Resounding Thunder!

DC has announced (yet again) that they are going to publish new adventures of the classic Tower Comics heroes the THUNDER Agents.

Tower was an upstart company led creatively by artist and writer Wally Wood and writer Len Brown, and it employed artists like Gil Kane, Mike Sekowsky, Reed Crandall, Chic Stone, Steve Ditko,George Tuska, Manny Stallman and many others. The stories were by and large well-crafted superhero tales embedded in a somewhat espionage environment. Superman-Meets-Bond would probably capture the essential flavor of the series.

The books lasted a few years, priced at twenty-five cents a copy they were high-end for the time. But they were gems. I was a wee bit young to have dived into these, but I do remember seeing them on the stands. And a decade or more back I put together a mostly complete collection. Beautiful storytelling in a blend early and later Silver Age styles.

The Agents have been since their cancellation the stuff of legend. They were acquired by John Carbanaro who spent years looking for just the right deal to bring them back. During the first wave of independents unleashed by the direct sales market they appeared in a new company named Deluxe but that fell through and then Carbonaro produced his own books before the Agents then became the ultimate crossover stars appearing all over the comics landscape of the 80's. Even the Penthouse magazine folks tried a reboot during the 90's.

Then DC said they had them, but the deal fell through. The archives developed out of that and then sadly Carbonaro passed away. Last year DC said they were going to do new stories again, but then it all went silent again.


Until yesterday when news broke that a new THUNDER Agents book is scheduled to appear this fall. I'll believe that when I see it. The Agents have had a long long history, most of it involving anticipation and disappointment, so we'll see how this develops.

I do like how Frank Quitely's cover art for the debut evokes the classic look of a vintage Wally Wood cover. On the downside, the use of the word "clone" as opposed to "android" for the bodies that Noman will use is a bit distressing. Either it's a change I don't like or the writer doesn't know the difference that's problematic.

Sigh.

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