Category: Tom Strong
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The guest writers continue with Geoff Johns. He has John Paul Leon on the art for a pseudo-eclectic story of a Tom Strong fan who has the power to reshape reality when he’s upset. Somehow Johns, who does give the guy a backstory, doesn’t realize the universe would be in shambles. Johns even mocks the…
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What did I just read? Hogan’s back writing again and he does a decent enough job scripting, but the plotting is a disaster. It starts okay–Tom Strong’s ex-girlfriend (from the thirties) turns out to be a cryogenically preserved ice person and he’s trying to help her. So he brings her home. One might think it…
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Sprouse is back for this fast-paced done-in-one with Tom, Tesla and Val on the moon helping Svetlana find her missing husband. There’s a nice opening with Telsa and Val–he’s still learning English and it’s frustrating her. Even though it’s Peter Hogan writing, he manages to continue Moore’s light comedic touch, but always with some seriousness…
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Moore brings it all together for the Tom Stone finale. He even gets around to a scene or two I really wasn’t expecting. It turns out there are drawbacks to a more emotional Tom Strong or Tom Stone. They play out unexpectedly for the characters, but maybe expectedly for the superhero comic book medium. Ordway…
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The Tom Stone story continues with Moore doing a combination alternate history lesson of the twentieth century–with Tom Stone and the good Saveen rehabilitating all the villains instead of fighting them–and wink at the traditional Tom Strong back story. The most interesting part is how Tom Strong’s mother is basically the only villain in the…
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Jerry Ordway guest pencils for a special alternate history story. The shipwreck on the tropical island goes differently and so there’s never a Tom Strong. Instead, there’s a Tom Stone, son of Tom Strong’s mother and the ship captain. His understanding of racism firsthand–and still having the empathy to ignore it and help everyone–allows him…
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This issue, containing three different stories by two writers (Moore on the first and last, daughter Leah on the middle one) and three different art teams (Howard Chaykin on the first, Shawn McManus and Steve Mitchell on the second, regular artists Sprouse and Story on the third), is mostly awesome. Moore and Chaykin do a…
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I think all of the jokes Moore gives Svetlana X–proud Russian science hero who has an interesting way of saying things (Moore gives her the cursing, only with accurate if misunderstood translation)–just primes for the big finish. He ends the story arc involving the giant space ants with a great cheap joke. There’s a lot…
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Moore’s subplot for this issue is Tesla and her fire monster boyfriend, Val. Mostly with her mom trying to keep the progress of their relationship quiet in front of Tom. It never gets a full resolution but Moore foreshadows one nicely. The main plot is the preparation for the space battle against the giant ants.…
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Moore has a bunch of fun this issue. He enlists the Strongmen of America and they even get to sleepover with the Strong’s. The way he handles the absurdity of these kids getting to sleep over at a superhero’s is great and all, but having Dhalua call their mothers’ to get permission is even better.…
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Moore plots out the issue precisely, not just how he uses the action, but also how he uses Tesla. The issue is just as much hers as Tom’s… or maybe even a little bit more. The issue opens with her disappearing under extreme circumstances. Tom, Dhalua and Solomon have to go rescue her. Moore gets…
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Hogan’s a show-off. He’s great, he does a great job here, but he’s a show-off. After a very tense opening, things gradually calm down and resolve. Sprouse and Story mostly do talking heads for the first third of the comic. Then comes this sequence with a presidential voiceover. At first it seems tedious–like Hogan’s trying…
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Tom Strange finally appears in the issue–which is good, since Hogan’s only got one left. Besides the opening, which features another new (or returning from a previous limited series) character, a lot of the issue is just the Toms talking. Tom Strange is set up on the moon (not sure why it was such a…
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This issue doesn’t really have enough content to be a full issue, except Hogan has decided he wants to do a couple serious things and they’re going to be worth the cover price. And they are worth that cover price. Without spoiling, the first thing has to do with Tom Strong, the character. Hogan makes…
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Hogan continues his leisurely, pleasant pace. Tom Strong might be the one with his name in the title but Hogan’s really having fun doing his Terra Obscura sequel. He introduces the cast from that series again, going through all their changes. He has so much fun with their interplay, the whole plague thing is in…
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Whew, it’s a six issue series, not four. I was wondering what the heck Hogan at the end of the issue if he only had four. It’s a good enough issue–Tom and Val get to Terra Obscura, find it decimated by plague (or something) and hang out with a couple of the world’s science heroes–but…
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So Planet of Peril turns out to be a sequel to the Terra Obscura series Hogan’s done. Those are great so I have high hopes for this one. And so far, Hogan doesn’t disappoint. He has Chris Sprouse and Karl Story on art so it’s good, but he also comes up with this great meta…
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While this issue features some incredibly cool writing from Moore (more on it in a bit), it also has amazing art. It’s a five-part story, with Sprouse and Gordon on for the prologue. Then it’s Russ Heath (doing a teenage Tom Strong), Kyle Baker (doing the bunny Tom Strong analogue) and, finally, Pete Poplaski doing…
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Moore does a really nice job finishing up his Tom Strange two-parter, especially given how much material he brings into it. The issue opens with the two Toms unfreezing all of Terra Obscura’s heroes and introducing them. They aren’t quite analogs to popular superheroes, but it’s hard not to see Batman in the Terror, who…
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Moore really brings in the weight this issue. Not emotionally, but in terms of complexity. He introduces Tom Strange and Tom Strange’s whole alternate Earth. The complexity comes in with the explanation it’s not really an alternate Earth but a duplicate one, albeit with some differences, elsewhere in the galaxy. It’s hard to comprehend, which…
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The issue’s a family affair, with Tom, Dhalua and Tesla each getting their own story. Paul Chadwick handles the art on Tom’s story. His style mimics Sprouse quite a bit. If I hadn’t seen Chadwick’s name, I’d have no idea. It’s a nice little story, with Moore mixing jungle adventure with positivist sci-fi. It ends…
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There’s no feature this issue, just three short stories. The first, with art by Alan Weiss, is a throwback to “The Twilight Zone” as Tom and Solomon find themselves in the Old West. All the residents have three eyes, eat weird things and no longer identify colors with the same words. It’s a fast little…
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Moore finishes the story with an unexpected conclusion, one he hadn’t hinted at earlier and should have. Tom Strong’s birthday was coming up. It ends at his birthday party (and the Millennium City Y2K party). It’s a great scene, but it’s sort of tacked on. This issue is significant for one major reason. Moore talks…
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It’s appropriate Gibbons draws the flashback story here, given the villain–Saveen–reminds a great deal of the villains in Watchmen. Moore doesn’t suggest a lot of superheroes in Tom Strong, it’s all a lot more science-based. The issue is, for a large part, a walk through Tom Strong’s past. Saveen’s set up a little museum to…
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The backup this issue is from Jerry Ordway, so the art’s good. It’s not really a backup, it’s more an aside to give the reader some more information. But Moore and Ordway present it as a fifties or sixties sci-fi comic, albeit with better dialogue. Tom Strong gives Moore a nice opportunity to do revisionist…
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It’s the first two-parter (or multi-part, I have no idea) story. I sort of figured Moore would do Tom Strong as done-in-ones, just because it fits. Though he does get to a good hard cliffhanger–I’m going to start using the terms hard and soft cliffhanger, sort of like hard sci-fi–I just wish I hadn’t been…
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Tom Strong is the main character this issue, the third in the series, Tom Strong, and the first issue where he is that main character. Moore even does a bunch of first person narration, which gives the reader the first insight into him. The story is fairly straightforward (especially for a Tom Strong). Aztecs from…
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It’s the second issue and Moore’s confident enough he has the reader’s attention he doesn’t even bring Tom Strong in until the last five or six pages. And then it’s as something of a deus ex machina. It’s interesting how in the present action, Tom Strong is more thoughtful, when ten years before (in 1987),…
The Stop Button 