TOM STRONG'S TERRIFIC TALES # 7
© 2003 America's Best Comics

Mania Grade: B-
Issue: 7
Authors: Alan Moore, Steve Moore, Alan Weiss, Art Adams, Shawn McManus
Publisher: America's Best Comics
Price: $2.95

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TOM STRONG'S TERRIFIC TALES # 7

TOM STRONG'S TERRIFIC TALES is a queer duck of a title: it's ostensibly an anthology, but one which deals with only three storylines, those being the standalone adventures of Tom Strong, Young Tom Strong, and Jonni Future. As a rule, these stories run on the short side, most of them ending just when things are getting good - and in the case of the Young Tom Strong stories, ending before they really get anywhere.

Lest anyone think I'm knocking Steve Moore and trying to compare him unfavorably to Alan Moore, I have to say how much I enjoy his scripts on the Jonni Future feature - of the three features, I've long maintained that this one could easily be made into a book in its own right. (Tom Strong, of course, already has his own, so let's not be redundant.) In this issue, Jonni's tiger-man companion Jermaal is taken to a death planet where people are allowed to experience their most secret desire at the moment of their death, while their life energies are drained to allow Cessatia, the Empress of Death, to go on living. It's a great concept, bolstered by Art Adams' impressive artwork, and it could have sustained an entire issue. It's also a nice touch to see real character development here, as Jermaal's secret desire to make love to Jonni is revealed. It's not Steve Moore's script-writing that's to blame, then - it's the eight pages that such a strong feature is stuffed into that causes the problem.

Also, I'd be hard-pressed to say that Alan Moore was any better than Steve Moore this time around. The Tom Strong feature this issue is a sort of tribute to LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND in which a little boy dreams of traveling with his stuffed animals to Attabar Teru and having an adventure with Tom. Some bits of the story, written in inconsistent nursery rhyme verse, are cutesy rather than cute, even though the interruption of the fantasy so that the boy can take a bathroom break is a nice touch. The real fun here is Shawn McManus' artwork rather than Alan Moore's writing.

So it's not Steve Moore I'm knocking for the Young Tom Strong feature - it's the fact that the feature has no interest in and of itself. Even "The Dark Gods' Gambit," which features the first hints that Tom and Dhalua may end up being more than babysitter and baby someday, doesn't inspire many thrills - setting each story on Attabar Teru, even in a house created by the Dark Gods, limits what Moore has to work with. Perhaps it's time to give this book completely over to Jonni Future, which has a lot more to offer in the way of creative possibilities - and to let Young Tom Strong grow up a bit before we visit him again.