With the Eisner Award-winning team of Mister Miracle's Tom King and Mitch Gerads joining forces Evan “Doc” Shaner, the anticipation for DC's Strange Adventures has been as high as possible. But that bar is about to raise even higher, now that DC has confirmed Strange Adventures will be published as part of the company's prestigious Black Label.
Created specifically to encourage and highlight boundary-pushing, mature works in the tradition of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, DC Black Label also means a book is intended for readers 17+ exclusively. And considering how King has described his Adam Strange story thus far, and the chilling contradictions in Gerads and Shaner's work, it makes perfect sense that, in the words of DC's official press release, the Strange Adventures story is being given the freedom to head wherever its creators decide. And the new preview pages released alongside the announcement only sweeten the deal.
DC has confirmed today that the 12-issue Strange Adventures maxi-series will carry an Ages 17+ content descriptor on Gerads and Shaner’s card stock covers. With content similar to King and Gerads’ acclaimed Sheriff of Babylon and Mister Miracle, Strange Adventures is said to be "a story of blood, war, and love that readers will talk about for years to come." According to Editor Jamie S. Rich, that goal eventually confirmed that a Black Label release made the most sense:
As Strange Adventures was coming together, we had to take a step back and look at what made the most sense for the project. Since its tone and themes are more in the vein of Mister Miracle than, say, Tom King’s work on Batman, we decided that it made more sense to give Strange Adventures its own space, where Tom, Mitch, Doc and Clayton could follow the story to all the different places it might take them.
Tom King has described his story along the same lines, comparing hero Adam Strange to the likes of Tarzan and Flash Gordon -- beloved classics of old-time adventures in foreign lands, now recognized as a glorified metaphor for the 19th century dream of European colonialism. It's that divide between the reality of our actions and the fiction of how they're remembered seems to be at the heart of the story. No surprise, then, that King also feels like the Black Label designation is what's needed to give Strange Adventures the chance at achieving its ambition:
Like Mister Miracle, Strange Adventures is hugely ambitious. Unlike Mister Miracle, this isn’t another tale of one man’s angst or trauma or recovery. Strange Adventures is fundamentally about something larger, deeper, and darker; it’s trying to speak to the nature of truth and how our assumptions about that nature can tear us apart."
Readers can find the new preview pages below, along with the official solicitation details and plot synopsis for the series, beginning this March.
- STRANGE ADVENTURES #1
- Release Date: March 4th, 2020
- Written by: Tom King
- Art by: Evan Shaner, Mitch Gerads
- Cover Art by: Evan Shaner, Mitch Gerads
- Adam Strange is the hero of Rann, a man famous throughout the galaxy for his bravery and honor. After leading his adopted home to victory in a great planetary war, Adam and his wife Alanna retire to Earth, where they are greeted by cheers, awards, and parades. But not all is as happy and nice as it seems, as the decisions Adam made during battles on Rann come back to haunt his family and threaten the entire DC Universe. And now a surprise DC hero will have to choose between saving Adam Strange and saving the world. A story like no other, Strange Adventures is an ambitious, thrilling, shocking, and beautiful 12-issue saga that will push Adam Strange to the breaking point-and beyond!.
Strange Adventures #1 will arrive on store shelves on March 4th, 2020.