TOM STRONG'S TERRIFIC TALES #1

By: Tony Whitt
Date: Friday, November 30, 2001

Last time I reviewed an anthology from America's Best Comics, I wondered whether the company's moniker really applied and where the Alan Moore magic had gone. Looks like I was looking at the wrong anthology. In a tribute to the old SUPERMAN FAMILY titleor perhaps it's more accurately a tribute to the Marvel FamilyMoore begins a new series that collects some truly terrific tales revolving around the Strong clan.

In the first story, "The Dark Inside," Moore and artist Paul Rivoche evoke the terror of John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?" Strong and two agents from the newly renamed Central Intelligence Agency visit the Arctic in 1950 and discover a gigantic hole where their instruments say there should be a stretch of unbroken snow. As they search for escaped Nazi archaeologists, they find something far more sinister below the ice. Plotwise and artistically, this is the strongest tale in the collection: Moore's script never hits a sour note, and the artwork is as crisp and clean as the Arctic air it depicts.

The artwork carries the show as Jamie Hernandez of LOVE AND ROCKETS fame illustrates Moore's textless Tesla tale, "Tesla Time." Matt Hollingsworth provides color for some of the most incredibly funny work I've seen from Jaime, and given my longtime love for L&R, that's saying something. Change Tesla to Maggie, and this story could have come straight from any of the first ten issues.

The collection switches back to the serious as we follow an adventure of Young Tom Strong in "The Fiend of the Forgotten Shore." It's a story written by the only other writer besides Rick Veitch to script an ABC comic, Steve Moore. While this story might not have the same kick as "The Dark Inside," it certainly justifies Alan Moore's faith. Alan Weiss's artwork is difficult to characterize, but it fits in perfectly with the Victorian-era 'boy's adventure tales' that the Young Tom Strong feature promises.


Steve Moore also contributes the first JONNI FUTURE story, which he has co-created with artist Arthur Adams. It's a promising opening installment about a young woman who inherits a house from her writer uncle, a science fiction scribe whose pulp fiction seems preposterous...until she meets one of the talking tigers from his stories and steps into the very world that he described. This feature owes a huge debt to such science fantasy series as JOHN CARTER, WARLORD OF MARS and FLASH GORDON, but rather than seeming derivative, JONNI FUTURE looks more than capable of paying off that debt. If the script doesn't grab you, Adams's artwork, which is the most ornate in the whole book, will. It's the perfect contrast to Rivoche's no-frills style at the beginning of the book, and the perfect ending to a great collection. So...where's issue #2 already?

TOM STRONG'S TERRIFIC TALES

Grade: A-

Issue: 1

Author(s): Alan Moore, Steve Moore, Paul Rivoche, Arthur Adams, Alan Weiss, Jaime Hernandez

Publisher: America's Best Comics

Price: $3.50