Miscellaneous (non-Superhero) - Page 10-B

Tom Strong: Book One 2000 (SC TPB)

Written by Alan Moore. Pencils by Chris Sprouse, with Arthur Adams, Jerry Ordway, Dave Gibbons, Gary Frank. Inks by Al Gordon.
Colours: Tad Ehrlich, Mike Garcia. Letters: Todd Klein.

Reprinting: Tom Strong #1-7 (1999-2000) with covers

Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5)

Number of readings: 1 (some issues more)

Additional notes: "mock" biographical text intro about Tom Strong; character sketches.

Published by America's Best Comics

Tom Strong is the hero and champion of Millennium City, USA. Owing more than a tip of the hat to pulp hero, Doc Savage, Strong is a super strong, super intelligent adventurer/scientist/crime fighter with his own "family" of aides -- some literally family (his beautiful wife, Dhalua, and beautiful teenage daughter, Tesla, both almost as tough as he), and some figuratively (a robot, Pneuman, and talking gorilla, Solomon -- whose bickering relationship owes a lot to Doc Savage's Ham and Monk). Strong and his family are long lived, thanks to good genes and rare tribal herbs, and have lived in Millennium City for decades, acquiring a stable of recurring foes and a legion of admirers, including the fan club, Strongmen of America.

All of which is the premise of Alan Moore's mix of nostalgic homage, adventure, and tongue-in-cheek parody -- a premise that included over 30 issues of the Tom Strong main series, as well as assorted spin-offs and off shoot comics, from Tom Strong Family to Terra Obscura.

Moore, is of course, one of the most respected writers in modern comics, but as I've mentioned before, I tend to be more mixed in my reaction to his work -- liking some of his stuff, but other of his work leaves me cold, feeling Moore is too obsessed with intellectual deconstructionism than telling a story about people. Tom Strong clearly reflects some of Moore's vices...even as, at other times, it overcome them.

This collection of the first seven issues of the on-going series -- some stand alone tales and a four parter stretching from issue #4-7 -- are brimming with plenty of wild and imaginative ideas as Moore envisions his hero and his environs, coming up with clever -- and even genuinely menacing -- adversaries, like the Modular Man, a computer made up of individual robotic components that can literally overrun a city block (though Moore repeats himself, as later in this collection he throws in another foe that is basically the same concept, except organic rather than mechanical).

The art is mostly beautiful and effective throughout. Principal artist Chris Sprouse has a clean, clear style that is detailed, without being cluttered, and realistic, with just enough hint of caricature here and there to lend a deliberate cartooniness to things at time (Tom Strong is broad shouldered and implausibly top-heavy). And Sprouse has a nice eye for composition, capturing the necessary grandeur or mood of a moment. Adding to the art in occasional flashback sequences are such well-regarded talents as Jerry Ordway and Gary Frank. My main quibble (minor though it is) would be Arthur Adams, whose style is more cartoony than the others.

Conceptually, Tom Strong is part of a whole movement in comics, where one time fans turned comics professionals want to create their own properties...yet what they love about comics is the whole notion of the backstories and mythos that accumulate behind long established characters. So they create these "new" characters...that are deliberately meant to evoke established characters (or at least archetypes) and insert them into ready-made universes with an entire history of past adventures and "recurring" adversaries. (It puts me a bit in mind of an old Elric story by Michael Moorcock wherein a character wades into the chaos-stuff surrounding his known world, literally carving out new lands...including peoples who spring into being with their own history and culture already established). Moore's been this route before with Supreme and even The Watchmen, and Kurt Busiek's done it with Astro City, Robert Kirkman with Invincible, etc.

It's an irresistible idea (to be up front: I've done it myself in my own "small press" way). But it can also a bit lazy, as instead of building and developing your character and world, you just jump to the good stuff. But without the build up, it will never have the same resonance. Tom Strong having a showdown with his "arch" foe, Paul Saveen, fails to have the same impact as, say, Spider-Man battling Doctor Octopus...because Saveen barely appeared before. As such it has an intellectual, rather than emotional, resonance -- you enjoy it for what it's supposed to be like, rather than enjoy it for what it is. And sometimes it smacks of creators playing with the trappings of storytelling rather than the content -- like a painter more concerned with what colours he'll employ than what he's actually trying to paint.

In that vein, the opening intoduction text piece, done as a kind of pseudo history of Tom Strong, provides a bit of foreshadowing for some of the stories to come...but it's an introduction original to this collection, and wasn't part of the original comics!

With that being said, Tom Strong works better than some such examples of this particular sub-genre. As noted, Moore does offer up some clever concepts, and the plots are coherent plots, not just patched-together highlights. The "instant" history means that Moore (as he did in his Supreme run) will throw in flashback sequences supposedly showing an earlier adventure, often presented in a style meant to evoke older comics. And though there are aspects of Tom Strong that are clearly meant to be obvious rip-offs of other characters, Moore does offer some individualistic variations...such as giving him a wife and teen-age daughter to share his adventures. As well, sometimes in these sorts of projects creators can use their homage to stories of yesteryear as an excuse to dredge up attitudes best left in yesteryear. But here, Moore makes Strong's wife and daughter black.

Yet in other ways, Moore does happily employ archaic mentalities, such as Solomon, Strong's talking gorilla, being a product of Strong's experimentation -- something that older stories might've employed without a second thought, but modern sensibilities might regard as unethical and animal abuse. Though it does inspire an amusing joke when Tom first speculates on the idea.

And that's sort of the point -- and the problem -- with these sorts of projects. There's a sense that even the creators can't quite decide on a tone. Is it about characters and plots meant to stand on their own? Or is it mainly meant to be read as a nostalgic echo? Is it meant to evoke the spirit and sensibilities that the writer remembers imbibing from stories he read as a child...or is it meant to be a modern up-grade? Is it an affectionate homage to a simpler, less pretentious era of storytelling...or is it a snickering parody of stories the writer feels he, and his readers, have out grown?

And Tom Strong seems to be a little of all of the above. But, as such, some of the separate impulses cancel each other out...or at least dull their edges.

So there are aspects of tongue-in-cheek...even as there are other spots that are meant to be genuine adventure, or drama. But though Moore pulls it off enough that you can sort of like Tom and his family...you don't fully believe in them or their emotions. When, in the multi-issue arc, Tom's foes reveal the nature of their plan for ultimate revenge on him, it's dramatic...but not as dramatic as when it's been used in other stories which weren't cocooning themselves in a web of self-reflective artifice. And although there are amusing quips and humorous ideas, it's not really as funny as some other modern comics that come to mind -- comics that manage to take themselves more seriously, but nonetheless with funnier badinage.

Even the sensibility seems uneven. On one hand, Moore seems to be trying to evoke the wholesomeness of the days when comics were more family friendly...then can't resist throwing in raunchy and "adult" jokes, such as cleavage baring female Nazi pilots self-called "Slutstaffel".

And perhaps that's why I retain a certain ambivalence to Tom Strong. It is enjoyable, the plots decently paced, the ideas interesting. Tom Strong is a surer, more successful take on styles and themes Moore first tried in his Supreme run. It's beautifully illustrated by Sprouse and the others. For the most part it avoids some of the undercurrents that I feel have marred some of Moore's other works (albeit, I'm usually in the minority in feeling such undercurrents exist). For the most part it lacks the nastiness and violence Moore's stuff can revel in.

But at the end of this volume, you can find yourself entertained...but not really absorbed. The comic still more an intellectual game than an emotional journey. Moore's characters and their world likeable...but still more an echo than the real thing.

Coverprice: $__ CDN./$14.95 USA.

The Town That Didn't Exist 1989 (SC GN) 54 pages

Written by Pierre Christian. Illustrated and Coloured by Enki Bilal.
Translated by Tom Leighton. Editor: Bernd Metz.

Originally published as "La ville que n'existait pas" (1977)

Rating: * (out of 5)

Number of readings: 1

English edition originally published by Catlan Communications

Slight Mature Readers warning

When a depressed town's old money patriarch -- who owns just about everything -- dies, no one knows quite what to expect. The disgruntled, impoverished workers -- many on strike -- and the bourgeois elite are all surprised by the arrival of the dead man's paraplegic grand daughter...and her unusual plans to make things better by literally remaking the city as a Utopia.

And that synopsis is part of the problem. In order to describe it, I have to practically give everything away. That's because "The Town That Didn't Exist" is basically a short story. Sure, many graphic novels aren't really novels, more like movies, but "The Town That Didn't Exist" isn't even that. I assume Pierre Christian intended it as more a fable or parable, rather than a full fledge story peopled by flesh and blood characters.

I'm not overly familiar with European comics, but this fits the (unfortunate) image I have of them. In fact, it's a bit like a European (or Canadian) Art movie. It's thin and shallow -- the idea, the high concept, is everything and there's little beyond it. It's not the town that doesn't exist, but the characters, who are essentially props rather than human beings.

Enki Bilal's art is nice to look at, but likewise cold and antiseptic. Comic book artists aren't just artists, but storytellers. Their images have to move the story along, conveying nuances, mood, etc. That doesn't really happen here. All the characters wander about with blank expressions (again, like an art movie) -- that is, when Bilal deigns to even show faces as opposed to backs of heads -- and the dialogue doesn't really flesh them out any better.

The premise is interesting, but not particularly original, and without enough story or characterization it just seems, well, awfully thin. In fact, if you pick it up, don't read the back cover description, or there really won't be any reason to read the interior.

Frankly, there was so little to it, I'm wondering if I came in the middle of a multi-issue story.

Original cover price: $16.75 CDN./$11.95 USA
The book has recently been re-issued in a slightly more expensive hardcover version.

Uncle Sam 2000 (TPB) 104 pages

Written by Steve Darnall. Painted by Alex Ross.
Letters: Todd Klein.

Reprinting: The two issue prestige format mini-series (1997)

Rating: * * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: 1

Published by DC Comics / Vertigo

Firstly, this evocation of the symbol of America is not the comicbook superhero published in the 1940s by Quality Comics, and later revived by DC Comics as one of the Freedom Fighters.

We're introduced to this Sam as a raving derelict being evicted from a hospital, his red-white-and-blue suit stained and filthy. "There's nothing we can do for you," a doctor says, averting his eyes. Thus begins Uncle Sam, Steve Darnall and Alex Ross' angry, sad, frustrated lament for the American Dream.

The homeless Sam wanders the streets, suffering from partial amnesia, but experiencing disorienting dream-like flashbacks to the revolutionary war or being lectured on race relations by a racist lawn ornament come to life. Sam finds himself spouting pithy quotables from American political history, often random or out of context. Quotables "wrapped in the flag. But pull the flag away and the words don't make sense," he thinks in a critique of jingoism. And a quibble with the book is that it might've been nice to have the quotes credited at some point.

What Sam struggles to come to grips with is how the intent of America somehow failed to entirely become a reality. How the nation that broke free from an empire fostered its own imperialistic empire, how a war for freedom led to a country that has oppressed the poor and minorities.

Uncle Sam is bound to be controversial in some circles. Particularly in the current political climate where American patriotism seems more self-invented than ever before. When you consider recent Hollywood blockbusters such as the "Patriot", in which British atrocities are fabricated in order to give the American hero a clean-cut villain to fight, or the World War II movie "U-571", where an American sub is credited with a (British) victory at a time before the U.S. had even joined the fight against fascism, one can imagine a chilly reception for Uncle Sam.

It's problematic in spots. The story is an unrelenting indictment that is intended to be read within the greater context of traditional, sanitized American history -- it's a rebuttal, not a full discourse, emphasizing the negative sometimes to the exclusion of the positive. As such, it's unsurprising some have reacted hostilely, construing the story as an attack on everything American. It's not. Darnall and Ross are clearly as patriotic as anyone -- you don't do a book like this if you don't care passionately about America. What it's intended to be is an exposing, and mayhap even a lancing, of boils that have been band-aided over. As Sam says, people should "take pride in facing the problems" not "pride in ignoring" them.

Or to use philosopher George Santayana's oft quoted phrase: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

And there are spots where the book's as American-centric as anything. In one scene another political icon says: "The eyes of the world are still upon you (America). Waiting to see what you can do." But it's been a long time since other democratic nations saw the U.S. as anything more than an ideological equal -- or, worse, given the questions raised by the 2000 presidential election, as anything but a curiosity.

The choices in what to focus on are curious, sometimes selecting individual misdeeds rather than more obviously sanctioned crimes. Perhaps it's because some events (the internment of Japanese-Americans during W.W. II) have already been condemned by history that they are ignored here, or perhaps because it's easier to depict an individual battle or lynching than it is to depict an overall policy. Republican critics have suggested it reflects a left-wing bias, with Darnall and Ross side-stepping outrages committed under Democratic regimes. And Darnall and Ross, perhaps understandably, still maintain heroes -- such as Abraham Lincoln who, if the truth be known, had his share of unsavory skeletons in his political closet.

Whatever the reason for the choices, it makes it harder to point to a solution, since the guilty are as likely to be John Q. Public as "The System".

As a narrative, Uncle Sam is a mixed bag. Darnall crafts nice writing, both punchy, pointed, and even witty. Yes, despite the doom and gloom -- or maybe because of it -- there are drily funny asides here and there. Ross paints as only Ross can, with a breathtaking realism mixed with shimmering sunshine and dreamlike images. I keep thinking I'll become blasé to his style...but not so far. At its best, Uncle Sam is a moody, haunting odyssey, a dark dream rich in atmosphere and portents that sucks you in so that you walk the roads Sam does. And as a character study the book also scores, with Sam emerging as a memorable persona, giving a human face to a symbol.

As a story, they tease us with questions about the amnesic Sam: is he a contemporary madman, or an American equivalent of the Wandering Jew, or literally the personification of America? But soon the answer becomes pretty obvious. There are attempts to fashion narrative arcs in each of the two chapters. The first culminating in Sam attending a political rally that had been foreshadowed through earlier scenes. The second has Sam ominously warned that he is heading toward a confrontation with a mysterious enemy which serves as the book's climax. But both are rather half-hearted attempts to give a story "arc" to what amounts to a road movie. It's basically an essay told in narrative form rather than a nuts and bolts story. Which is always problematic. If you have something to say, it still needs to be said in a story framework, else you won't really be speaking to those you most want to touch: those who haven't really thought about the issues. You can call it sugar coating if you want.

In the end, the story closes with cautious optimism even if the body of the book doesn't entirely support such a conclusion.

It's not often that I suggest a comic should be taught in schools. But this is an exception, some profanity notwithstanding. Not to replace traditional dogmatic teaching, but as a supplement, to be considered and debated, the symbols analyzed. The plotting isn't that strong, and the ideas are maybe tossed out a bit willy-nilly, lacking considered focus, but it's still a haunting, atmospheric read, full of memorable scenes. It's stunningly illustrated, cleverly scripted, and provocative. And that's good.

This is a review of the version originally serialized in the two-issue mini-series.

Published in both hard and soft cover: Soft cover price: $__ CDN./ $9.95 USA.

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