One of the strangest, darkest characters to ever appear in British comics expressly intended for kids was undoubtedly Adam Eterno, who came off like Doctor Who reimagined by Michael Moorcock. An alchemist’s assistant who drank his master’s Elixir of Life before it was ready which gave him immortality and a smidgeon of super strength, both of which proved useful as he was cursed him to travel through time for eternity. The only thing that could kill him, something made of gold, which as far as an Achilles Heel goes doesn’t sound so bad. But naturally the authors concocted increasingly elaborate and labored ways of putting poor Adam inches in harm’s way of some sort of pointed golden gimcrack or other (invariably in the last panel of this week’s installment). As you can see here:

As you can see from his first appearance he started out OK looking but when drawn by his signature artist Francisco Solano Lopez Adam became increasingly tattered and haggard looking. Finally it reached the point where he looked like a crazy homeless guy rather than a standard British comic hero, which was undoubtedly a large part of his appeal.

In the 1970’s Adam appeared in the weeklies Thunder, Lion and Valiant and for reasons inexplicable in 2004 when DC signed the deal with IPC Media (holder of the rights to the Fleetway characters) in 2004, there was never an Adam Eterno Vertigo mini-series. Though there really, really should have been.

Francisco Solano Lopez,