Honestly, I gave up on Tom Strong somewhere around year two, but the strength of these recent spin-offs is making me reconsider that decision. Terra Obscura reads like a lighter blend of Watchmen and Tom Strong, exploring the notions of super-heroes as archetypes and making the cutesy in-jokes that have been a part of much of ABC but also raising the specter of conspiracy and danger in the background and taking an approach wherein super-heroes have really changed the world that they're a part of. While Hogan and Moore's script is solid, though, it's the lush artwork by Paquette and Story that is the real selling point of Terra Obscura, some of the best work I've seen from Paquette on any project.
Hogan chooses to enter the story of Terra Obscura through a civilian, or at least that's the way it appears at first. This human approach, showing the effects that science heroes have on humanity at large, eases the reader into the book before touching on the slight continuity elements (I gather that there was a story with these characters in Tom Strong) and reaching for the plot, which is more about science heroes and abuse of power. Certainly this humanity-based approach is central to the concept, though, whether it's the universal experience of getting together with old friends or the way the characters are part of a business, not just participants in a dangerously authoritarian law enforcement process.
While Terra Obscura is based on old comic-book characters and current comic-book continuity, what it most reminds me of is the recent film Minority Report. Moore and Hogan present the computerized Terror as a positive thing that has revitalized city life and is spreading across the country, but as the process gains approval, it's clear that there are some questions of right and wrong to be addressed with such a seemingly perfect system. It's just as clear that the retired heroine whose idealistic rather than practical nature is set up in the first couple of pages is going to have a pivotal role to play.
I was taken with the story in Terra Obscura, more than I expected to be, but it didn't hurt that the artwork is so great. Karl Story is, I believe, a member of Gaijin Studios, which might explain the Adam Hughes vibe I get off of some of the artwork here. Or it might just be that Paquette continues to hone his style. Either way, the art here is gorgeous, full of the same imaginative scope that Zander Cannon and Gene Ha brought to Neopolis in Top 10 and fully capable of rendering these realistic characters in such a way that we believe in them. There's a lovely mix of futurism and costumes and a more real, down-to-earth approach at work here.
Hogan dodges a few pitfalls here, making the book readable not just to Tom Strong fans but to those who have never even read the book, and along with his artistic co-creators he has started off what looks like a promising super-hero mini-series. America's Best Comics gets a reputation for doing inventive things with pulp and super-hero archetypes, and Terra Obscura looks like another offering along those lines.
