Worst Date Night Ever

It seems poor Adam Strange never gets to just spend a quiet day with his girlfriend when he arrives on the planet Rann. There's always a disaster of some sort he needs to deal with.

For instance, in Strange Adventures #222 (Jan.-February 1970), the latest Zeta Beam brings Adam back to Rann, but he lands right smack in the middle of a war. People around him are fighting to the death. And his side seems to be losing. And his gal is being kidnapped. NONE of this is the recipe for a fun date night.

The story, by the way, was written by Denny O'Neil and drawn by Gil Kane.

The bad guys are Reekahs, a race of barbarians who have short-term super-speed in addition to their robot unicorns. They get alway with Alanna and a few other hostages, offering to release them only if supplied with modern weapons. But if they get the weapons, their fortress will become impregnable and they will become unstoppable conquerers.

In fact, their fortress already is impregnable. So how does one get inside the walls? Adam has an epiphany--What if they leave a gift for the Reekahs just outside the fortress?

This sounds just like the Trojan War, doesn't it?

I like the nice twist that O'Neil gives the story here. The people of Rann leave a ship outside the walls as tribute. But the Reekahs tumble to the fact that its a trick. Their leader orders the ship destroyed.

But Adam had figured on this. The ship, in fact, is a double-bluff. When it blows up, it releases a gas that weakens the Reekahs and takes away their super-speed.

Adam leads an attack force into the fortress. The bad guys are defeated and the hostages are saved. But this takes a little too long as far as Adam's love life is concerned. He teleports back to Earth after he and Alanna have time for one brief hug.

Gil Kane's art looks fantastic, the robot unicorns are cool and the plot twist involving the double-bluff Trojan ship is a good one. This is a solid and entertaining science fiction adventure.

Next week, we visit again with Turok. I've got a back log of Turok issues I've been meaning to review, so please remember--you can NEVER have too many dinosaurs!