Adam Eterno, a Hero for All Time
Tom Tully (Writer) • Tom Kerr, Colin Page, Francisco Solano Lopez, Eric Bradbury, Ted Kearon, Rex Archer (Artists)
Reviewed By Tarn Richardson
A few years ago, Rebellion Publishing acquired the rights to the classic seventies’ (and earlier) weeklies, with a promise to reprint and repackage them for the now grown-up audience who might have read them first time around – and for a whole new younger audience.
Amongst the many titles is Adam Eterno, a cursed and immortal man, whose only way to die is through a weapon made of gold, and whose fate is to travel through different periods of time until his journey, and curse, finally ends.
It’s often said that everything in Sci-Fi leads back to 2000AD, Rebellion’s flagship publication, and by buying up all these inventive and hugely enjoyable comic titles, Rebellion really do boast a portfolio that showcases the early incarnations of most modern Sci-Fi stories we know and love today. And in Adam Eterno, we have the early forerunner of Quantum Leap, minus the Guardian Angel. Oh boy…
Adam Eterno, who, plucked from the fantastical middle ages like he is, looks more like a seventies country-bumpkin wrestler than a true hero if truth be told, starts off his capers as a reprobate assistant to a powerful wizard. Cursed for drinking a cup of immortality, he’s flung into another time and spends the first few adventures trying to find weapons of gold to end his wanderings. But once he becomes aware of the power he wields, he then spends the remaining stories trying to avoid King Midas’ downfall in order to continue to help the unfortunates he happens upon during his time travelling.
And he helps many varied types during his travels, always ensuring that good triumphs over evil, always with some action and light violence thrown in, and often introducing technology along the way; the first canons for knights of the realm, the first tanks for the British under the cosh from Jerry in WW1.
This collection is a huge amount of fun and also huge, with over 120 pages of stories, all brilliantly drawn by principal artists Tom Kerr, Colin Page and Francisco Solano Lopez. And whilst the stories and the dialogue might be a little dated, one cannot help but celebrate the energy and love, and the sheer volume of work, that’s gone into every page of this comic strip. For young readers of comic books, and those young at heart, there’s a lot here to keep a reader entertained for hours on end.
Adam Eterno
From the high seas of 1770 to the Western Front in 1916, follow Adam Eterno’s earliest adventures from the pages of Thunder!
The new collection of the tragic, action-filled saga of the eternal man, Adam Eterno, is now available to pre-order!
Available in standard paperback from all good retailers, the limited edition hardcover is available exclusively from the Treasury of British Comics and 2000 AD webshops.
In a cellar beneath Tudor London, Adam watches as his master, the great alchemist Erasmus Hemlock, achieves his life’s goal – creating the ‘Elixir of Life’!
Resentful for his years of slavish devotion, Adam swallows the legendary potion – and with his dying breath Hemlock curses him with immortality! Unless Adam is struck over the head with a solid gold object, he is “doomed to wander through the labyrinths of time…!”.
You can buy the EXCLUSIVE Adam Eterno hardback from the The Treasury Of British Comics
You can download the 2000AD App HERE
Tarn Richardson
Tarn Richardson was brought up a fan of fantasy and horror, in a remote house, rumoured to be haunted, near Taunton, Somerset. He is the author of THE DARKEST HAND series, published by Duckworth Overlook in 2015-2017 and republished by RedDoor in 2019. Comprising of THE DAMNED, THE FALLEN, THE RISEN, and free eBook prequel THE HUNTED, the books tell the epic story of Inquisitor Poldek Tacit, battling the forces of evil to the backdrop of World War One. He has also written the novels, RIPPED, and THE VILLAGE IN THE WOODS, to be published in 2020 and 2021. He lives near Salisbury with this wife, the portraiture artist Caroline Richardson, and their two sons.
Twitter @tarnrichardson/
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Official Website www.tarnrichardson.co.uk
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