Not the quality of earlier books

books:

	• Tom Strong (Book 4) (Tom Strong) Alan Moore, Geoff Johns, ... Wildstorm, 2005 - 160 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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Meet Tom Stone

The first three issues of this collection (collecting issues ggg thru hhh) concern an alternate reality where a moments delay results in the Death of Sinclair Strong so Tom Strong is never born. Instead, a new hero named Tom Stone is created. But although Stone's world is a utopia, it has its problems and a visitor comes to Tom Strong for help.

The remaining issues contain a variety of adventures. First Tom visits the Moon on a rescue mission only to discover a hidden piece of his past. Secondly, Tom's first love KKK is still alive and out of a cryogenic prison. Finally Tom must confront the chaos created by his greatest fan.

I miss the old format of multiple stories per issue but these stories are good. The almost-Elseworlds tale of Tom Stone was very well done brining in much of Tom Strong's history. The lost love story was interesting in that it is set up to continue at a later date (somewhere after volume 5). These adventures are pretty much stand-alones without the clever interweaving of Moore's earlier tales.

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Not the quality of earlier books

Ok... Alan Moore is THE BEST comic book writer ever. In fact Alan Moore is one of the all time great writers in any genre, period. His works have inspired three major motion pictures and a fourth may be in the works. Unfortunately everyone has their limits and Mr. Moore may have reached his. I was astounded by the fact that Alan Moore appeared to be writing every issue of every comic for his own new comic line-up, America's Best Comics. This seemed like a daunting workload even for someone as talented as Mr. Moore and I think that the overall quality of his work has suffered. The first two collections of Tom Strong were absolutely stellar. The third, not as much and the forth is the weakest yet.

The first story arc contains an alternate history story where Tom Strong is re-imagined as a mixed race African/Caucasian named Tom Stone. Tom Stone ends up being significantly more successful in his crime fighting career than Tom Strong and ends up rehabilitating most of Strong's science villains including the Modular Man, Pangaea and even Paul Saveen who becomes Tom Stone's partner in crime fighting. It was interesting to see the Tom Strong characters jumbled around and more of a presence by a character hinted at in earlier issues, Fingel Parallax. Unfortunately the ending telegraphs itself from a mile away and the near total lack of Tom Strong ultimately left the story unsatisfying. The story also felt less tight and coherent than Mr. Moore's usual writing. It's not bad; in fact it's quite good. It's just not up to Alan Moore's usual level of writing.

About half way through the book Mr. Moore passes the writing baton onto Peter Hogan and let me tell you Peter Hogan is no Alan Moore. Since it appears that Tom Strong 5 has no stories written by Alan Moore I'm going to pass on it. I strongly recommend getting the first two books in the Tom Strong series and maybe the third but beyond that things definitely get a little iffy.

BTW: The stars I give are for the Alan Moore material, not Peter Hogan.

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Best-selling comics scriptwriting supremo Alan Moore (Watchmen, Batman: The Killing Joke) returns with his fantastical science-hero, Tom Strong. Born on a remote South Seas island, orphaned by his scientist parents and raised by a steam-powered robot butler, Tom Strong is both superhero and pioneer. In this astonishing fourth volume of stories, Tom Strong, now the retro-futuristic hero of Millennium City, faces a whirlwind of new adventures! With this veritable feast of imagination and action, Tom Strong proves that, once again, Alan Moore is forging the future of graphic novels! Collected together into a sumptuous hardback and featuring artwork by the best of today's comics artists.

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