- "We Terrans may not be much on the eight basic strategies of aerial inertia tactics... but we are complete bastards."
— Adam Strange
Adam Strange steps outside in the morning to look at the liquid animals that live within Sardath's pool. Keela Roo, one of the visiting Thanagarians, accosts him. He asks her what her people want the Zeta-Beam for, having asked for it in exchange for helping Rann with its famine. She gives the impression that their assistance is essentially a selfless gesture, as it only satisfies Thanagarian curiosity. Adam then questions her professed noble intent, and she responds that in exchange for killing Rann's monsters, Adam exacts the price of the princess Alanna's love, and a life of glamour and prestige. For this reason, she argues that Adam cannot take the moral high ground.
Strange puts on his uniform while his wife Alanna uses a special device to determine whether she is pregnant. The result is not yet evident, though. She and Adam then go for a ride using his jet pack, and as they fly above Ranagar, Alanna spots the Swamp Thing on a nearby roof. Adam prepares to fight it, but when Swamp Thing says in English that he has come to return Adam's pack to him, he's astonished and touches down to speak with him. Swamp Thing admits that he is the same Swamp Thing that attacked Gotham City, and they determine that they had collided with each other in the Zeta-Beam.
As they are talking, it suddenly occurs to Strange that the Swamp Thing could use his abilities to make the vegetation of Rann grow back, and heal the famine that has struck there. Swamp Thing agrees to try, and they decide to present their idea to Sardath. When Sardath and the elders agree to accept Swamp Thing's help, the Thanagarians become angry, as they had relied upon getting the Zeta-Beam in exchange for their aid.
Swamp Thing wanders into the desert, and then reaches into The Green, hoping to find some living vegetation whose growth he can encourage. Just as he finds one, and begins to latch onto it, his connection is severed when one of the Thanagarians cleaves through his torso with an axe. The axe attack proves to be a distraction, as Keela Roo appears and zaps him with a mind-eater – a device which could conceivably kill him.
Adam, alerted by the blast of the mind-eater's beam, rushes to Swamp Thing's rescue. Scira Ek quickly gives chase to Adam, gaining on him with his axe. Cleverly, Adam releases the full burn of his jet-pack into Scira Ek's face, and the blinded hawkman plummets to his death on the ground. Unfortunately, Keela Roo is right behind him. As she taunts him with the cryptic claim that "Sardath is about to lose his stud-ape," her superior skill in aerial combat sends Adam reeling. Desperately, Strange returns to Sardath's pool. Just as he passes over it, one of the liquid animals within emerges, and envelopes his Thanagarian pursuer. Keela Roo struggles to breathe within the liquid body of the creature, and within three minutes, she is drowned.
With the Thanagarians disposed of, Swamp Thing finally reaches the healthy vegetation deep under the surface of Rann, and encourages its growth. The planet's soil becomes fertile. Later, Adam and the Swamp Thing discuss why the Thanagarians may have wanted the Zeta-Beam. Swamp Thing suggests that they may have meant to attack Earth, but Adam brushes it off. Adam suggests that Swamp Thing may be able to resolve his bio-electrical issues that prevent him from returning to earth somewhere on the planet J586 – which has a vegetable civilization.
Before Adam is taken by the Zeta-Beam, Swamp Thing asks him to deliver a message to his wife Abby that he is alive, and somewhere out there hoping to return. Adam promises to deliver the message, and the Swamp Thing leaves for J586.
After Swamp Thing has left, Alanna rushes outside and embraces Adam, exclaiming that she is finally pregnant. This is a doubly important pregnancy, because it will mean the first instance of a fruitful Rannian womb in perhaps decades. As they embrace happily, the Zeta-Beam kicks in, and Adam is taken from his wife's arms. She will be left to raise their child by herself until the next Zeta Beam appears.
Tropes
- Combat Pragmatist: Humans may not be as effective in airborne fighting like the Thanagarians, but we are capable of fighting dirty.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Discussed. Adam reflects sadly that Alanna will, for the time being, have to console their future child with tales of the father "who visits only sometimes," since the mechanics of the Beam are such that he can't travel to or from Rann whenever he wishes.
- Call-Back: To a DC Showcase storyline from 1978 involving a Rann-Thanagar War
. - Foreshadowing: For future developments in other DC titles.
- Keela Roo referring to Strange as Sardath's "stud ape" is the first hint of The Reveal, in Richard Bruning's 1990 miniseries The Man of Two Worlds, that the real reason Strange keeps getting teleported to Rann is to help the sterile Rannians repopulate their species.
- Swamp Thing's guess that the Thanagarians wanted the Zeta-Beam in order to attack Earth proves correct in the 1988 Invasion! Crisis Crossover.
- Going Native: Discussed. Keela Roo speaks disapprovingly of Katar and Shayera Hol (Hawkman and Hawkwoman) for switching loyalties from Thanagar to Earth.
- Humans Are Bastards: Adam lampshades it, as a positive comment on being a Combat Pragmatist.
- Inconvenient Summons: The Zeta-Beam returns Adam to Earth just as Alanna tells him she's finally pregnant.
- Karmic Death: Keela gets tricked into pursuing Adam too close to Alanna's sentient water pets, who can shapeshift into any semi-solid form. One of the pets knocks Keela into their pool, and rises up as a giant cat in order to consume (and drown) the winged Thanagarian like a canary.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: As he spots the mind-eater beam attacking the Swamp Thing, Strange recalls that Thanagarians brandish primitive weapons in order to catch enemies unprepared for their advanced combat technology.
- Pride Before a Fall: Having injured Strange in combat, Keela Roo boasts of her seemingly assured victory and of her race's alleged superiority to humankind.
- Underestimating Badassery: Scira Ek and Keela Roo, despite their superior aerial combat skills, both meet their end by underestimating Adam's ability to improvise — and to fight dirty. See page quote.
