Thunder Agents Archives Volume Seven!

I haven't the strength to revisit the whole meandering odyssey of the THUNDER Agents after their Tower days were done. The saga of their ownership is a confusing and at times quite dark tale. A chap named John Carbonaro got the rights from Tower to publish the T-Agents (although some say that those rights never existed and remained with Wally Wood and afterwards his estate -- it's murky). 

Carbonaro's first foray with the Agents was in the form of a black and white magazine which lasted exactly one issue. It was put together by Pat Gabriele and featured some decent art by Mark Texeira. The Adams and Kirby art advertised was vintage stuff from years gone by. It's not a sterling effort by any means, but it was new THUNDER Agents. 

Next Carbonaro took the Agents into the direct sales marketplace under his own brand of JC Comics. We got a few new tales of decent quality and a reprint series under the "Hall of Fame" title. The second issue featured a brand-new Steve Ditko cover starring Noman. 

Somehow this was tied into Archie Comics, and the short-lived run was finished under their banner in an issue of Blue-Ribbon Comics. This comic featured a new Noman story by Ditko. 

And that brings us to Deluxe Comics, the stories reprinted in the seventh and final volume of DC's THUNDER Agents Archives series. Another fellow named Dave Singer and former associate of Carbonaro claimed that the Agents were in public domain and set about to use them in a brand new spanking line despite Carbonaro's objections and eventual lawsuit. Singer seems to have been a dodgy character at best and though he promised big money to big name talents such as George Perez, Dave Cockrum, Keith Giffen, Steve Englehart and others his promises were more impressive than the reality. 

So after a couple of stunning issues the talent began to walk away and the books trudged along. There are some really sweet stories in these, such as nifty hard-edged Raven stuff from George Perez, fan-pleasing artwork from Dave Cockrum and some really weird but fascinating stuff about Lightning by Giffen. There is a definite grimness to some of it, but for the most part the characterizations rang true since most of the creators were drawn to the work by their fondness of the original Tower Comics. The storylines even recognized the old Tower days and built upon them. 

Some of the stuff had real fanboy appeal such as the exceedingly physical encounter between Dynamo and the Iron Maiden. The two had danced around one another in the 60's but here in the 80's that dance took a highly erotic turn, something the old Comics Code would not have approved of I have little doubt. Undersea Agent is incorporated into the T-Agents properly and after he's forced to be voyeur to the Dynamo-Maiden love scene he might have wanted to change his name to "Unsee Agent". 

Despite great covers right to the end, the books insides became less and less impressive. Though Perez is still around there is even in his art an unfinished quality. 

The fifth and final issue has some Jerry Ordway art and its quite handsome and the story picks up embers from the Tower days yet again, but it's too little to late. Other stories in this issue are not nearly so professional in their aspect and the writing seems to be handed off to lesser known names. Singer's venture falls apart even as his claim to the Agents turns to ashes in the courts. 

The THUNDER Agents tumble around for several more years becoming guest-stars in several Indy books before Carbonaro is able to land a deal (of sorts) with Bob Guccione's Penthouse outfit.

He has a guy named George Caragonne in charge of them now and he  proves another less than reliable fellow. There is a stunning story done with Paul Gulacy and Terry Austin but only the first chapter of three ever sees publication in an issue of Omni Comix due to the suicide of Caragonne among other factors. The Agents are in limbo yet again  until many years later DC picks them up and later still IDW takes a stab at them. 

A few more pages of the Gulacy material gets published in The THUNDER Agents Companion from Twomorrows but it's still less than satisfying not see the whole story, which may or may not still exist. This Twomorrows book has been a ton of fun to read as I've tumbled along with the Agents on this read. There are many many interviews and profiles of the talent involved with the creation of the T-Agents over the many years. The book is a bit out of date now having been published in 2005 or thereabouts. But it still makes one hunger for more good THUNDER Agents stories and I for one believe there are more of those to tell. 

Note: Only the Deluxe material and the single story for Omni Comix is included in this particular Archives edition. 

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Red Circle Sorcery!

Above is a wonderful run of comics produced under the watchful eye of the late great Gray Morrow. Every now and again Archie Comics wants to try out something under their "Red Circle" logo. Morrow was the kahuna of this experiment by Archie to capture a bit of another aspect of the comics market in the early 70's. Sorcery and Madhouse are filled with really outstanding artwork by Morrow and others like Doug Wildey, Vicente Alcazar, and Frank Thorne. Then we are treated to three more covers by Gray Morrow for the Archie run of Chilling Tales of Sorcery. This title became Red Circle Sorcery with its sixth issue. The first two issues are in Archie style and feature Sabrina.

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The Second Double Life Of Lancelot Strong!

The beautiful cover for Blue Ribbon Comics #5 showcases the great artwork of Jack "King" Kirby, the Shield's co-creator and Rich Buckler, the maestro of Red Circle Comics, the 1980's revival of the MLJ/Archie heroes.

Here's a look at the great poster shot in glorious black and white. Blue Ribbon Comics #5 reprinted in full the debut adventures of Lancelot Strong by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

When the MLJ heroes were revived in the 60's, the Lancelot Strong Shield character was not among them, rather the Golden Age Shield (Joe Higgins) took the helm of the assembled lunatics who passed themselves off as heroes in that wild and wooly run.

But in 1983 when the Direct Sales market boom made it possible for Archie to think about bringing their heroes back, they brought back The Mighty Crusaders and this time both Shields were front and center, despite the inherent confusion of that. There is no connection between the two heroes aside from their names and the patriotic gear they wear, but nonetheless they both got the nod from Rich Buckler.

Again they both show up on the second issue's wraparound action fest cover.

The next month Lancelot Strong, Shield got his own book, so he seemed to be the ascendant Shield for the moment. I really like how they call back to the classic look of the original covers from so many decades before.

Both Shields are on the cover of Mighty Crusaders #3 as well, though neither is looking particularly healthy.

But things start to get rocky as the second issue of Lancelot Strong, Shield is also the final issue, sort of. At least he looks vigorous.

That doesn't impact Mighty Crusaders, at least not yet. The knockout punch Lancelot is getting might be symbolic.

But in the newly dubbed Shield-Steel Sterling comic Lancelot Strong faces his Waterloo and passes from this mortal coil, sacrificing himself in proper heroic fashion. Apparently having two Shields was too confusing after all. Despite a few more adventures in the back pages of the Steel Sterling comic Lancelot's number was mostly up. The Joe Higgins version would get quite the push from Red Circle/Archie after the demise of Lancelot.

But for my money, Lancelot Strong has always been the strongest of all the Shields there have been.

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The First Double Life Of Lancelot Strong!

By the time Joe Simon and Jack Kirby worked together on Archie Comics' The Double Life of Private Strong, a reboot of the classic Shield superhero concept, they had dissolved their studio and were simply two artists collaborating on a single project, along with a host of other great talents. The cover above is certainly a distinctive one, with an apparent military man revealing himself Superman-style while high-tech invaders plunder in the background. The oddball faux-filmstrip banners across the top and up the side seemed to obscure in many ways that this is a superhero book.

As can be seen by the first page, a great poster-style shot by Kirby, Lancelot Strong is a hero with a host of powers, a hyper-human who can withstand extremes of weather and environment and even unleash lightning from his hands, a powerful and exceedingly "super" hero indeed.

Clearly he was intended as an Atom-age reboot of the vintage World War II MLJ hero The Shield, an attempt to update the brand of the very first patriotic superhero in comics. They do so by borrowing from many of the classic origin stories and creating a shiny new mishmash. There are similarities to Doc Savage's uprbringing by his scientist father, echoes of Superman's farm family life, whispers of Amazing Man's hyper developed humanity, a smidgeon of Lash Lightning's energy bolts, and even by the end some of vintage Captain America dual identity conundrum.

The story begins some fifteen years before the then present day of 1959 (I think) as Commies plot to steal the secrets of a scientist named Fleming who has made significant breakthroughs in the ultimate capacities of human beings, finding a way to tap into the legendary ninety percent of the human brain which appears to go unused by most of us. To that end he has raised his son in a hermetically sealed room with oddball equipment on his head to trigger his potential. The Commies send Agent Four to see Fleming who recognizes the danger and takes his son and flees, but dies in a car wreck. Agent Four carelessly imagines everything to have been lost and leaves the scene, but Fleming's son had indeed survived and crawls out of the wreck to be found by a good-hearted farmer named Abel Strong who takes him home to his wife Martha. The pair decide to raise the boy as their own after naming him "Lancelot".

Fifteen years pass and Lancelot Strong along with his pal Spud find the wreck car which long before had brought him to his current home hidden in a ravine. Lancelot climbs into it and finds a costume which seems to fit him perfectly. Meanwhile an alien force strikes Sputnik and causes it to crash to Earth. Once on Earth, the alien begins to grow and grow becoming an every-increasing menace, starting fires and whatnot. Lancelot sees the fires and goes to help, innately using his superpowers to battle the menace, ultimately creating a vacuum with his great speed depriving the alien of the oxygen which triggered its growth. Spud alas was killed in the fires, leaving Lancelot alone with the secret.

Or so he thought as later when he returns to the wreckage he finds it gone. In the interim Agent Four has returned and gathered up the wreckage from Fleming's disasterous crash so many years before. Lancelot realizes the enormity of what has happened as memories flood into his hyper-mind and he tracks down the spies stopping their escaping submarine with his vast array of super might. After his victory he is stunned to discover on his return to the home of Abel and Martha Strong that he has been drafted into the army.

As part of the vast military of America's Cold War machine, Lancelot Strong, now "Private Strong" proves to be a problematic recruit, a hayseed to seems to rub training Sergeant Griper the wrong way. A new atomic tank goes out of control and Private Strong becomes "The Shield" to stop it and save General Smith and his daughter Georgia. The trio are kidnapped along with the atomic tank by Doctor Diablq who uses a squadron of tiny soldiers to do his bidding. He shrinks Private Strong and the other two and puts them along with the tank into a shoe box. The Shield later escapes at the evil Doctor's lab and has to battle chameleons, cats, and wrestle with handguns to try and save the day. Eventually he and the Smiths are returned to full size and return to base with the tank, though Georgia seems more smitten with the mysterious Shield than with Lancelot.

Here is an ad for the second issue of The Double Life of Private Strong which appeared in an issue of Archie's The Fly following a two-page teaser story starring Lancelot himself in which he foils an enemy sneak attack from the air.

This saga has been reprinted twice, once in 1978 in one of Archie's hero-themed digests.

And again in 1984 when Archie sought to revive its heroes under the Red Circle brand. By the time Blue Ribbon Comics #5 was published the Red Circle had been dropped and the effort would end

The second and final issue of The Double Life of Private Strong featured a Jack Kirby cover, but the King only drew one of the stories in the issue. All were written by Joe Simon.

The first tale called "The Strange Case of Lovable Lou, the Toy Master" is a fairly straightforward superhero yarn drawn by Al Williamson and Larry Ivie. It concerns a rotund carnival operator who masquerades as a friend of children but who in reality is a Commie spy. The Shield mops him up quickly.

There are two more stories in this issue that I have not read, both drawn by the reliable George Tuska. "Upsy Daisy" and "I Wish I Were the Shield" appear to equally light-hearted adventures with a basic superhero thrust and a hint of the irony that Simon was often able to bring to his work.  The fundamentals of the Lancelot Strong's back story keeps getting developed.

"The Ultra-Sonic Spies" is the sole story in this issue drawn by Jack Kirby. As it suggests spies steal a super-sonic bomber. Private Strong, though ordered by the stern Sergeant Herman Hardrock to stand fast on sentry duty in tank detects the theft and uses an amazing ability to levitate and fly to intercept the plane and rescue the crew. He rides a released bomb to Earth saving everyone in the vicinity. Upon returning to his Lancelot Strong role he is chagrined to learn that Hardrock has caught him away from his post and he expects punishment.

So that was the pattern these tales were destined to take. Short spirited adventures of military man Strong dong his superhero duty alongside his less impressive, but no less significant duty as a grunt in the army. Classic shenanigans reminiscent of the World War II adventures of Captain America, the hero which launched the careers of Simon and Kirby so many years before.

Lancelot Strong The Shield was revived some decades later in 1983 as part of Rich Buckler's MLJ project for Archie Comics. Featuring some striking artwork by Alan Weiss, Rudy Nebres, and others the series failed to catch fire. More on Lancelot entering the "Red Circle" later today.

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