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19-572: Terra Obscura first appeared in Tom Strong #11 (January 2001). Terra Obscura is an alternate version of Tom Strong's Earth located on the far side of the galaxy, discovered by Strong in 1968. On his visit to Terra Obscura, Tom meets his counterpart Tom "Doc" Strange , and the team of science-heroes known as the Society of Major American Science Heroes ( SMASH ). All the members of SMASH are based on characters previously published by Nedor Comics in

38-736: A Chemical King story in Secret Origins vol. 2 #47 (Feb. 1990). His next assignments were a Two-Face story for Batman Annual #14 (1990) and the Hammerlocke limited series . He drew insert posters for the War of the Gods limited series in 1991. Following that, Sprouse drew the Legionnaires series featuring teenaged versions of the Legion of Super-Heroes . He later illustrated

57-462: A Golden Age Captain Future and Blue Beetle to save Diana Masters ( Miss Masque ) from an attack by futuristic soldiers. It's revealed in flashbacks that he is one of the scientists that were part of creating the original Golden Age heroes of World War II , under the direction of Archibald Masters ( American Crusader ). He developed a chemical called Alosun for the superhero project, but inspired by

76-468: A fortnight. Once he awakens, he is of a much calmer mind. The two set off back home in Tom's new ship, Tom shows Strange an array of comic books, produced on his earth, which matches the history and events on Strange's Earth. Tom helps Strange revive his surviving allies, most of whom have been trapped in time by the alien menace for the thirty years, unaware and unaging. With the contents of a lab hidden deep in

95-586: A number of one-shots and fill-in issues before illustrating a Star Wars mini-series, Splinter of the Mind's Eye , for Dark Horse Comics . He then worked for Extreme Studios as the regular penciller of New Men , and in 1997–1998, Sprouse drew several issues of Supreme , scripted by Alan Moore for the same publisher. After Supreme ended, he and Moore created Tom Strong for America's Best Comics , for which Sprouse won two Eisner Awards in 2000, for Best Single Issue and Best Serialized Story. Sprouse

114-437: A teen sidekick, wealthy young wastrel Mike Ellis, who wears a costume identical to Strange's, along with a green cape. Though non-powered during the earlier adventures, Mike later gains the same powers as Doc Strange. The character's name was "Doctor Strange" at first; his moniker changed to "Doc Strange" in issue #11 (Dec 1940). According to Jess Nevins ' Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes , they confront villains like

133-475: Is an American comics artist . Sprouse has worked for multiple publishers and has won two Eisner Awards for his work on Tom Strong , a series he created with writer Alan Moore . Chris Sprouse was born in Charlottesville, Virginia. At the age of 3 he moved with his family to New Delhi, India where he first discovered comics as he was unable to play outside due to the dangerous number of snakes in

152-428: The 1940s. With the original publisher's collapse, copyrights on the characters were not renewed upon 28 years of creation and so lapsed into the public domain . One of Nedor's many titles was America's Best Comics , and when the coincidence of this was pointed out to Alan Moore, he decided to incorporate these characters into his Tom Strong series. For their 2000 debut, Moore created a backstory for them, covering

171-649: The Faceless Phantom (and his "delta ray gun"), the Yellow Peril Emperor (and his flame apes), and the black magic-empowered Mephisto. Doc Strange was briefly revived in the pages of Femforce as part of the Vault Heroes, a group of Golden Age superheroes who volunteered to have themselves cryogenically frozen following World War II , so that they could be revived should the world need them. He died shortly after being unfrozen, making

190-517: The character was revived and renamed 'Tom Strange' in Tom Strong #11 (published by America's Best Comics ). Hugo Strange ("Dr. Strange", later "Doc Strange") is an American scientist who develops a serum called Alosun — described as a "distillate of sun atoms" — which when ingested gives him superhuman strength, the ability to fly, and invulnerability. Doc Strange is assisted by his girlfriend Virginia Thompson. In Thrilling Comics #24, he gains

209-618: The duplicate Earth (and duplicate solar system) "must be due to some near-inconceivable fluke of mathematics, of statistical probability". In this issue, Tom Strange is revealed to have run across the Milky Way for 30 years to reach Strong for help in stopping an alien menace which killed or imprisoned most of the science-heroes of Terra Obscura. It is judged Strange had set off on his task soon after Tom had left. The stress of leaping from world to world temporarily drives Strange mad. He battles Tom before being subdued and sleeping—dreamlessly—for

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228-438: The heroes realize that the cryogenic process did not work perfectly on everyone. AC Comics went on to reprint many of his Golden Age adventures in various anthologies. Doc Strange , along with other heroes from Nedor Comics , were revived by Alan Moore in his series Tom Strong . This revival set the characters on a parallel world called Terra Obscura , which was also the title of the resulting mini-series. The character

247-440: The heroes that they were creating, he tried it on himself first. Tom Strange is capable of flight (or at least vast Golden Age Superman -like leaps), superhuman strength, and surviving indefinitely in the vacuum of space (without air or water), and has invulnerability to re-entry, extreme impacts (falling to Earth from space) and bullets. He is also a brilliant scientist. Chris Sprouse Chris Sprouse (born July 30, 1966)

266-640: The house yard. When he was 6, his family returned to the United States to Dale City, Virginia , where he continued to read and draw comics. Before his debut in comics, Sprouse drew a comic strip entitled Ber-Mander for the school newspaper ( The Hyphen ) while attending Gar-Field Senior High School in Woodbridge. After graduating in 1984, Sprouse attended James Madison University where he studied graphic design. Sprouse launched his career in mainstream comics in 1989, his first credited work being

285-482: The inverted city of 'Invertica', the assembled superheroes manage to neutralize the alien menace. He is described by Strong as the most powerful being he's ever met, and in a different league from Strong entirely. He operates with the modern incarnation of SMASH . In 2013, he appeared in limited series Tom Strong and the Planet of Peril by Vertigo . Doc Strange appears in the webcomic "Heroes, inc." along with

304-643: The revived heroes in the inverted city of 'Invertica': Doc Strange Doc Strange is a Golden Age comic book superhero who originally appeared in Thrilling Comics #1 (Better Publications, also called Nedor Comics ) in February 1940. The character continued in Thrilling Comics until issue #64 (Feb 1948). He also appeared in America's Best Comics #1-23 and 27. Circa 2000,

323-632: The time periods during which they were not actually being published. For the Terra Obscura spin-off, Moore worked out plots with Peter Hogan, who then wrote the scripts. A science-hero team based in New Lancaster who were forced to try to maintain control after SMASH were left frozen in space and time in 1969. By the time the members of SMASH had been released from their captivity in 2000, they had aged and an original member, Tip, had died and been replaced by his sister, Tipper. They encounter

342-612: Was renamed "Thomas Hugo Strange" (or "Tom Strange"), presumably to set him apart from the Marvel Comics sorcerer Doctor Strange and Batman villain Hugo Strange , and to present him as a Terra Obscura version of Tom Strong. In Tom Strong #11, Moore and co-creator Chris Sprouse more fully introduced the idea of Terra Obscura being a parallel Earth, "but in our own dimension. In our own galaxy ". Tom Strong himself had found it while traveling space alone. He theorizes that

361-438: Was the penciller and co-creator on the 2004 Ocean mini-series, written by Warren Ellis and published by DC Comics . In 2007, Ocean was optioned for film. In 2006, he began pencilling Wildstorm's Midnighter ongoing series , a spin-off of The Authority . He was the artist on the first issue of Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne with Grant Morrison as writer. In 2011, Sprouse worked with writer Peter Hogan on

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