Preview: More Wonderfully Strange Adventures In Time With ‘Adam Eterno’

The man who can’t die keeps travelling in time to fight evil and injustice — it’s Adam Eterno!

Adam Eterno’s one of those wonderfully strange sorts of British heroes of old. An eternal warrior cursed by an old alchemist to live forever. But there’s just this one problem – if he’s struck by a solid gold weapon, he dies forever.

Cursed by an old alchemist to live forever – unless struck from a weapon made of gold – Adam Eterno has gained the power to travel through the ages, fighting evil and injustice.

“Doomed never to die, he wandered the Earth for centuries on end!” was the tagline for this one, starting off in strangely dark mood (especially given this was a kids’ comic) as Adam tried to free himself from the curse by finding that pure gold weapon to end it all. But after a while, writer Tom Tully shifted it to Adam the hero, using his powers of immortality and time travel to fight the bad guys through the ages.

And here in Grunn the Grim, we get the first non-Tom Tully-written tales, with first Chris Lowder and then E. George Cowan writing the stories you’ll find in here, including having Adam head into the future for the first time in Grunn The Grim.

Whereas that first volume was weirdly dark and had Adam hunting down increasingly bizarre ways of killing himself with a seemingly never-ending supply of gold weapons in whatever time he found himself in, this second volume switches it round. This time Adam’s using his powers for good whilst always managing to find his enemies armed with something gold. Who’d have thought that gold would be that common throughout history?

Indeed, the first story, which may well have been written by Tully, no one’s actually sure, has poor Adam dropped off into the land of the Aztecs, where gold’s rather hilariously everywhere and Adam’s practically running the place just trying to avoid it all.

But despite all that accidental hilarity going on with gold turning up everywhere Adam happens to be, you just can’t help but be dragged into the frenetic pace of the stories. Tully, Lowder, and Cowan were all well used to the three- or four-page weekly serial format and their tales just never let up at all, adopting an easy and all rather thrilling rhythm to keep you turning the pages.

So, we’re off to an adventure with the Aztecs fighting off the Spanish invaders, a trip to the future to defeat the tyrannical Grunn the Grim, then back in time once more for capers with a dark ages magician, running into trouble with Roundheads and Cavaliers in the English Civil War, fighting WWII nazis, 1930s American mobsters, the Wild West, prehistoric times with Neanderthals and aliens, high sea thrills with pirates, and more. And all of them with plenty of gold to hand.

All of this illustrated by the great Solano Lopez, another of those great Argentine artists who found plentiful work in Brit comics. His pages are, of necessity, packed with panels, but his stark lines and solid blacks fill the pages with some truly great moments.

This volume includes those first tales when Thunder merged into Lion comic, and also has a couple of neatly done Lion & Thunder Holiday Special tales from 1971 and 1972. It’s available in softcover and the Treasury of British Comics webstore exclusive hardcover.

It’s cliched perhaps, unintentionally hilarious with all that gold weaponry threatening Adam at every turn, but it’s also something fast and really rather fun, comics done fast and furious, cranked out weekly but cranked out with skill and style.

ADAM ETERNO VOLUME 2: GRUNN THE GRIM

Lion & Thunder strips Written by Chris Lowder & E. George Cowan. (And there’s the distinct possibility that Tom Tully wrote the first adventure). Art by Francisco Solano López.

Lion & Thunder Holiday Special extras by unknown writers, art by John Catchpole and Eric Bradbury.

Cover by Andrew Howat

Published by the Treasury of British Comics on 26 February 2025

Originally serialised in Lion & Thunder March-August 1971 and Lion & Thunder Holiday Specials 1971 & 1972

Now, a little preview…