Neal Adams became a cult star as a graphic artist with DC and Marvel comics during the late 1960s and '70s through his work on series such as "The Spectre," "Batman," "Superman" and "Green Lantern" — and also his contributions, at Marvel, to "X-Men" and "Conan the Barbarian."

Since then Adams, now 68, has — in between designing high-tech theme-park rides — brought his vision to bear in the world of cinema. He resurrected the old campy Batman, turning him into today's Dark Knight, and brought "X-Men" to the big screen. He will also be among the first people to thank when animatics-charged "motion" comics appear in the near future.

But what really consumes Adams these days is the way he's drawn to Growing Earth Theory — to the point where he's spent more than half a million dollars of his own money striving to contribute to the scientific debates. He has, through his Continuity Associates studio, produced more than a dozen video clips demonstrating expansion tectonics in action all around our solar system that have been viewed by millions online.

Then there's "A Conversation Between Two Guys in a Bar or a New Model of the Universe," a graphic-novel-in-waiting in which Adams takes on mainstream science and accepted wisdoms about dinosaurs in tongue-and-cheek layman's terms.

Specifically, Adams has for more than a decade been the outspoken voice of Growing Earth Theory, openly challenging the scientific community to stop ignoring the evidence of growth he cites not only here on Earth and across our solar system, but in the universe as well.

In support of his case, Adams believes he may have identified the "missing mechanism" concerning the creation of new matter in the work of the late Australian geologist Samuel W. Carey, the acknowledged father of modern expansion tectonics whose work he has been studying for almost 40 years.

"Nobody has ever disproved Sam Carey's work. . . . And the evidence coming in from our planetary missions shows that tectonic growth is happening all over," he said in a recent interview for The Japan Times in New York.

While berating much of the scientific community — which he accuses of having become so specialized as to be unable or unwilling to examine challenging research from outside — he doesn't shrink from talking its language.

The "missing mechanism" he tells its members, and millions more through the Internet, is to be found in the phenomenon known as subatomic pair production.

This cutting-edge concept describes a process in which an electron and positron are simultaneously created in the vicinity of a nucleus or subatomic particle. In more accessible language, it is thought to be an example of the materialization of energy as predicted by special relativity theory in the scientific realm of quantum electrodynamics.

"I'm upsetting all the apple carts," he said. "This really comes down to a new science. I'd like to sugarcoat it, but I can't. Most of what we know or assume to know is wrong one way or another. That's kind of a kick in the ass to everyone, isn't it?"

He added that, "What surprises me is that people do not want to talk reasonably about this in any way.

"It won't change our moral beliefs, but it will totally change our view of the universe. It won't help us find more oil, but it will guarantee that we have more than enough oil while we change over to hydrogen power," he said.

To find out more about Neal Adams' work, visit www.nealadams.com/nmu.html