ADAPTATIONS FROM OTHER MEDIA 3
he quickly went on to greater solo eff orts. At the young age of 20, he already had a
syndicated newspaper comic strip, Ben Casey , that ran for three-and-a-half years. Even
though he wanted to be a serious commercial illustrator, Adams returned to DC Com-
ics with the intention of fi nding extra work. Working for Carmine Infantino, Adams
took on Th e Spectre and his signature character, Deadman, in Strange Adventures. His
dynamic covers were anything but cartoony and his naturalistic style coupled with his
dramatic posing shook up DC Comics’ entire artistic approach. His classic 1971 cover
of Superman breaking chains of kryptonite (Superman #233) is one such example. In
Th e Brave and the Bold he turned Batman into a brooding, moody, and dark character
as opposed to the campy version that mimicked the popular television series at the
time. Th is resulted in Adams being given the fl agship Batman title only a few months
later. His version of Batman proved highly successful; for many fans of DC Comics,
his is the defi nitive Batman. Adams also went over to Marvel and took on the failing
X-Men title. While not able to save it, his brief run remains a highlight in the series.
He also managed to become the fi rst artist to be publicly credited as working for both
Marvel and DC at the same time (others had feared reprisals and resorted to using
pseudonyms if they worked for the competition).
In the early 1970s Adams, along with writer Dennis (Denny) O’Neil , worked on
the now classic but then controversial run of Green Lantern / Green Arrow. In address-
ing current social topics such as race and drugs, the duo’s message did not go unnoticed
by the readers, especially as it ran so thoroughly against the grain of most recent comics,
the content of which had long been seriously curtailed by the Comics Code. Adams’s
Green Lantern would also appear on a U.S. stamp in 2006.
Adams also did work for National Lampoon and Warren Publishing. In the 1980s,
Adams created the short-lived independent company, Continuity Comics, which was
later renamed and turned into an animation company for test commercials. Adams’s
infl uence in the comic book industry was not limited to his artistry. He successfully
fought for artists to get their original work returned to them, as it was traditionally kept
by the company or simply destroyed; and he helped Superman creators Jerry Siegel
and Joe Shuster receive their long overdue fi nancial and creative rights.
Jeff McLaughlin
ADAPTATIONS FROM OTHER MEDIA. Adapted works have long been a part of comics,
ranging from a single story in an anthology to a one-shot comic book, an ongoing
series, graphic novels, and even a series of graphic novels. Th ese include adaptations
of literary works as well as adaptations of fi lms and, on some occasions, television
programs. None of these tell the full story as told in the original work, but they can
inspire an interest in that work or extend the story beyond the original.
Literary Adaptations
Adaptations of literary works have undergone a resurgence in recent years, ranging
from works aimed at older readers to heavily condensed adaptations of classic works
