Tom Strong #25
Originally Presented at Comixtreme.com on February 23, 2004:
Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Tom Strong’s Pal Wally Willoughby
Meet Wally Willoughby! Be his pal! Just don’t pick on him, if you want to keep the universe in one piece.
Writer: Geoff Johns
Art: John Paul Leon
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letters: Todd Klein
Editor: Scott Dunbier
Cover Art: Chris Sprouse
Publisher: DC Comics/Wildstorm/America’s Best
Review: Wow, why hasn’t anybody ever told me about this comic book before? Geoff Johns writing an old-fashioned sci-fi/adventure comic book with wacky heroes and wackier villains? If this issue is indicative of Tom Strong as a whole, I may just have a new must-read title.
Without having read any issue of Tom Strong (and very little ABC at all) before, this issue was amazingly accessible, as it draws on the sort of classic storytelling that made the silver age of comics and science fiction so great. Meet poor Wally Willoughby, a luckless young man who wants nothing more than to come to Millenium City and meet his hero, Tom Strong. Problem is, due to a strange quirk of nature, when Wally gets upset, bad things happen to people.
Johns writes a great old-fashioned tale with old-fashioned but refreshingly new characters. This isn’t a deep issue or an in-depth tale, but this is a great done-in-one issue that puts a big goofy grin on the face of anyone enamored of this sort of story.
Although John Paul Leon isn’t the first name I would think of for a silly silver age story, he does a good job with this issue. He shifts from a more realistic style to the cartoonish look indicative of the Strongmen of America with the greatest of ease. Even preposterous elements like a Gorilla in a plaid vest and a giant statue of Tom Strong tearing up the city all mesh very well. And a one-panel gag about the city zoo is just laugh-out-loud funny.
This is one of the most singularly gleeful comic books I have read in a very long time. It’s nice to be reminded once in a while that not everything has to be moody and depressing. Sometimes it’s enough to just have fun.
Rating: 8/10
Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Tom Strong’s Pal Wally Willoughby
Meet Wally Willoughby! Be his pal! Just don’t pick on him, if you want to keep the universe in one piece.
Writer: Geoff Johns
Art: John Paul Leon
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letters: Todd Klein
Editor: Scott Dunbier
Cover Art: Chris Sprouse
Publisher: DC Comics/Wildstorm/America’s Best
Review: Wow, why hasn’t anybody ever told me about this comic book before? Geoff Johns writing an old-fashioned sci-fi/adventure comic book with wacky heroes and wackier villains? If this issue is indicative of Tom Strong as a whole, I may just have a new must-read title.
Without having read any issue of Tom Strong (and very little ABC at all) before, this issue was amazingly accessible, as it draws on the sort of classic storytelling that made the silver age of comics and science fiction so great. Meet poor Wally Willoughby, a luckless young man who wants nothing more than to come to Millenium City and meet his hero, Tom Strong. Problem is, due to a strange quirk of nature, when Wally gets upset, bad things happen to people.
Johns writes a great old-fashioned tale with old-fashioned but refreshingly new characters. This isn’t a deep issue or an in-depth tale, but this is a great done-in-one issue that puts a big goofy grin on the face of anyone enamored of this sort of story.
Although John Paul Leon isn’t the first name I would think of for a silly silver age story, he does a good job with this issue. He shifts from a more realistic style to the cartoonish look indicative of the Strongmen of America with the greatest of ease. Even preposterous elements like a Gorilla in a plaid vest and a giant statue of Tom Strong tearing up the city all mesh very well. And a one-panel gag about the city zoo is just laugh-out-loud funny.
This is one of the most singularly gleeful comic books I have read in a very long time. It’s nice to be reminded once in a while that not everything has to be moody and depressing. Sometimes it’s enough to just have fun.
Rating: 8/10