Mystery in Space #94 (1964)

An Allied Solar Enterprises pilot makes a delivery to the planet Zulcan in the Alpha Centauri system and decides to go exploring. He stumbles upon a crashed spaceship containing a ray gun and a mysterious device. When the pilot takes it back to their headquarters on Jupiter, the device releases an army of toad-like monsters. Space Ranger springs into action to save people from the city being demolished by the giant toads, which vanish into thin air. Space Ranger inspects the ray gun and discovers that it belonged to Adam Strange. Adam Strange mysteriously disappeared decades ago, and after his disappearance his diary was found documenting his travels to Rann. Space Ranger travels to the York Museum to read Adam's diary, looking for clues As his diary recounts, Adam Strange once encountered the interplanetary thief Okri-Ro using a giant flying sickle to chop down forests on Rann. After destroying the sickle by tricking it into chopping down a transmission tower, Adam and Alanna tracked down Okri-Ro to a cave where he's unearthed various ancient weapons. Using one weapon, Okri-Ro shrinks Adam and Alanna and leaves them to fend for themselves in the wild while he robs several places on Rann. Adam and Alanna manage to make their way back to the cave. The weapons are on a synchronous recharge cycle, meaning that as Okri-Ro's shrink ray stops working a weapon in the cave begins to activate. Thinking quickly, Adam crushes it with a stalactite before it can go off. Okri-Ro returns to the cave to find that the shrinking has worn off. As he tries to flee back into the ship to escape with two of the weapons, Adam wrestles with him. During the scuffle, Adam drops his ray gun and the ship is accidentally launched without them on it. Afterwards, Adam unearthed an indecipherable plaque near where the weapons were. In the present, Space Ranger realises that the ship on Zulcan was Okri-Ro's and that another weapon is in danger of activating. Travelling to Zulcan, he finds that the other weapon has already been stolen. After some inquiries, Space Ranger is led to the Adam Strange Museum on Rann, where Adam Strange Jr. works as a curator. Cryll translates the plaque by perfectly transforming into a famous Venusian scientist. According to the plaque, aliens from another galaxy planned to test their weapons on Rann but never did for some reason. Adam Strange Jr. decides to help Space Ranger and dons his father’s old costume. Together, they manage to contain the fifth weapon, which would’ve released a spray of poisonous dye onto a city. Adam Strange Jr. decides to continue working as a crime-fighter.