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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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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The Summer Of The Action-Heroes!

We looked at Steve Ditko's Captain Atom a few months ago. Now it's finally time to check out the rest of Charlton's "Action-Heroes" including Ditko's greatest creation for this era -- the "New" Blue Beetle. The Action-Heroes were a concoction of editor Dick Giordano, a longtime artist at Charlton who assumed the duties in the late 60's replacing Pat Masulli. Many of the heroes actually started their runs during Masulli's tenure, but it was Giordano who pulled them together and gave them focus as a line. Superheroes were hot, and Charlton had bitten hard with the introduction of Sarge Steel, The Fightin' Five, Blue Beetle, Son of Vulcan, and a revival of Captain Atom. They added to this roster Thunderbolt and Judomaster and Peacemaker. The group reached its apogee when Ditko revised Blue Beetle into a form more fitting to Giordano's vision of low-powered heroes, and finally the addition of The Question. 

Not unlike Tower's THUNDER Agents (which will be getting a glimpse this summer - more below), the "Action-Heroes" was an attempt to make the stories more immediate and close-to-home, response to the wild and wacky Silver Age DC material and the increasingly cosmic Marvel epics which were dominating the comic racks. This was an attempt to carve out a niche, and it was a successful one, at least critically. Eventually the line failed to find sufficient sales, but Giordano had been noticed by DC, and they scooped him up and added him to their editorial line-up as well as the artistic one. Along with him they took on talents Steve Ditko, Pat Boyette, Frank McLaughlin, Steve Skeates, Denny O'Neil, and Jim Aparo. More on this later. 

Years later DC would scoop up the actual "Action-Heroes" themselves and make them a part of the larger DCU. So that's the plan. I want to look at the characters who inspired this blog to begin with, yet again.

And as an added bonus, the THUNDER Agents will be on hand on Saturdays through June and July. The Tower Comics and the Charlton Comics of this time were among the most creative and ultimately successful of the cavalcade of wannabe heroes who arrived in the wake of Marvel's success and the earth-shaking TV hit Batman.  

So prepare for the "Summer of the Action-Heroes"! 

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Thunder Agents Archives 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. Somehow this was tied into Archie Comics and the short-lived run was finished under their banner in an issue of Blue-Ribbon Comics. 

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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THUNDER Secret Files!

The THUNDER Agents are a wonderful blend of superhero and superspy universes enmeshed with a substantial science fiction glamour attached to it all. It is a comic series that is defined by its art as much if not more than any other. The names of the writers of most of the stories are forgotten or disputed, but the artist are much better documented. Wally Wood was given the brief to create the THUNDER Agents and in that mission he brought in such pros as Gil Kane, Mike Sekowsky, and Reed Crandall among others. But it was Wood who defined the series and its characters. 

Not least among these was the evocative Iron Maiden, a villainess in the classic vein, desirous of the wealth that crime can bring but foiled time and again by her attraction to the hero Dynamo. What this voluptuous vixen ever saw in dim Len Brown is anyone's guess, but doubtless she wanted to "fix" him. 

And he needed fixing. Dyanamo is a modern update of Captain Marvel in may ways. When needed the crackle of electricity and a flash of lightning mark the arrival of Dynamo thanks to his nifty belt that allows him for a brief time to become invulnerable and amazingly strong. Very often Dynamo is portrayed as a weapon, deployed into his missions from bomb bay doors and landing troop carriers. He's a one-man army who is constantly captured but always rescued, either by his own wits or more likely the arrival of his allies in THUNDER. 

His greatest ally is NoMan. NoMan is Anthony Dunn, or better to say he was Anthony Dunn before the latter gave up his aged body to inhabit an army of android bodies, each of which is more powerful than his own. He uses a cloak to become invisible at times and is remarkable in that he "dies" in virtually every story he's in. It's a short-lived death as all he has to do it transport his mind into another android and he's at it again. He's effectively immortal in a way. 

Menthor was a villain named John Janus who gets the third of THUNDER's great weapons, a helmet that makes him able to use telepathy and telekinesis among other things. Menthor intends to betray THUNDER but the helmet changes him and Janus becomes a true hero. He's a tragic hero because he is killed in the line of duty, a stunning turn of events in the day. 

The THUNDER Squad is made up of four stalwarts who represent to varying degrees normal folks who serve the agency. There was a fifth member named Egghead but he was killed so quickly that he didn't even make the poster above. Dynamite shows up once a while to help on missions. Weed gets his own series as something of a light-hearted spy story and plays on his insecurity being among all the alpha males in THUNDER. Kitten is often on hand to turn the tables on the enemy who think she is an easy victim. Her looks affect the other agents from time to time. Not least of which is Guy Gilbert who leads the squad before becoming Lightning, a fourth super THUNDER Agent. He is given the gift of super speed but at the cost of time from his own life. 

THUNDER begins in order to fight the Subterraneans, who first appear in the guise of the Warlord who commands an army of zombie soldiers. Soon the greater threat is revealed as all of the planet is threatened by these ghastly folk from deep in the Earth's bowels. THUNDER does eventually defeat them though they keep popping up from time to time. 

One of the more fascinating creations of the Subterraneans is Andor. Drawn above by Dan Adkins (who gave his name to Dynamite) Andor is a human taken as a baby and reared in the underworld . He is trained and given inhuman abilities in order to battle the enemy which turns out to be THUNDER. He turns on his masters and becomes a wandering soul looking for his place in a strange world. He sometimes falls victim to his origins, but usually is able to stand up for himself. He's perhaps the most fascinating ongoing figure in the whole saga. 

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