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 Blue Beetle Comes To Charlton!

(Read this comic at this link.)

Charlton was one of those companies that survived the Golden Age of comics by keeping their ears to the ground as trends and sweeping up properties from defunct publishers. They gathered many from Fawcett when it went under and it gobbled up the Fox / Holyoke Blue Beetle when that property became available in 1955. 

(Read this comic at this link.)

The Blue Beetle title took over the numbering of The Thing which had been ironically showcasing the work of Steve Ditko. The first two issues of the Charlton Blue Beetle series reprinted stories from years before. 

(Read this comic at this link.)

Under new covers most likely by Dick Giordano the Blue Beetle is shown flying on the covers. The Beetle's powers had slowly increased during the Golden Age. Now in this series which featured new stories drawn by Ted Galindo and Ray Orsin the Beetle becomes a potent figure, able to fight crime on the streets and fly into space. 

(Read this comic at this link.)

We get two issues of new stories starring the Beetle before the series is cancelled. It would be a decade before Charlton would revive and substantially revise the hero. The Blue Beetle was far from gone, merely hibernating until his next incarnation. 

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Blue Beetle Radio!

Blue Beetle proved to be enough of a hit on the newsstand that radio took notice and the character was developed into a radio program in 1940 and ran for seventy episodes. To enjoy the radio check out the link below to the Internet Archive:

The Blue Beetle Radio Show

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Golden Age Blue Beetle!

The Blue Beetle was first born in Mystery Men Comics #1 from Fox Publications in 1939. He proved a popular feature, and the hard-fisted hero got his own title a year later. There is debate about who created Blue Beetle, though some sources list Will Eisner as the first writer with Charles Nicholas Wojtkoski as the first artist. Blue Beetle was a street-level mystery man, a cop who used special vitamins to gain his powers and wore armor to fight crime. 

Here is the Golden Age Blue Beetle's origin story from the pages of the debut issue of Mystery Men Comics. Notice of course that the concept was not fully developed in this first story. 

As the years rolled by, the source of Dan Garret's powers was altered and he became increasingly powerful, more Superman than Spirit. More Golden Age Blue Beetle tomorrow. 

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The Beetles Are Blue!

The month of June is dedicated to the Blue Beetle. The Blue Beetle is one of comics most enduring heroes, having been published by a lot of brands and successfully finding a place to exist in most eras of comics. The Beetle began in the Golden Age, found reasonable success in comics and even on radio for a short time and a two-fisted crimefighter named Dan Garrett. Later a different Dan Garrett was revived and revised by Charlton Comics as a mystical superhero with vast powers. 

Later at Charlton Steve Ditko took the character and gave him a technological touch under the name Ted Kord. This version hung on at Charlton and later at DC for quite some time, before yet another Blue Beetle in the form of Jaime Reyes took on the role. The focus this month will be on Charlton's versions of the hero. So, grab your hats, it's going to be a zany ride. 

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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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Ditko's Amazing Spider-Man Artist's Edition!

I'm closing out this month-long look at Steve Ditko's work for Marvel with a glimpse of a beautiful Artist's Edition. This tome contains many pages of original art including entire comics. Spidey's origin is here, a true bit of Americana.  Here are more details. 

At $175 bucks I don't suspect I'll be adding it to my hoard, but it's nice knowing it exists.  Next month we turn our attention back to Charlton and the project Ditko turned his attention to when he left Marvel -- The Blue Beetle. 

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