Tom Strong - Book Two: America's Best Comics Magazine

Tesla meets Val Van Garm or whatever his name is close to the beginning of Book Two of Tom Strong, and the story seems to inch a bit closer to adult sexuality, though later on when Tesla is forced to put down the antics of the young Kid Tilt, she seems entirely childlike all over again. Even though, as she reminds Kid Tilt, she's sixty. What's the problem with Tom Strong? Well, oyu don't really care about any of the characters, perhaps because they're all incredibly old and so advanced medically it looks as though they will live forever. That's why the Tom Strange epic story really makes a difference in Book Two, for you get the alternative emblem of a Tom Strong defeated by life's twists and turns, and visibly hurt and distraught. The amazing image of Tom Strange crossing the Milky Way by foot to get to his earth double is played just right, for once a moment that isn't super whimsical and postmodern. (Though afterwards I was thinking, this really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.) Not that the whimsical and postmodern touches don't have their charms--I like seeing Tom with his search-board tucked under his arm, and the repeating multiples of Tom and Tesla (in "Too Many Teslas"?") have a wacky, Lewis Carroll-like brio that threatens to overturn the master narrative of identification. I'm hooked all right, even on those Western dopes with an extra eye in the middle of their foreheads, but why couldn't Tom Strong have been better? Too many Teslas, or too many cooks?

More adventures of a Doc Savage type that does have some time for women. In this trade, we get the backstory to the excellent Terra Obscura spinoff. An desperate and exhausted Tom Strange has crossed 30 light years to get help for his planet, a near identical copy to Earth. A huge alien entity has strated remodelling it to turn it into a spaceship, and he has nowhere else to turn.

Tom Strong is a hard-punching, quick-thinking man of action whose every escapade speaks of the progress of mankind as a whole. He's a superhero in a sense that predates the term itself; whether the man is creeping through deepest enchanted jungle or patrolling the cable-car skyways of Millenium City, he resonates the joy of not only the adventure at hand, but all those to come. His book reads with the freedom of a pulp novel and the authority of a modern masterpiece. He's Superman, Doc Savage and Tintin mixed together, with a bit of Phileas Fogg added for flavor. Buy this book. If you enjoy comics, like the kind of story you can reasonably call a 'yarn,' or simply think of yourself as a bit of a hero in your own right, you'll certainly enjoy it.