In 1957, DC Comics editorial director Irwin Donenfeld held a meeting with editors Jack Schiff and Julius Schwartz in his office, asking them each to create a new science fiction hero, one from the present and one from the future.

[2] He conceived the idea of an Earth man repeatedly traveling to a planet in the Alpha Centauri star system by using a "Zeta-beam" altered by space radiation.

[4] When asked about the inspiration behind the character, Gardner Fox stated "I suppose you could say that John Carter was in my subconscious, you had to think of some interesting way to transfer him to from earth up to the planet Rann before you even got started in on a plot, but it was fun to do.

Adam Strange had stories written by Dave Wood, Jerry Siegel, and Dennis O'Neil, art by Lee Elias and inks by John Giunta.

In a 1990 limited series, The Man of Two Worlds, Adam learns of the population's opinion of him and Alanna dies giving birth to their daughter Aleea.

[8] In 2013, Jeff Lemire said he intended to introduce a New 52 incarnation of Adam Strange at some point in Justice League Canada, a series scheduled to launch in Spring 2014.

5, written by Tom King and illustrated by Mitch Gerads and Evan Shaner was launched in 2020, focusing on the character of Adam Strange.

[19][18] Years later, Adam is on Rann raising Aleea and helping to restore the planet, when he learns that Alanna was placed in suspended animation and captured by the En'Taran Slavemasters.

[21] Planet Heist, a 2004 eight-issue limited series, written by Andy Diggle, penciled by Pasqual Ferry and colored by Dave McCaig, replaced Adam Strange's costume with a spacesuit that allows for interstellar travel.

When Rann was moved from Alpha Centauri to Polaris, its orbit was believed to have pushed the planet Thanagar closer to its sun, destroying much of the surface.

Strange, working with Hawkman, Hawkwoman, Kyle Rayner and Kilowog, ends the war after discovering Superboy-Prime's role in Thanagar's relocation.

Adam and his family escape to Earth, where he enlists the aid of Animal Man and Starfire, eventually discovering a way to cure the plague and restore the infectees to normal.

Adam Strange, along with many of the DC space heroes including Hawkman, Starfire, Weird, and Starman, battles Synnar the Demiurge.

With Throneworld renamed New Rann, Adam Strange once more teams up with the DC space heroes to investigate why some of the galaxy's stars are disappearing.

Explaining that the Rannians have recently been on the losing end in a war with the Thanagarians, Adam questions the judgment of the Council in reaching this accord.

As it turned out, Dox was off-world negotiating an end to the Rann-Thanagar War, using Rann's newfound distance from Thanagar and change in leadership on both sides as leverage.

During Vandal Savage's scheme to gain more power from the comet that made him immortal, the JLU assisted a weaker Superman's efforts to thwart his plans.

Before coming to Rann, Strange was an accomplished explorer and archaeologist who specialized in gathering and studying lost artifacts found in the remains of ancient civilizations.

[29] Eventually his experiences accumulated on his adventures through the study and understanding of both Rannian culture and its vast technologies as well as its vested history, enabled Adam to pick up a host of vaunted combat techniques and scientific knowledge, giving him the edge needed to physically match and defeat immeasurably more imposing opponents over the many years.

Strange has a tactical intellect on par with - or exceeding - the likes of Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor, and complements this with the learning that he has gained in his many years of study on Rann.

[35] He is also an accomplished mathematician, who can expertly deduce the exact time and place when and where Sardath's Zeta Beam will hit on his home planet of Earth.

He has studied, disassembled and rebuilt much of his own equipment; consisting mainly of high-tech munitions, armor, gadgets & utensils or cutting edge genetics engineering.

[40] Strange is an adept aerial combatant, often making use of a fireproof, thermal insulated and environmentally adapted suit with which to traverse the terrains of foreign worlds or in the cold depths of space.

[41] The jetpack is a twin-engine propulsion system attached to a harness adorning his back capable of aerial aviation for an undisclosed amount of time.

He is a crack marksman with just about any ranged weapon on hand at the time, the gun comes with a targeting system conductor when worked in tandem with his costume and has a stun setting for non-lethal application.

Other munitions in his arsenal include Holo-Blasters, which are Hard-Light Energy arms that Strange can use to conjure any number of ordinance or enhanced protective shielding with while in a firefight.

[45] The effectiveness of these armaments makes them potent enough in dispatching Smite, one of Starro's lieutenants boasting physical capabilities rivalling Superman or Lobo.

[46] When properly calibrated by outside forces, these energy weapons can also channel the light of a Power Ring or a facsimile of its corresponding emotion that can dispatch a small enclave of Black Lanterns.

This would be a running staple for years until later Zeta designs made its effects permanent, albeit at the cost debilitating mental sickness.

IGN ranked Adam Strange as the 97th greatest comic book hero of all time stating that:If by fluke we were given the chance to ride a Zeta Beam into space, meet a sexy alien princess on the planet Rann, and fight extraterrestrial threats with high-tech weaponry, I wouldn’t want to go back to mundane Earth-life either.