Thunder Agents Classics Volume Six!

This is my review of the sixth and final volume collecting up the original run of Tower Comics' T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (including spin-offs Dynamo and NoMan) as collected by IDW. While these reprints are not ideal in every way, they are handsome enough and offer the vintage 60's saga in a handy-to-read format unlike any I've possessed.

These tales are less impressive than their mighty legend, not unlike the beloved EC Comics, but nonetheless they are worthy stories which showcase the strengths and weaknesses of Silver Age comics thoroughly. Wally Wood and company (Dan Adkins and Ralph Reese mostly) are at their best as are Steve Ditko, Gil Kane, Chic Stone, Reed Crandall, and so many others. Artistically George Tuska and Mike Sekowsky turn in some strong work but alas the stories lack much of the spy glamour which attaches to the more atmospheric Wood stuff.

Here are the final issues of the classic original run which are included in this latest volume, which sadly does not feature one of these great recreation covers by Ryan Brown. This one is only credited to Wally Wood, though clearly it's been given a brush up. All the new material from the final issues is here right up through the finale which featured only a few pages of fresh material.

There was a delay of many months between issue seventeen and eighteen of the run. The cover of the eighteenth issue is by Reed Crandall and the nineteenth is a composite. 

A full year passes before issue twenty hit the stands. It's almost all reprints with only one new quick story reprising the origins of THUNDER and Dyanano. The cover is by Chic Stone. 

Next week the focus will be on that other Tower super agent. 

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Thunder Agents Classics Volume Three!

THUNDER Agents Classics Volume 3 is a rock solid collection of Silver Age superhero action with a vintage espionage flavor. At this point the agents are firmly developed. The sometimes dim-witted Len Brown as Dynamo continues to succeed, sometimes in spite of his efforts in classic tales by Wally Wood. NoMan, the android able to switch bodies on a whim continues to use his invisibility cloak to good effect in stories drawn exceedingly well by John Giunta. Lightning, a capable agent and former leader of the THUNDER Squad uses the life-destroying speed suit and fights a wide variety of unusual threats in wacky stories by Mike Sekowsky. With the death of Menthor, a new agent is introduced. Raven joins the team, though after the initial story drawn by George Tuska he seems to be operating in a whole other world than the other agents thanks to some wild stories and wilder artwork by Manny Stallmann. Steve Ditko did not contribute the issues in this collection. 

The threat of the Subterraneans, the threat which has motivated THUNDER since the first issue is finally laid to rest after the eighth issue, though echoes of the struggle keep popping up here and there, especially in stories featuring the superhuman Subterranean creation Andor. But that aside, the new menace is S.P.I.D.E.R. This super-organization of human criminals stands as the opposite of THUNDER in many respects as reflected in their name Secret People's International Directorate for Extra-legal Revenue. The switch is not immediately apparent in the tone of the stories since many of the villains formerly associated with the defeated Subterraneans switch over to SPIDER such as Demo, Dr.Sparta, and even the Iron Maiden. New baddies do emerge such as Tarantula and Mayven.

There are some real gems in this particular collection, my favorite story being "The Black Box of Doom" which has the whole team (minus Raven) trying to keep the enemy world powers from getting their mitts on a mysterious but deadly box from space. Other offbeat highlights are some lighter-toned stories by George Tuska in a broader style featuring Weed of the THUNDER Squad which give the books some needed laughs.

Solid entertainment! Here are the covers of the issues in this third volume. 

In the fourth volume we'll see that NoMan gets his own series.

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Thunder Agents Classics Volume Two!

The second volume of THUNDER Agents Classics from IDW is chock full of vintage Silver Age goodness. With artwork by a who's who of the time, the reader can feast on some of the core stories which created the myth of this Tower Comics phenomenon. Wally Wood continues on the lead feature, but finds more help from Reed Crandall, Mike Sekowsky, George Tuska, Gil Kane, John Giunta, and especially Steve Ditko and Dan Adkins. Many of the stories are credited to Steve Skeates, something of a surprise to me.

The real surprise is the key story in this collection which includes THUNDER Agents #5, 6, and 7 along with the debut issue of Dynamo is a blockbuster tale titled "A Matter of Life and Death" written and designed by Dan Adkins, drawn by Steve Ditko and inked by Adkins and Wood.  This is the story upon which much of the Agents' reputation sits, the story which changed the game. Early in the series Egghead, a member of the THUNDER Squad died with little fanfare, but in this story one of the headline members of the agents meets his maker as Menthor is killed in action.

Unlike the ballyhooed and bombastically hyped "deaths" in modern comics which seem to occur on nearly a monthly basis, this demise was a true surprise. Heroes didn't die in the Silver Age, at least not mainstays like Menthor seemed to be. He was one of the original three THUNDER Agents before the advent of Lightning. Raven would hop onto the scene soon after, filling the void somewhat, but there was no denying the death of Menthor was a big deal in the Silver Age of comics.

Here are the covers of the issues included in the second volume.

Upcoming is the third volume of IDW's reprint series which debuts the weirdness of Manny Stallman and the end of the the threat of the Warlords and their minions. 

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Thunder Agents Classics Volume One!

The first volume of IDW's THUNDER Agents reprint series (produced in conjunction with yet another attempt to revive the team some years back) contains the first four issues of the original THUNDER Agents run where we get to meet Dynamo, Menthor, Lightning and my favorite Agent NoMan. There is death, destruction, and international intrigue galore, as the team is called upon to defeat the forces of the Subterranean Warlord. 

To be honest the Agents were a flawed masterpiece in the beginning. Wally Wood's stories are slick, and the tone is uptown for sure. But alongside that are stories drawn by veterans Gil Kane and Mike Sekowsky and George Tuska which are much more classic superhero action yarns. Some of the characters are not drawn to model which must've been unclear for the varied assignments at the time. But as the series continues things tighten up nicely. That first issue though almost feels at times like there were two separate Agents projects which just got jammed into the one twenty-five cent comic book. (Note: Steve Ditko did not contribute to the four issues in this volume, but that would change.)

I enjoy Dynamo, he's such a goofball, and they way that Wood presents him time and again as a weapon, a thing to be deployed is fascinating.  I completely adore the whole concept of NoMan, one of the great comic book heroes. But I've never been a big Menthor fan, until this reading gave me a new appreciation of the arc he goes through. I always forget too, that Lightning is a later addition like Raven to the team. And the Iron Maiden is in the running for sleekest and possibly sexiest character Wally Wood ever drew. It was way cool though to read those stories again after all these years. I put together a collection of the original comics many years ago, but these days I love to read trades and this gives me the chance to comfortably read some classic tales. Here are the covers. 

Coming up in the second volume, the most significant story in Tower Comics history and Dynamo gets his own series.  

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Lost Marvels - Tower Of Shadows!

In the summer of 1969 Marvel decided to spread its wings and attempt to return to making magical mystery comics as they had done less than a decade before. The supernatural was popular again, so much so that the Comics Code had done little when DC brought forth a truly scary The House of Mystery under Joe Orlando's editorial control. DC was onto something and Marvel wanted a taste. To that end they announced two new titles -- Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness. Fantagraphics attempted to reprint Tower of Shadows but is only able to do so in an incomplete form. For some reason two stories based on H.P. Lovecraft stories were not able to be reprinted, much to the detriment of this otherwise handsome volume.  

"At the Stroke of Midnight!" by Jim Steranko is the first and the best story in the series. Steranko was at his very best, offering up a haunted house story that fragmented time for the characters and the reader as well.  "From the Brink!" by Johnny Craig gives us a dandy tale of a man who is seeking to root out fake mediums and then he finds a real one. "A Time to Die!" by Stan Lee and John Buscema and Don Heck is a tale of a mad scientist and his even madder assistant and what happens when the former discovers the secret of immorality.  Cover by John Romita, replacing one by Jim Steranko which Stan Lee rightly deemed in my eyes as less effective. 

"Witch Hunt!" by Roy Thomas, Don Heck and Dan Adkins tells the tragic story of a man looking for witches but gets surprised when he finds something else. "Look Out, Wyatt -- Automation's Gonna Get Your Job!" by Gary Friedrich, John Buscema and John Verpoorten is a story set in a mine where men fear machines will take their jobs, but one man finds that fear ends up threatening them even more. "One Hungers" by Neal Adams and Dan Adkins has a few hippies uncover a voracious menace from across time.  Cover by John Romita for the Adams story. 

"The Moving Finger Writhes...!" by Len Wein, Gene Colan and Mike Esposito is the story of a man who is a failure until he finds a special book which lets him glimpse the future, but what's there is both wonderful and terrible. "Midnight in the Wax Museum!" by Gary Friedrich, George Tuska and Marie Severin features a reporter who wakes up one day and discovers a house has appeared from nowhere and then he finds aliens. "The Terrible Old Man!" by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith finished this issue but sadly is not in this collection. Cover by Marie Severin for the Friedrich and Tuska tale. 

"Evil is a Baaaaad Scene!" by Allyn Brodsky and Don Heck has two hippies seeking cheap thrills but find more than they bargained for when they let an evil mystic cast spells in their apartment. "One Little Indian!" by Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan and Dan Adkins tells the story of a cruel man who is cursed and is warned to avoid Indians, which he tries to do. "To Sneak -- Perchance to Dream!" by Tom Sutton is a sequel to a Chamber of Darkness story in which two spies occupy a living house in order to blow up a plutonium plant. Cover by Marie Severin and Herb Trimpe for the Brodsky and Heck tale. 

"The Demon that Devoured Hollywood!" by Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith and Dan Adkins is about a famous horror film actor famous for his make-ups, but who has a terrible secret which ultimately destroys him. "Flight into Fear!" by Wally Wood tells of a lame young man who falls asleep on a gargoyle and before you know it finds himself a giant in a land of people needing a sword-wielding hero. "Time Out!" by Gerry Conway and Syd Shores gives us the story of a desperate couple who find themselves locked in a haunted house, and they lose something but gain something as well. Cover by Barry Windsor-Smith and Bill Everett for the Thomass-Windsor-Smith story. 

"The Ghost-Beast!" by Wally Wood is another sword and sorcery story in which a character named Beowulf fights a deadly monster, but it turns out he is a menace as well. "Contact!" by Tom Sutton is a two-page bit of fun about a power-hungry old man who makes contact with aliens, much to his regret. "The Scream from Beyond!" by Steve Skeates, Gene Colan, and Dan Adkins tells the story of an evil man who causes crashes to record the sounds, but who finds a sound he doesn't want. Cover by Marie Severin for a reprint story "Man in the Rat Hole!" by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. (Not in this collection.)

"The Scream of Things" by Allyn Brodsky, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Vince Colletta is about a researcher and an evil girl who find more than they can handle in a cursed mansion. "Of Swords and Sorcery!" by Wally Wood is another sword and sorcery effort, this one filled with an evil sorcerer, an elf, and a transformed dwarf in addition to the usual hero and damsel in distress. Cover by Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Marie Severin for the reprint story "I Was Trapped by Titano, the Monster the Time Forgot!" (Not in this collection.)

"Sanctuary!" by Wally Wood is yet another sword and sorcery tale about a man who would be king and seeks a crown in a forbidden place. Cover by Berni Wrightson for the Wood tale. The rest of the issue is comprised of reprints featuring artwork by Steve Ditko and Don Heck. (Not included in this collection.)

"Pickman's Model" by Roy Thomas and Tom Palmer. Cover by Berni Wrightson. The balance of the issue was filled with work drawn by Don Heck and Jack Kirby. Only Wrightson's cover is included in this collection. 

This one-short King-Size Special cover by John Romita is included as well. 

Here is Jim Steranko's rejected cover for the debut issue of Tower of Shadows. It's an awesome piece of artwork, but I have to agree with Lee that Romita's was likely to sell more books. 

With both Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness, Marvel wanted to tap into that EC horror host vibe as both Warren and DC had done. To that end they created Digger, above seen in a distinctive outfit by Steranko. 

John Buscema renders him in his more traditional look for the third story in the first issue. Buscema's version is less offbeat but creepier. 

Digger shared hosting duties with the official host of Chamber of Darkness, one Headstone P. Gravely. Both Digger and Gravely show up in the early issues of Tower of Shadows, but soon Marvel lets them fade away in favor of letting the artists introduce their own tales. I hated to see the hosts go, but using the real talent was actually quite in keeping with Marvel's general trend of promoting that talent for the fans. 

Tower of Shadows changed its title to Creatures on the Loose and became a home to more vintage monster stories from the Atlas days and sword and sorcery, specifically Marvel's first King Kull story by Berni Wrightson, and later Gullivar of Mars by Gil Kane and Thongor of Lemuria by a host of talents. Man-Wolf finished off the series. But for all that, I never forgot Tower of Shadows and really enjoyed this chance to tumble into its pages again. 

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The Quality of Freedom!

DC snatched up the vintage Quality Comics heroes and more than a bit of fun with them. They became the Freedom Fighters. How they got there is one of my favorite stories in all of comicdom. What we commonly call Quality Comics rose from the ashes of Centaur Publications, and the machinations are complex but not uncommon in an era where hucksters hoped to make a quick buck in a medium which was exploding in popularity. But the main guy behind Quality Comics was a chap known as Busy Arnold and he seems to be a businessman who valued his employees by and large and honored contracts. 

(The First Quality Comic - 1937)

Quality really made its mark when Arnold made a deal with Will Eisner who quit his gig with Jerry Iger and went to work with Arnold. 

(Doll Man -- Quality's First Super-Hero)

It was here that he created such characters as The Ray, Black Condor, Doll Man, Lady Luck, Blackhawk, and his most famous creation of all -- The Spirit. Such was the relationship between Arnold and Eisner that Eisner allowed the creation of Midnight by Lou Fine for Quality in case WWII did something to Spirit sales. 

(Will Eisner)

But nothing lasts forever, and eventually Arnold and Eisner go their separate ways. The comic book industry gets torpedoed by likes of Frederic Wertham, and eventually Quality closes shop in 1956. Much of their material was sold to DC who continued the highly successful Blackhawk series.

(Among the Last Quality Comics - 1956)

Eventually DC tried out Plastic Man as well. Then in the pages of Justice League of America Len Wein, Dick Dillin, and Dick Giordano brought back the Quality heroes with gusto. 

By the time of Justice League of America #107, the general template of the Justice League and Justice Society crossovers had been set. The two teams would meet and the added value from year to year would be new heroes. This time the heroes of Earths One and Two would meet the Quality heroes on Earth-X. DC had control of these heroes since they had bought out Quality Comics some many years before. Len Wein had wanted the name to be Earth-Swastika, but editor Julie Schwartz kiboshed that idea for obvious reasons.

The story really began with the previous two issues of Justice League in which both Elongated Man and Red Tornado were inducted into the League. The Tornado had survived the end of the last JLofA-JSofA adventure and been stranded on Earth-1 where he was found by his creator T.O.Morrow who promptly gave the android hero a new face and tried to use him to destroy the League which had welcomed the android hero into their ranks. Morrow's plan failed, but the Red Tornado now had the distinction along with Black Canary of being a member of both the League and the Society.

"Crisis On Earth-X" was written by Len Wein and drawn by Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano. The comic featured another outstanding Nick Cardy cover. The action begins with both the Justice League and the Justice Society trying to synchronize two transporter devices with which they hope to be able travel between the Earths at any time of the year. Despite Red Tornado's pleading to be allowed to return to his Earth, the League sends Green Arrow, Elongated Man, and Batman into the machine. Likewise, the Society sends Sandman, Dr. Fate, and Superman into their device. But Red Tornado stows away in the device causing the transporters to malfunction and the seven heroes to vanish. They end up on another Earth entirely, one that seems to have Nazis in control. They battle the Nazis who have super-scientific devices and are saved from defeat by the intervention of Uncle Sam, the Human Bomb, Phantom Lady, the Ray, the Black Condor, and Doll Man. Uncle Sam reveals that on this Earth World War II lasted far longer due to the untimely death of the President, and that eventually the Nazis won taking control of the globe. They maintain power with mind control devices to which Uncle Sam and his freedom fighters are immune. Dr. Fate uses his magic to detect the locations of the hidden mind control devices, and the heroes divide into teams and Uncle Sam sends the teams away to destroy the devices. Red Tornado is left behind. Batman, Dr. Fate, Ray, and Human Bomb are sent to Paris where the mind control device seems to be in the Eiffel Tower. The quartet battle their way to the top and find the machine which is sentient and defends itself with specially constructed foes for each of the heroes. The heroes prevail but then are taken over directly by the machine. They are able to destroy the machine though by combining their powers and relying on their reflexes. Meanwhile the heroes of Earths One and Two search for their disappeared comrades.

 

"Thirteen Against the Earth!" under another great Cardy cover is again by the Wein, Dillin and Giordano team. Uncle Sam breaks the fourth wall and brings the reader up to date on the events of the last issue. Superman, Doll Man, Green Arrow, and Phantom Lady arrive in Japan, the former Axis power which was also defeated by the Nazis, to find the second mind-control machine. It is hidden in plain sight and Superman detects it and reveals it. The machine threatens to destroy Japan if the heroes attack it, but Superman is undeterred landing a ferocious punch. Immediately Japan suffers a massive earthquake, and Superman flies off to alleviate the problem. Meanwhile the other heroes work together to get Doll Man inside the machine where he disables it. Elongated Man, Sandman, Black Condor, and Uncle Sam arrive at Mount Rushmore where Hitler's face has been added to the monument. The heroes fight their way to another machine only to discover that it's an illusion. They deduce the machine must be inside the Hitler head and Uncle Sam aided by Elongated Man delivers a massive punch to Hitler's stony ediface destroying the machine. The heroes are them reassembled but discover that the mind control has not diminished despite the destruction of the three machines. In fact, the heroes of Earths One and Two are taken over by the mind control and attack the heroes of Earth-X. Red Tornado detects the source of the mind control and follows the trail into orbit where he finds a huge Nazi satellite "manned" by an android Hitler. It turns out the Nazis had actually been defeated by their own mind control machines some years before and that the machines have ruled Earth-X since. Red Tornado attacks and succeeds in causing the satellite to fall out of orbit and crash into the ocean. He rescues a bit of equipment the machines used to communicate, and the heroes are able to contact Earths One and Two to arrange rescue. The leave Earth-X free of its oppressors and they leave behind some truly quality freedom fighters.

The Freedom Fighters proved to be pretty popular and even got their own series several years later. It was a quirky series and brought the heroes to Earth-1 and made them fugitives, an attempt I guess to recreate their underground guerrilla warrior role from the crossover. I enjoyed it, but after a few years the series was cancelled. This crossover itself is one of my absolute faves. The artwork by Dillin and Giordano is outstanding, with Giordano giving Dillin's storytelling some real drama. In the years before internet and archives and whatnot, getting to see these vintage heroes was an awesome treat. While I adore the modern era with access to old comics easy to get hold of, part of me yearns for those sweet days when such glimpses were exceedingly precious because they were so rare. 

The Freedom Fighters went on to get their own series, one which lasted a few years and was caught up in the end in DC's notorious implosion. Here's a cover gallery. 

The book might have died, but there was no killing these Quality characters. 

A few years later Roy Thomas developed an origin story of sorts for the Freedom Fighters in the pages of All-Star Squadron. This comic was Roy's attempt to organize and to some extent sanitize DC's often chaotic Golden Age era. 

Alas, his hard work was largely undone by Crisis on Infinite Earths. The arrival of Harbinger was the end of classic DC take on those vintage Quality heroes. 

Look for more posts on the Quality heroes as July rumbles along. For more about these comics, I highly recommend Twomorrow's Quality Companion. (See the cover at the top of this post.) It has a wide array of features and traces the rise and fall of the company and its many talents. It even includes many full-color comic stories from Quality's heyday. 

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