Because publishers want you to buy their product every month, comics are typically serial in nature. However, occasionally (and more often nowadays than ever before) publishers launch a comic title that is only meant to last for one issue. While ongoing series often have multiple chances to hook in new readers, the comics highlighted in this ongoing investigations only had One-Shot At Greatness!
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Date: September 1997
Cover Price: $2.99
Writer: Tod Dezago
Artist: Andy Smith
*Warning! Plot Spoilers Below*
The Jorken and the Kront are two alien races that have been feuding over the virgin moon, Yordel, for six thousand years (picture the Middle East … in spaaaaaaaace!). The Jorken have devised a plan to kidnap teleporter, Lila Cheney, and force her to ‘port a bomb into the Kront’s governing palace. Unfortunately for the Jorken, they quickly discover that you can kidnap a teleporter … but it’s near-impossible to keep one. So, their next big idea? Kidnap her huge, strong guy friend and force her into doing their dirty deeds for them.
Oh! Did you think they’d kidnap Strong Guy? Well, so did they. But, looks like they nabbed Lila’s newest bodyguards, Kree-Tor (every intergalactic pop music star needs a gaggle of guards), instead! So, it’s up to Lila and Strong Guy to rescue their pal. But, in the process, they manage to end the millennia-old Jorken/Kront war. Sounds good, right? Wrong! Now, the two races, devoid of their sole purpose in life have joined forces against their newest enemy … Lila & Strong Guy!
Strong Guy was one of the main players that made Peter David’s original X-Factor work so well. Later writers came on board and kicked him out of the book by putting him in a coma. But, you can’t keep this strong guy down … and happily he recovered (better than ever thanks to Forge). But, X-Factor had changed drastically by then and taken on a more conspiratorial direction. This shady, paranoia-laden direction was cool but certainly no place for Strong Guy. Fortunately for us SG fans, Marvel deemed our hero worthy of a one-shot book and boy! … is it fun! The art is awesome, slick, bombastic and dynamic. The story is whacky, light-hearted (despite dealing with an enormous space war) and very wacky. Both of those aspects are what a great, fun Strong Guy story is made of … and this fits the bill. Enjoy!
On Ebay: Strong Guy | Todd Dezago | Andy Smith
On AtomicAvenue: Strong Guy | X-Factor
