one in the present, at least when it comes to Mr. Terrific's investigation on Adam. It's a ginormous contrast to how she behaves in the flashbacks...

* MoodWhiplash: Similar to ''Mister Miracle'' using the hamtastic narration from the original run by Jack Kirby, ''Strange Adventures'' has characters speaking more bombastically in the flashbacks while the present-day counterparts speak much more casually.
* PreciousPhoto: Adam has one of him with Alanna and their daughter, Aleena. It's splattered with blood...

With the constant conundrum of being warped back and forth the two planets due to the Zeta Beam and partaking in an alien war on Rann with the Pykkts, the life of Adam is hardly one of dull moments...or so it was.

Only ComicBook/MisterTerrific can figure it out...but what he finds out may hit a nerve with Adam and Alanna.

* DrivingQuestion: What did Adam Strange do on Rann? Issue 2 asks another one: [[spoiler:If Aleena isn't dead, what happened to her?]]
* MrFanservice: Issue 2 has a good amount of Mister Terriffic shirtless and working out.

* WhamLine: From Issue 2:

* WolverinePublicity: Played with in regards to DC's own Batman. Adam asks Batman to investigate him and make sure that Adam didn't kill the angry man, but Batman passed on it, due to the pair being good friends. To compensate, Batman enlists Mister Terrific to take over. Other DC heroes like Superman and Hawkman also make appearances.

* InfantImmortality: Averted hard with Adam and Alanna's daughter, Aleena. Issue 2 reveals that Adam's book is dedicated to her memory. [[spoiler:Except Mister Terrific begs to differ.]]

Only ComicBook/MisterTerrific can figure it out...

* DrivingQuestion: What did Adam Strange do on Rann?

* MrFanservice: The book has a good amount of Mister Terriffic shirtless and working out.

-->'''Mister Terrific:'' [[spoiler:[Adam] writes that his daughter is dead. She is not. I doubt this is the only lie.]]
* WolverinePublicity: Subverted with DC's own Batman. Adam asks Batman to investigate him and make sure that Adam didn't kill the angry man, but Batman passed on it, due to the pair being good friends. To compensate, Batman enlists Mister Terrific to take over.

* ArtShift: The book switches between art styles frequently. Scenes occurring on Earth are drawn by Mitch Gerads while scenes on Rann are by Evan "Doc" Shaner.

* {{Deconstruction}}: Just like Tom King and Mitch Gerads' [[ComicBook/MisterMiracle2017 last DC series]] gave the New Gods a reality check, ''Strange Adventures'' doesn't hesitate to show the dark side of Adam Strange's spacefaring escapades.