Tesla meets Val Van Garm or whatever his name is close to the beginning of Book Two of Tom Strong, and the story seems to inch a bit closer to adult sexuality, though later on when Tesla is forced to put down the antics of the young Kid Tilt, she seems entirely childlike all over again. Even though, as she reminds Kid Tilt, she's sixty. What's the problem with Tom Strong? Well, oyu don't really care about any of the characters, perhaps because they're all incredibly old and so advanced medically it looks as though they will live forever.
That's why the Tom Strange epic story really makes a difference in Book Two, for you get the alternative emblem of a Tom Strong defeated by life's twists and turns, and visibly hurt and distraught. The amazing image of Tom Strange crossing the Milky Way by foot to get to his earth double is played just right, for once a moment that isn't super whimsical and postmodern. (Though afterwards I was thinking, this really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.) Not that the whimsical and postmodern touches don't have their charms--I like seeing Tom with his search-board tucked under his arm, and the repeating multiples of Tom and Tesla (in "Too Many Teslas"?") have a wacky, Lewis Carroll-like brio that threatens to overturn the master narrative of identification.
I'm hooked all right, even on those Western dopes with an extra eye in the middle of their foreheads, but why couldn't Tom Strong have been better? Too many Teslas, or too many cooks?