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 Five!

I've very much enjoyed reading these vintage stories as IDW has continued the reprints despite the failure of the new material to find a footing. Wally Wood's influence is still evident, but his role is beginning to diminish in these stories as the series continues to its inevitable end. This features the first of the THUNDER titles without a Wood-esque cover, but rather clearly a Gil Kane effort (see below).

Dynamo continues to have problems with his powers, specifically his belt. Seems he's always getting captured and NoMan in particular gets weary of having to turn the belt on for him. So. in an attempt to improve the belt the powers at THUNDER give it the ability to respond to a word. If Dynamo's similarity to Captain Marvel (now Shazam) wasn't already strong it is made more so when he has only to say "Excelsior" to gain his strength and invulnerability. I can't help but think that there's a nod to Stan "The Man" as well. Later he goes to a distant planet to fight mysterious aliens on their home turf. Dan Adkins is taking a stronger hand in the work at this point. Len Brown's love life is mostly a disaster as always. 

Andor shows up in a Wally Wood story titled "Return Engagement" with pencils by Steve Ditko and Dan Adkins, and his outsider outlook is strengthened by his change to a hippie of sorts, albeit a hippie with powers. Ditko is also well represented with a delightful story featuring Weed titled "Once Upon a Time". Lighting continues to have problems with his own powers and ends up the volume in suspended animation when his body rebels. Raven gets a makeover and thanks to Gil Kane takes part in a wild action-packed adventure that changes his direction. NoMan plows ahead losing bodies by the dozens but still stopping SPIDER, the new gangsters on the scene. 

With the cancellation of UNDERSEA Agent we get a story from that series stuck in to help pad out an issue. It's good and all but out of place in tone and art. 

Here are the issues in this volume.  Issue twelve's cover was apparently based on a Larry Ivie design. Ivie being a person who seems to take a bit too much credit for his contributions to the Agents, though he was present. 

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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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Children Of The Atom!

Captain Atom created by Steve Ditko and Joe Gill for Charlton Comics, is almost certainly the most famous and most enduring of the many superheroes who were born of the atomic age. He was the very byproduct of an atomic blast, a man transformed by the destructive power of an atomic bomb into something which could use atomic power for the betterment of the world. But while he was the most famous, he was hardly the only hero. 

From Atoman by Jerry Robinson from Spark in 1946 to Radioactive Man from Bongo in 1996, here are fifty years of fun-loving characters who adore nothing so much as to play with the very fabric of nature and reality. But then, that's what comics are all about anyway Enjoy a good look at these four-color "Children of the Atom"!

More Atomic Action tomorrow!

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