T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents

[Jeff of Earth-J]

When I was young, I had always heard that the prerequisite for comic book fandom was owning a complete set of All Star Comics featuring the JSA, and that for second generation fandom it was Wally Wood's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. Because we now live in the Golden Age of Reprints, I am able to own both of those series, in hardcover. [NOTE: the title is an acronym for "The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves," but don't expect me to continue putting the periods behind each initial throughout this discussion.] DC started releasing the series in archival format in 2002 (wow, has it really been 20 years?), but I only ever got as far as midway through volume three (which I know because my bookmark is still in that volume where I left off and volume four is still in its shrinkwrap). Because the first  of my Comic Collecting Precepts is "Don't buy what you don't read," it is my intention to read my way through volume eight during the course of this discussion.

I have a bad habit of, when returning to an abandoned reading project, starting over at the beginning. Or I should say I used to have that problem, because I resolved in 2009 to always pick up where I left off when returning to an unfinished project. I have been pretty good about adhering to that plan over the intervening years, but this time I am going to start at the beginning because it has been so long since I last attempted it. I have read this first volume at least three times, IIRC: once when it was released, once when v2 was and once when v3 was. So I've read v2 twice, but only the first half of v3. In addition, I have read T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents - Best of Wally Wood hardcover at least twice. 

But because I have started a discussion of the series, I shall start with issue #1. I don't know how much I'm going to have to say about these early issues, but here we go.

ISSUE #1:

"FIRST ENCOUNTER": The four-page introductory story (by Larry Ivie and Wally Wood), sets up the premise: Professor Jennings has been killed by the forces of the Warlord, but a United Nations task force manages to salvage prototypes of three devices the professor had been working on: an "electron molecular intensifier belt," an invisibility cloak and a cybernetic helmet designed to amplify the wearer's brain power.

DYNAMO: Len Brown is chosen to wear the "Thunder Belt" (as it has been dubbed). "Len Brown" is also the name of the scripter; the artist is Wally Wood. The first thing Brown (the fictional one) does with the belt is to punch through a brick wall, a Wally Wood trademark. This story also introduces Dynamo's femme fatale, the Iron Maiden, one of the Warlord's lieutenants. He can wear the belt only for a short time without causing damage to his body. At the end of this first story, he is captured.

NOMAN: Doctor Dunn is the aging scientist who invented a series of androids into which a human mind can be transferred. The catch is, although the mind can be transferred from android to android, the switch from human to android is one way. Dunn transfers his mind into one of the four android bodies shown, allowing his human body to die. For some reason, in addition to having an android body, it is decided that Dr. Dunn also receive the invisibility cloak. He adopts the identity of "NoMan" and is perhaps the most inept agent in all of THUNDER. 

I don't know how much these android bodies cost or how many of them there are, but the one thing I remember about NoMan from the few issues I have read is that he loses a body in almost every story. In this story, NoMan is sent after the Sub-Men of Demo, another of the Warlord's lieutenants. He sets out in a car with a spare body in tow, almost as if he expects to lose a body. (The spare body is incorrectly drawn with a one-of-a-kind invisibility cloak of its own.) NoMan is defeated, his body's "mechanism's demolished." He transfers his mind to the spare body waiting in the car (now correctly drawn sans cloak). He returns to the lab to find Demo and his assistant fled and to retrieve the cloak.

The art is by Reed Crandall and Wally Wood. So far, the agents are oh for two. A text story follows, but I never read those.

MENTHOR: Mr. Janus, the man chosen to wear the cybernetic helmet, is a double agent for the Warlord. You'd think the name "Janus" might have clued someone in, but the Guardians didn't pick up on "Sinestro" so maybe not. Like the thunder belt, the helmet cannot be worn for long without damaging the wearer. It gives him telekinesis and the ability to fire "brain blasts." One more thing: the "H" in Menthor is silent, pronounced "mentor" (but that spelling means something else). I can't tell you the number of time I've heard someone pronounce the "TH" as in "menthol" rather than "Neanderthal." The art is by Gil Kane (with George Tuska and Mike Esposito).

THUNDER SQUAD: A non-powered group of operatives (Guy, Dynamite, Kitten, Weed and Egghead) with art by Mike Sekowsky. 

DYNAMO: The conclusion to the Dynamo story earlier in the issue, in which Menthor, NoMan and the THUNDER Squad team-up to save him. NoMan loses another android body, the second in a single issue.

I've never seen an actual copy of issue #1 (outside a bag), but I am disappointed at the reproduction value of this entire first volume; it's kind of murky.

[Captain Comics]

Man, I've fallen way behind!

A special android body, made to look like Dr. Steinmetz who is under THUNDER's protection, has been prepared for NoMan.

The Li'l Capn wondered at the time if this was an exciting new phase for NoMan, where he'd have a new super-power: Perfect disguise! THUNDER could create any number of androids imitating various leaders and have NoMan replace them long enough to screw things up ("Comrade Krushchev! Why are you surrendering East Germany?"). Previously, I thought all androids had to be blue, so this was very exciting. Of course, they did NOT change NoMan's basic premise, no matter how much sense it makes.

"a magnetic core of insulation"

This is the THUNDER equivalent of reversing the polarity.

(who has apparently forgotten they declared their love for each other in the previous story)

As a lad reading these in order, I found it very confusing that "the writer" would forget what happened issue to issue, and sometimes story to story. I have read in a number of places, however, that Wood was overwhelmed by the Tower job, and was always asking his friends in the biz to pitch in and do a random story here and there. Some issues were done by committee when deadlines loomed. And if Wood was the editor, and he probably was, then he had too much on his plate to do much more than skim what other people did.

With this sort of haphazard scripting, it's no wonder that nothing ever progresses, that characters "forget" what happened last issue (or last story) and that contradictions abound. The Wood art made up for anything, but it was really obvious that most of the time, nobody had their hand on the wheel.

Making his was back to Germany, he abducts and proposes to Trudy. She puts off answering until the next day.

I actually kinda liked the development that NoMan still had human urges but no human body with which to exercise them. It made him a tragic figure. But even the Li'l Capn, who was not yet dating, knew that kidnapping a girl is not the way to get her to fall in love with you. Even at that tender age, I interpreted "puts off answering him until the next day" as "stalling until she can a find a way to escape this maniac."

This was nicely done.

Agreed. I was no fan of Menthor, but his death and funeral were moving. Later comic book funerals seem to borrow a lot of this, or maybe all of them are referencing earlier movies or TV shows.

Great cover!

So many Wood covers would make awesome posters. He seemed to have the ability to freeze time at a critical moment when things are in motion, like a photo. Frazetta, by contrast, would depict a pause just before something critical was going to happen. Both great, great artists.

NoMan is kidnapped into a plot stolen right from early Alex Raymond Flash Gordon, but he manages to escape.

If you're gonna steal, steal from the best. Actually, most of our favorite Silver Age artists were devotees of Alex Raymond, Burne Hogarth and Hal Foster, especially John Buscema and Joe Kubert.

I might argue that strapping a jetpack on any one of these agents would reduce his effectiveness.

As anyone who's been here for any length of time knows, I think all superheroes whose only super-power is flight (Angel, Hawkman, Raven) are little more than flying targets. I don't see a jetpack as a super-power; I see it as transportation.

This story is about a mysterious box that fell from space and landed on the island of Noridna, somewhere in the Pacific, in or near the Philippines.

For no reason I can ascertain, Noridna is "andiron" backwards.

I was going to point this out last time but, although I have read these stories before (once), I have no memory of any of them in volume three whatsoever.

Some of them are pretty forgettable. The longer Tower ran, the worse it got.

This is the WWII writers using WWII language.

Which was just about every writer in the Silver Age!

Why would a secret organization have shirts with enormous spider logos on them?

Not to be contrary, but before SHIELD made it into the MCU I had a SHIELD polo shirt and nobody knew what the logo meant. To them, it was just a stylized eagle. Of course, if I had run into an agent of Hydra they'd have shot me, which I guess is your point.

This is the worst cover so far. Hard to believe it’s by Wood.

Everybody has an off day. And as I mentioned earlier, Wood was overwhelmed by this point.

If anything, they are very much like the more simplistic stories of an earlier decade, the '50s or even the '40s. Yet they're drawn by some of the most noted artists of the time, which is where the disconnect lies.

Probably true. But I would note some of the Silver Age notes, like NoMan's inability to have a love life, and Lightning's suit killing him. I would instead suggest that, given Wood's editorial approach, Tower was very much like a '40s shop or packager, like Funnies, Inc. He would throw assignments at anyone who walked in the door, and there was virtually no oversight.

Her face is colored the same as Len’s. The other Chinese characters on the same page are, grotesquely, a washed-out yellow.

Four-color offset printing had trouble with pale yellows, which tended to drop out. Every publisher struggled with an Asian skin tone that wasn't hideous, except those that were publishing war comics, where that was a plus.

The only comment I have is that Weed isn’t portrayed the way he’s been up to now. Other than his dizziness when trying out the Raven gear, he’s always been portrayed as very competent. I also don't think the Chief would disparage him like that, certainly not in front of his fellow agents.

Agreed. The other THUNDER Squad members valued him, as did Dynamo and Lightning. (Maybe NoMan, too, I don't remember.) And Weed was one of my favorites. (I wanted to grow up to be a he-man superhero, but I suspected I'd grow up to be Weed.) This just seems like a writer altering the characters to suit his story, and with no oversight, who would tell him no?

I have tried in vain to figure out what "mone" is supposed to be.

I assumed "time." You get "on" instead of "im" if your right hand is off one key on a standard keypad and the "e" is from the left hand being where it's supposed to be. Dunno where the initial "m" comes from, but maybe it was an attempt at a fix in production. Anyway, I interpreted "more mone" as "more time." The sentence also works if you remove "mone" altogether. Pretty sloppy.

Simple proofreading is a pretty basic part of an editor's job, and Tower Comics' output continually falls short.

My guess is there weren't any editors, and any corrections were done by the production department if they happened to notice them.

All those years, Marvel had Army General Thunderbolt Ross in a blue uniform.

Because he's Air Force. Thanks to that blue uniform, I assumed he was Air Force all along, and if he did anything Army-like I assumed it was because the Army was cooperating or because it was a mistake. Hulkbusters seemed to be a hybrid unit that got whatever it wanted in funding/resources, whether it was Army, Air Force or NASA.

I just looked it up, and both Wiki and Marvel Database say Ross is Air Force. I may have even read it a time or two in the comics.

“Manny, we don’t know what to do with this Raven character. Wish we hadn’t created him. Do what you want with him.”

Ha! That's certainly what it looks like.

They also probably didn't know what to do with Manny.

Unfortunately, a visible hand gives the man a pretty good idea of where NoMan is standing, and the man punches him in the gut and makes a break for it.

I don't see why a punch in the gut would slow him down, because it's not a gut -- he's an android who doesn't eat or digest. The more likely effect is that the bad guy would break his hand.

Early on it was established -- as much as anything is established at Tower -- that NoMan's bodies were stronger and heavier than humans. But by this point, they seem almost delicate.

The Gnome, described as "one of the world's greatest scientific minds turned evil." He is a dwarf with an over-sized cranium, bald pate and pointed ears.

Much like The Gargoyle in Incredible Hulk #1 (1962).

Having recently read the issues of DC's Captain Action which were written as well as drawn by Kane, I suspect that he is also this story's "unknown" writer.

I kind of assume that when there's no writer of record, a given THUNDER story was written by the artist.

I had to look through the art to see if Kane provided any up-the-nostrils shots.

Wow. I never thought I'd be nostalgic for that, but here I am.

“The Autograph Hunter falls out the window. He lands in a wagon full of hay. He’s a track star. He runs away before NoMan can react. Not having a second body on the street, NoMan has no chance of apprehending him.”

That's better than most THUNDER stories by 1966.

This story has the Chief with a little mustache. What are the odds that this is the only time we’ll see it?

Ooh! Ooh! I'll take that bet!

It's as if they're making this stiff up as they go along!

Heh.

They seem to write characters as dumb when it suits the story. As many times as they’ve said that Dynamo was dumb, they occasionally have him running an operation and sounding smart and organized.

"It's as if they're making this stiff up as they go along!"

He could have been Dr. Faceliff, the plastic surgeon. 

Bwah-ha-ha!

Len gets to demonstrate his dumb side.

He has another side? Oh, wait, he does when the plot calls for it. NM.

so I would say he definitely isn’t Alice’s father.

I think so, too. I must have been thinking of some other boss/daughter arrangement.

Meanwhile, back in the states, Weed has allowed himself to be shot by Red Star himself with Weed's own gun, which is loaded with blanks.

Maybe everybody's guns are loaded with blanks, unless the story says otherwise. That would explain a lot.

This must be a new policy, instituted after multiple instances of agents taking everybody's word for everything.

If they were under orders all along to take everybody's word for everything, that would also explain a lot.

NoMan is sent to investigate a string of deaths following the discovery of the mummy Ankhara, a priestess of "Issus" (that's the way it's spelled).

Maybe she's a goddess from Israebia.

I believe the clasp on NoMan's cloak is the power dial that activates it, much like the buckle on Dynamo's belt.

Yep. He's seen with his hand on the clasp several times. That doesn't explain why he says he can't turn invisible when held down; he just can't reach the clasp. He should say "I can't reach my clasp!" not "I can't turn invisible!" But it may be that this story's "writer" didn't know how he turned invisible and just ... said he couldn't.

... more product than could be adequately managed by one office editor and one studio editor ...

That's one more editor than I thought they had.

... two secret documents are shown being blown out the window ...

This also explains a lot.

Yeah, I know... that's a long way to go just to watch a TV show.

Bwah-ha-ha!

It is also this story which introduces the Chief's daughter, Roxanne (a.k.a. "Bunny"), which is no doubt whom Cap was confusing with Alice.

Ohhh ... so that's where I got the idea.

O.G.R.E., yet another group with an acronym for a name (Organized Greed Revenge & Extermination) sets out to rob a bank to finance its operations

Aquaman #26 (1966) also introduced an O.G.R.E., which stood for Organization for General Revenge and Enslavement.

Either that or it's page ten.

Bwah-ha-ha!

For some reason (actually, I know exactly the reason), I thought the Undersea Agent was a member of THUNDER.

What's the reason? Tell us! Tell us!

[Richard Willis]

ISSUE #14:

DYNAMO:

Andor has been down on his luck since his last encounter with Dynamo/THUNDER and has taken up residence with a group of hippies (although Steve Ditko drew them as beatniks) in Greenwich Village.

Ditko lived in New York. Maybe Greenwich Village was the last beatnik hold-out. He would know better than me. He drew actual hippies in Spider-Man.

Dynamo and Andor meet, they fight, and before they team-up, SPIDER calls in an airstrike. (Why an organization which controls fighter jets with air-to-ground missiles is running a penny-ante protection racket shaking down a group of beatniks hippies I don't know.)

Except for the odd protection racket, this is a pretty good story. Probably written or co-written by Ditko. I don’t think we should expect SPIDER to behave any more logically or consistently than THUNDER.

LIGHTNING:

Mock-Man has infiltrated THUNDER HQ, disguised as Lightning, and leaves a stack of papers on the Chief's desk "for him to sign." On the way out, he encounters the real Lightning, who gives chase. Lightning is feeling groggy this morning, however, and trips, allowing Mock-Man to escape.

Groggy or not, Mock-Man only looks like Lightning. He can’t run like him. Lightning could have activated his powers and caught up with him in a split second. Reading further, I guess it’s a good thing he didn’t listen to me.

Meanwhile, the THUNDER Squad have traced Mock-Man to the laboratory then to the airport, where they lose his trail. Just then, they are reassigned to tackle the rampaging robot. The only way to defeat it, it seems, is for Guy to use his super-speed, which he does. He collapses and is put "in suspended animation until [THUNDER] can find a cure!" Meanwhile, Mock-Man is on a plane to find Linda.

Another complex, interesting story from Steve Skeates.

NOMAN:   

The Supreme Arachnid may have a stupid name, but he certainly had a good (evil) plan. Most of the faults aren’t his, but continuity faults. There was no way he would know about the cape’s time limit. Killing your own men is not something that is likely to stay quiet. Might make recruiting tougher.

RAVEN:

Nothing to add. A major improvement over the previous stories.

THUNDER AGENTS:

This story of a giant, flying, robotic hand would not be out of place in a 1950s DC science fiction title. BIG continuity error in that Lightning participates in this story.

All they had to do was move this story before the Lightning story.

[Captain Comics]

Ditko lived in New York. Maybe Greenwich Village was the last beatnik hold-out. He would know better than me. He drew actual hippies in Spider-Man.

Beatniks, yes. Hippies, too. And Ditko didn't like them.

I still remember as a kid reading Amazing Spider-Man during the Ditko years where Peter Parker runs into some fellow students at a demonstration, who ask Parker to join them. The demonstrators are depicted as shallow idiots, much different than the smart and earnest demonstrators in my Southern city that dared protest the Vietnam War. (And paid for it.)

Parker's reaction was that of ... I dunno, not Stan Lee, whose liberal sensibility otherwise permeated Marvel Comics. This confused the Li'l Capn. But being Li'l, he wrote it off to not understanding some finer points in the workings of the world. (There were a lot of things the Li'l Capn didn't understand.)

But, understanding aside, the Li'l Capn didn't like it. Peter Parker was supposed to be better -- and more progressive -- than that.

It was years later that the Li'l Capn (who was not so li'l any more) discovered that Steve Ditko was a hard-core reactionary, diametrically opposed to Lee's philosophy (and mine). When fans today argue about what drove Ditko and Lee apart, to the point where they didn't talk to each other any more, they look for all kinds of reasons, usually ones that involve the Green Goblin's ID.

I don't think it's a mystery at all. It's just another story of a radical right-winger who can't tolerate anyone who doesn't agree with him. All you have to do is read Mr. A to understand why Ditko couldn't stand Stan Lee. All you have to do is read Atlas Shrugged to understand Ditko's behavior. He was a true believer of that nonsense, and acted it out to the end of his life.

As to Greenwich Village, it's long been famous for being a left-wing, artsy-fartsy enclave. I don't know if that's still true -- it's probably just a tourist trap now where nobody can afford to live -- but it was certainly true in the '60s, even when Roy Thomas lived there. 

I'm not sure exactly when that was. But when he started at Marvel, Thomas had an apartment in Greenwich Village that he shared with another writer, I think Gary Friedrich. Maybe late '60s/early '70s? And when Thomas was writing Doctor Strange, he used the address of his Bleeker Street apartment for the Sanctum Sanctorum, which it remains to this day. And Thomas said that the antics around his apartment inspired his Strange writing.

Another complex, interesting story from Steve Skeates.

I didn't understand why, when I was reading these stories as a lad, why some were WHOA better than the others. I had gotten accustomed to stupid and contradictory. But, yeah, Steve Skeates, mensch.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

ISSUE #15:

Another Gil Kane cover.

DYNAMO: A three-way story pitting THUNDER/Dynamo against Iron Maiden/Andor against SPIDER/Brutus Kanassus. SPIDER has found a volunteer to undergo the fatal "transformer" procedure (see #12). He agrees to the procedure because he has a terminal heart condition anyway. Rusty (now inexplicably no longer "rusty" but blonde) escapes from jail (like other villains in this series, she remained jailed only so long as suited the unknown writer's purposes) and hooks up with the blind Andor. 

Both Dynamo and Andor are searching for Kanassus, but Kanassus finds Dynamo first and ambushes him from behind. Iron Maiden sics Andor on him, but Kanassus easily defeats the blind Andor. In the confusion, Iron Maiden and Andor slip away. Back at SPIDER Central, Dynamo comes to and fights with Kanassus. Iron Maiden and Andor arrive to steal SPIDER's haul of uranium. When she orders Andor to abandon Dynamo to Kanassus, Andor refuses. Kanassus is beating them both, when he dies of a fatal heart attack. When the police arrive, Dynamo allows Andor to escape. Andor ends up back in the clutches of the Subterranean who formerly controlled him. THUNDER ends up with the uranium, but Iron Maiden is still at large. This was a good story.

LIGHTNING: Lightning is being kept alive in a freezing tube. The Warp Wizard invades THUNDER HQ and transports Guy to an unknown location (a deserted plateau in Peru), then goes on to commit a string of robberies (47 total). The THUNDER Squad is always too late, until Dynamite deduces where he will strike next and they lie in wait. The Warp Wizard appears and Dynamite is able to follow him through the warp back to his HQ. Once there, Warp Wizard slips away and hides behind a file cabinet with a warp on either side. Whichever way Dynamite chooses, the Warp Wizard will sloip through the warp on the other side.

Meanwhile, back at THUNDER, the scientists determine that onlyincreasing the density of Lightning's cells can save his life. (They are now within the last 24 hours before any treatment will be useless.) They "re-cycle" Dynamo's belt to Guy's metabolism. Back at the Warp Wizard hideout, Dynamite makes his choice and the Wizard slips away. Then Dynamite discovers a deus ex machina, one of the Wizard's other belts, just lying around, and is able to force Guy's location from him. After Warping back to THUNDER HQ, the Wizard sends the THUNDER Squad to Peru just in time to put the belt on Guy and save his life. "Later"... "The doctors say you'll be able to use [the] inducer again within a week." Really? what about the cumulative detrimental effects? 

NOMAN: There is a line from Hulk #5 I remember very well: "Gotta exercise this way once a week so I don't end up bein' a muscle-bound creep!" This story begins: "For those who follow the adventures of the THUNDER Agents, it would almost seem they're super-human... but, in truth, all of them must practice their skills arduously to retain maximum power and agility." All well and good, but it doesn't explain why they are exercising on a plateau "hundreds of miles" from base. rather than, I don't know, in a gymnasium at headquarters. Dynamo is swinging from a jungle gym, Lightning is lifting weights, and someone in a blue leotard is jumping hurdles. Meanwhile, NoMan wanders too near the edge, which crumbles under his weight and sends him falling to his death below.

When he attempts to send his mind back to HQ for a spare, it "slams against an invisible force field" which deflects his consciousness into space, "beyond the farthest star in the man-charted universe." He arrives on "the planet Araneae of a star cluster [he] would not recognize," Two "little green men" observe his arrival and explain "our sensate beam will deposit the soul of the creature in this compartment... and with returning consciousness it will assume its own natural shape and properties out of that formless mass of protoplasm!" Sure enough, NoMan soon begins to take shape, complete with invisibility cape. My question is this: If the protoplasm was formed by his "soul" and his "consciousness," why didn't he appear as Dr. Dunn?

The aliens plan to test their energy beam weapon on Earth by blowing it to bits. The celestial mechanics involved in targeting a moving planet from another moving planet from, presumably, other galaxy boggle the mind. They throw him in a cell where "NoMan waits quietly in the darkened room until he is sure any monitors on his actions have been suspended." So lemme make sure I've got this straight. An alien race capable of attacking a planet in another galaxy has not yet mastered 24 hour surveillance? (Or "37 bleems" or whatever; let's just say "'round the clock".) Then, activating his invisibility cloak for the first time, he simply opens the door, which isn't even locked,  and walks out into the hall.

He fights off the little green man only to find a giant purple one guarding the weapon, which is mounted on a ivy-covered block of stone. "Good thing I learned how South Africans bring down an ostrich," NoMan muses, as he ties the alien's legs together with the vines. After tripping the purple alien into the gun, he makes his way back to the sensate beam. "Dials  still set at same quadrants," NoMan observes, "if their science is at all relative to ours... that lever will send me right back where they picked me up!" It not only sends his mind back to the same place, but back into his original falling body before it even has had time to strike the ground! He grabs onto a branch and saves himself, and the others help him back up.

"Wouldn't it have been simpler to transfer?" asks Lightning, well familiar with how readily NoMan abandons bodies. "Oh, sure," NoMan concedes, "but that would have been the easy way!" The kicker is, NoMan decides not to even report what happened because, "there are some things even the others would have a tough time comprehending... and they won't have to, unless Araneae draws another bead on us someday!" Frankly, this story would make a whole lot more sense if it had been revealed that the entire thing took place in NoMan's mind as he fell. This story was allotted twelve pages. At least NoMan didn't lose a body (unless you count the one made of alien protoplasm left behind on Araneae).

DYNAMO: This is a by-the-numbers kidnapping plot. The Chief fears he is being forced into retirement; gets kidnapped; Dynamo comes to his rescue; the Chief saves the day. We do learn the Chief's real name after all this time: Sam Short. That makes his daughter Roxanne Short, as in "a few 'Rox Short' of a load. the Chief has a distinguished record of service "in Spain, China, Ethiopia and Poland as a flier, and subsequent intelligence work in occupied Europe during World War II... then, in Korea, as a commander, and then member of the U.N. truce team."

After the ceremony, Len is wrangled into taking both Alice and Roxanne (the first time we have seen her since her introduction) to lunch. "Rats!" laments Len. "Why is it one girl is so much fun, and two are so much agony?" proving once and for all Len's absolute dearth of imagination. 

WEED: This is the most cartoony work from George Tuska I have ever seen, but it suits the story. The central villains, Dan and Rufus, are obviously based on Steinbeck's George and Lennie. They get fired from their jobs in an experimental lab when Rufus gets bitten by a radioactive mole. When Rufus develops "mole power" (a la Harvey Kurtzman) the two of them become "Dapper Dan "and "The Mole". Look for cameo appearances by Commissioner Gordon, Police Chief O'Hara and Dick Tracy. Also look for figure swipes from Jack Kirby (Captain America), Wayne Boring (Superman) and probably a couple of others I missed. The dialogue is particularly campy as well: "Holy excavation! Something tells me there's dirty work afoot.!" In the end, Dynamo takes Rufus out for ice cream. I'm not quite sure what to make of this one.

[Richard Willis]

Captain Comics said:

But even the Li'l Capn, who was not yet dating, knew that kidnapping a girl is not the way to get her to fall in love with you. Even at that tender age, I interpreted "puts off answering him until the next day" as "stalling until she can a find a way to escape this maniac."

Good catch at a young age. Of course, all she had to do was wait for Tower to forget about the whole thing.

I don't see a jetpack as a super-power; I see it as transportation.

Jetpacks were exciting a lot of imaginations back then. I recently posted a cover of Archie Andrews using an “army surplus” jetpack to make it to school on time. Since the army still doesn’t have them in 2023, I figured he must have traveled to the future to get it.

I just looked it up, and both Wiki and Marvel Database say Ross is Air Force. I may have even read it a time or two in the comics.

If you look at archival Hulk stories from the 60s and 70s, there is no mention of the Air Force.  IIRC, Ross only used tanks, artillery and helicopters against the Hulk, all of which are Army things, and I’d be willing to bet that the stories said these were Army operations. I don’t remember him ever using jets. I suspect that the Marvel Database and Wiki, when they were created, were basing this on a later retcon.

The demonstrators are depicted as shallow idiots, much different than the smart and earnest demonstrators in my Southern city that dared protest the Vietnam War. (And paid for it.)

Parker's reaction was that of ... I dunno, not Stan Lee, whose liberal sensibility otherwise permeated Marvel Comics. This confused the Li'l Capn.

I think Stan had to work with the art that Ditko provided. The art depicted Peter as angry and confrontational, so Stan had to script it accordingly. Without looking at the story, I think he had the protesters and their signs being against some issue at the college, not the war. Short of having the sequence redrawn by a different artist (which really would have thrilled Ditko), Stan did the best he could with it.

I'm not sure exactly when that was. But when he started at Marvel, Thomas had an apartment in Greenwich Village that he shared with another writer, I think Gary Friedrich. Maybe late '60s/early '70s? And when Thomas was writing Doctor Strange, he used the address of his Bleeker Street apartment for the Sanctum Sanctorum, which it remains to this day. And Thomas said that the antics around his apartment inspired his Strange writing.

I don’t think I’ve heard this before. Cool! 

[Richard Willis]

ISSUE #15:

DYNAMO:

Both Dynamo and Andor are searching for Kanassus, but Kanassus finds Dynamo first and ambushes him from behind.

When Kanassus hits him from behind, he is on a “lonely vigil” sitting on top of a railroad boxcar in the middle of nowhere. What vigil? The last Dynamo story had him battling Andor. At the end of the story he wasn’t going to be assigned to a vigil. Also, his belt was off. The blow from Kanassus should have killed him.

Andor ends up back in the clutches of the Subterranean who formerly controlled him.

Back in the mix. Maybe he’ll find a charming female subterranean to tame his violent impulses. (Still haven’t seen one of those.)

THUNDER ends up with the uranium, but Iron Maiden is still at large.

Her thoughts at the end of the story are that she’s facing jail. Not really. She’s at large.

This was a good story.

Agreed.

LIGHTNING:

Lightning is being kept alive in a freezing tube. The Warp Wizard invades THUNDER HQ and transports Guy to an unknown location (a deserted plateau in Peru)

When we finally see Guy in his tube, it doesn’t appear to have any power supply to maintain his life. It’s just sitting on the ground.

The Warp Wizard appears and Dynamite is able to follow him through the warp back to his HQ.

Counting the silly story in which he had a shirt hanging around his neck, this is only the second story spotlighting Dynamite. He gets to show he’s not all muscle. Generally, a good story from the guy whose initials are S.S.

Meanwhile, back at THUNDER, the scientists determine that only increasing the density of Lightning's cells can save his life. (They are now within the last 24 hours before any treatment will be useless.) They "re-cycle" Dynamo's belt to Guy's metabolism.

When Dynamo uses the belt it temporarily increases his density (maybe his mental density, too?), so how can this fix his problem after the belt is turned off? This is another example of the ten-page limitation preventing more information and preventing us from seeing the belt doing its thing.

The doctors say you'll be able to use [the] inducer again within a week." Really? what about the cumulative detrimental effects? 

I guess Guy is very dedicated or he wouldn’t have begun as Lightning in the first place. 

NOMAN:

Meanwhile, NoMan wanders too near the edge, which crumbles under his weight and sends him falling to his death below.

This set up for the story wouldn’t have worked if they were at or near HQ, since the (supposed) intercept requires distance.

Sure enough, NoMan soon begins to take shape, complete with invisibility cape. My question is this: If the protoplasm was formed by his "soul" and his "consciousness," why didn't he appear as Dr. Dunn?

My thoughts exactly. And how are his cape and its function a part of his being?

"Good thing I learned how South Africans bring down an ostrich," NoMan muses, as he ties the alien's legs together with the vines.

Not unlike tying someone’s shoelaces together, except South African Ostriches don’t wear shoes.

After tripping the purple alien into the gun, he makes his way back to the sensate beam. "Dials  still set at same quadrants," NoMan observes, "if their science is at all relative to ours... that lever will send me right back where they picked me up!"

Amazingly, he can eyeball all this alien tech (and alien coordinates) and (such a genius!) figure out how it all works. Now he has a “century-old vigorous brain.” A couple of years ago he was 72.

This story was allotted twelve pages.

If they had room for a 12-page story, why this one?

DYNAMO:

the Chief has a distinguished record of service "in Spain, China, Ethiopia and Poland as a flier, and subsequent intelligence work in occupied Europe during World War II... then, in Korea, as a commander, and then member of the U.N. truce team."

Okay, in China he was flying against Imperial Japan; in Ethiopia and Poland, against Nazi Germany. Which side was he flying against in the Spanish Civil War?  Franco’s Nationalists or the Communist-leaning Republicans? I have a feeling that he sided with fascist Franco, who had the Nazis bomb his own city of Guernica because it opposed him. The U.N. is anti-communist, I guess, even though the USSR would have to approve everything they do (veto power).

After the ceremony, Len is wrangled into taking both Alice and Roxanne (the first time we have seen her since her introduction) to lunch.

"Rats!" laments Len. "Why is it one girl is so much fun, and two are so much agony?" proving once and for all Len's absolute dearth of imagination. 

Even if Len had the imagination, I don’t think these two would cooperate.

In the absence of the Chief, Len seems to be issuing orders to everyone. Is there a second-in-command? Hard to believe it would be (alternate smart) Len.

SPIDER knocks out a powered-up Dynamo with a grenade launcher. He’s been hit with bigger things than that before without much effect (continuity).

The car carrying Dynamo, the Chief and two SPIDER agents goes over a cliff and is mangled and destroyed. No one has any apparent injuries. Both Len and the Chief are shot in the back. They do have to go to the hospital, but what’s a bullet in the back?

WEED:

This is the most cartoony work from George Tuska I have ever seen, but it suits the story. The central villains, Dan and Rufus, are obviously based on Steinbeck's George and Lennie.

The whole thing, including Dynamo’s dialog, is over-the-top silly. Warner Bros made use of similar characters in a few of their cartoons, even using the name George..

I have always believed that the phrase “he bought the farm” was inspired by Of Mice and Men.

[Richard Willis]

Jeff of Earth-J said:

Wow, you ordered them just for this discussion!? Actually, I don't own the IDW series myself, either, but I've already ascertained that my LCS has the tpbs (there are two of them) in stock. Incidentally, for anyone who may be interested in the Tower series but doesn't want to shell out for the archives, I noticed DC has those collected in tpb format as well. 

The IDW comics were shipped from MyComicShop in Texas. (If I didn't think they were any good I wouldn't have ordered them) The package is predicted to be here in California by Wednesday. As for the two DC series from 2011 and 2012, they are available on DC Universe Infinite.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

"The IDW comics were shipped from MyComicShop in Texas."

That's in neighboring Grand Prairie, not too far from where I live. It's owned by Buddy Saunders, who was a letterhack in the '60s and wrote a few stories (that I know of) for Warren's Creepy and/or Eerie. He used to own a chain of Lone Star Comics stores, and one time I was in the central location when he happened to be there. I struck up a conversation and congratulated him on turning his hobby into something at which he could make a successful living. He said the secret is to treat it like a business, not a hobby. Nice guy. He sold his entire chain of brick-and-mortar stores a couple of years ago went all online via MyComicShop. All of the former locations that I know of, including the central one, are now out of business. His warehouse used to be in downtown Arlington until he relocated; it's a brewery now. 

[Richard Willis]

I was familiar with Buddy Saunders from his fanzine days. He was part of the "Texas Trio," which published Star-Studded Comics, an amateur comic book.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

ISSUE #16:

DYNAMO: This story follows directly from last issue's Dynamo. It is the most "Ditko-esque" work he has done for Tower, not only because he's doing his own inking here, but his own layouts as well. The Subterranean in control of Andor is named Uru; I don't think that's been revealed before. Andor is not blind per se, but rather he is extremely sensitive to light. He can apparently function normally (or close to it) by wearing dark glasses or operating at night. Uru gives him a transparent, green-tinted helmet which shades his eyes, but also keeps him under Uru's mental control. 

In an effort to take revenge on THUNDER in general (and Dynamo in specific), Uru contacts THUNDER threatening to send Andor to "destroy the U.N. building." The Thunder Squad and NoMan set out to head him off, but Dynamo is inexplicably tardy. When Andor sets eyes on Kitten, he rips the control helmet off his head, thereby breaking Uru's control, and kidnaps her. Then Dynamo arrives on the scene, better late (?) than never. They split up to follow Andor and Kitten, and Uru follows Dynamo.

I don't know how long Dynamo searched, but "later, as Dynamo falls asleep, exhausted," Uru sets up a device which will interfere with Dynamo's dreams (more Ditko-esque imagery). The next day, Kitten activates her homing device and Dynamo tracks it. He and Andor get into a big fight, then Dynamo's belt loses it's charge. Just when I was wondering what happened to the five-minute warning, he activates his "five-minute reserve," which is not how it worked in earlier stories. Dynamo pursues Andor but then his belt really does lose its charge. Andor lets him live because Dynamo once let him escape.

NOMAN: "The Soviet Union, as a member of the U.N., is naturally a contributor to and sponsor of the THUNDER organization... in the past their role has been passive and limited, and now even token co-operation seems doubtful, as THUNDER receives the report... ONE OF OUR ANDROIDS IS MISSING!" Interesting. Last issue's NoMan story used the phrase "Beyond the Farthest Star" and , coincidentally, both that and "One of Our Planets is Missing" will later be titles of two ST:TAS episodes.

The issue begins with NoMan, in human disguise, walking into a phone booth at a drug store lunch counter. "The young man dials a number... and steps through the wall! He emerges instantly, several blocks away!" A young woman is there to greet him. "Hey, readers NoMan!" she shouts. "Remember me? Diana? Diana Dawn!" She's not only full of exposition today, she's also pretty obvious about her attracting to his new body. "Gee," she gushes, "now that you look human, I've got to re-examine my feelings about you." And that's not all. She continues, "No, I mean it! You're beautiful! Just beautiful!" 

After the scientist hoses her down, he explains, "Now we can produce androids of any physical or racial type. This new synthetic tissue is extremely plastic... therefore it will be easy to duplicate the features of any person in the world!" (There's a lot of random exposition going around today; it seems to be catching.) "We will gradually replace your old bodies in THUNDER branches all over the world!" he continues. "But let's not be a a hurry to scrap them..."

"I know!" interrupts NoMan. "They cost a million dollars apiece!" He could just as easily have said, "I know! I'll destroy them myself soon enough!" Apparently THUNDER has learned how to produce them more cost-efficiently because they used to cost "millions of dollars apiece." Or, more likely, this type of android is cheaper to build. "The new bodies are more nearly human," cautions the scientist, "therefore, they are more vulnerable." More vulnerable than the ones he loses on almost every mission? Great! I've heard of cost-cutting but this is ridiculous!

NoMan is feeling sorry for himself again, and by page four the plot kicks in. Ogorov is THUNDER's liason man in the Soviet Union, but he's gone missing and they have sent Agent Linda Rogers to investigate. As if on cue, Rogers radios in t report that the Secret Police have raided Ogorov's office. NoMan tries to transfer to his body at the Russian base but fails. Then he rushes to the lab to be transferred to the next closest base, in West Berlin. I'm not sure why he would need to be "transported" there using the labs equipment; up until this point he could transfer into pretty much any body he wanted, anywhere. I'm also not sure why the body he transfers into in West Berlin is wearing the cape. Oh, yes I do: writer's fiat.

[We used to have an emoji which showed the words "Writer's Fiat" smashing the words "Common Sense," but that one's not in the library. Too bad; this is not the first time I could have used it while discussing THUNDER Agents. But I digress...]

Linda reports that a "big metal box... like a coffin," is being taken out of Ogorov's office. "I think I can guess what's in it," says NoMan. Me, I figured it was Ogorov, but it ends up being NoMan's android body he couldn't transfer into earlier. the box is "rigged with electronic circuits which prevent any form of energy from passing through." But the Russians aren't behind it: it's the People's Republic of China! They open the lid of the box to destroy the NoMan android, and as soon as they do, NoMan transfers into it. (Duh!) 

After the yellow Reds have been aprehended, Linda Rogers drops all kinds of hints that she's interested. ("Brrr... it's cold! Aren't you cold?... Put your arm around me! I'm freezing!") Eventually, she convinces NoMan to stay long enough to have dinner with her.

The first five pages of this story are inked by Jack Able. I am alone on this board in my admiration of Jack Able, but his inks look like crap here. Then again, Kane's inks on pages 6-10 look pretty crappy, too. I think it's a production error.

LIGHTNING: Lightning returns from a mission hallucinating that his friends and allies are enemies. A stewardess on his return flight from a mission slipped him a mickey which will keep him out of action for at least 48 hours. The stew was in the employ of Dr. Forkliff, who has transferred his "thermal unit" technology from his vortex-copter into a tornado suit, which gives the wearer the same powers as Marvel's Human top (later Whirlwind). "Tornado" is a much cooler name than "Human Top" but the title of the story is "The Whirligig", although to be honest, I'm not sure whether that refers to the criminal or the technology itself, as the word is not used in the story. the Chief refers to him as "Tornado Man." 

Because  Lightning is the only once fast enough to stop... oh, let's call him the Tornado... the THUNDER doctors begin looking for a way to speed up his recovery. "There's only one way to do it!" the doctors explain. "Use the speed inducer rifle to increase his metabolism to nearly the breaking point! That way the drug's effect will be over in a matter of hours. As his metabolism is sped up, the hallucinations will grow in intensity... creating a strain on his sanity! And if the strain is too great, permanent damage will result!"

Or (bear with me here)... they could just wait to days for the drug to wear off! What's more, the doctor leaves the decision up to Dynamo and NoMan. The Chief isn't even in the room. The THUNDER Agents have a ridiculous amount of autonomy. They speed up his metabolism and almost kill him... until NoMan leads Guy to believe that Kitten is in danger. Guy rallies, burn the hallucinogens out of his system and capture the Tornado.

On thing that obvious just from flipping through the pages of this story is that it is more verbose than the standard THUNDER Agents yarn, which means it was written by Steve Skeates. I have also gained a new appreciation for Chic Stone during the course of this project. I have seen more of his pencils this past week than I have in a lifetime of reading Marvel Comics.

THUNDER AGENTS: A SPIDER agent named Rublick has infiltrated THUNDER's New York HQ as a technician and has learned that "THUNDER Central" is not really in New York. When agents pass through a holographic wall into the Council Chambers, they are actually passing through a matter transmitter which takes them to the actual THUNDER Central, which, Rublick has also learned, "is located in the heart of a mountain, thousands of miles from New York!" (Actually, this would account for the Agents' exercise location back in #15.) Even Weed thinks THUNDER Central is "upstairs on level 7," which explains (probably inadvertently) a lot of seeming contradictions in earlier stories. 

SPIDER has also discovered a emergency exit from the mountain for use is the matter transmitter should ever stop working for whatever reason. They have men set to invade as soon as the time is right. They have a machine called "The Disrupter" which acts much like an E.M.P., which causes the failure of every man-made energy source. When in operation, it covers an area of five square miles and is currently situated 30 miles away from THUNDER Mountain. 

"At that moment, thirty miles from THUNDER's mountain retreat," the Disruptor causes a power failure in "four small towns." (I'm trying to wrap my head around this.) Those must be pretty small towns if they all fit within the area of five square miles. Perhaps they have more than one "Disruptor" unit? Also, if the towns are 30 miles from THUNDER Mountain and the Disruptor is 30 miles from THUNDER Mountain, does that mean the Disruptor has to be within its own field of influence to function? But isn't the disruptor itself a "man-made energy source"? My head is already starting to hurt.

Dynamo, NoMan, Raven and Lightning step through the matter transmitter into THUNDER Central with the intention of splitting up to the four affected towns. But, within THUNDER Central, SPIDER Agents activate the Disruptor (so they must have more than one). Suddenly, the lights go out, the matter transmitter stops working and all communication is cut off. Lightning and Raven's costumes don't work, nor does Dynamo's belt or NoMan's cape. (I'm not quite certain why NoMan himself is still functioning, but he at least should have his android strength.) The Thunder Squad is flown in to the rescue, so it is the non-powered agents who save the day. "We'll put our scientists to work immediately to produce something that will nullify SPIDER's Disruptor," says Dynamo. )...and we'll have to find another location for THUNDER Central," adds the Chief. 

DYNAMO: With both story and art by Wally Wood, "A Slight Case of Combat Fatigue" is the highlight of the issue. After "a year of constant combat" ("the war with the subterraneans, two missions into outer space, and several battles with SPIDER... he's been shot, gassed, beaten and blown up!"), Len Brown has succumbed to combat fatigue and, in this story, was controlled by NoMan by "an injection of a hypnotic serum which enabled [him] to bypass his consciousness and control him like a robot." Isn't "combat fatigue" (or "battle fatigue") another WWII anacronism? Wasn't it being called "operational exhaustion" by then?

"Fortunately," the doctor cheerfully relates, "we have a crash therapy program, and in a month or so he will be as good as new... in fact, better! After we remove the underlying anxieties he'll be better off than most of us!" If there's one thing I know about P.T.S.D. however (from Doonesbury if nowhere else), there are no quick fixes. Kudos to Wood for shining this light, but I'm sure it's the last we'll ever hear of it. 

[Richard Willis]

Here's the imoji, from HERE.

[Richard Willis]

ISSUE #16:

DYNAMO:

This story follows directly from last issue's Dynamo. It is the most "Ditko-esque" work he has done for Tower, not only because he's doing his own inking here, but his own layouts as well.

Unlike many of the high-profile artists, Ditko reminds me that he was good at inking his own pencils.

The Subterranean in control of Andor is named Uru; I don't think that's been revealed before.

I can’t pinpoint it, but I know his name came up once in an earlier story. It struck me at the time because it is the same name as the metal in Thor’s hammer.

When Andor sets eyes on Kitten, he rips the control helmet off his head, thereby breaking Uru's control, and kidnaps her. Then Dynamo arrives on the scene, better late (?) than never. They split up to follow Andor and Kitten, and Uru follows Dynamo.

I suspect that seeing Kitten triggered something instinctive in Andor. He tells her that he’s not sure why he saved/kidnapped her, but he wants to get even with Uru. Kitten trying to reason with Andor reminded me of the Watchmen scene in which Laurie tries to get through to Dr Manhattan.

I don't know how long Dynamo searched, but "later, as Dynamo falls asleep, exhausted," Uru sets up a device which will interfere with Dynamo's dreams (more Ditko-esque imagery).

The Ditko-esque scenes were great and reminded me of his Dr Strange work. After his scary dreams, Len wakes up and finds this device. Typical for him, he doesn’t alert anyone and goes back to sleep.  I guess he was still exhausted because the dreams didn’t allow him to get any rest.

Just when I was wondering what happened to the five-minute warning, he activates his "five-minute reserve," which is not how it worked in earlier stories.

How unsurprising.

During his battle with Dynamo, Andor loses the green glasses that help him to see, then at the end is seen wearing them. I thought it was a mistake, but Ditko showed them lying on the ground in his path as he exited.

NOMAN:

"The Soviet Union, as a member of the U.N., is naturally a contributor to and sponsor of the THUNDER organization... in the past their role has been passive and limited, and now even token co-operation seems doubtful, as THUNDER receives the report... ONE OF OUR ANDROIDS IS MISSING!"

Hard to believe that there aren’t several missing.

Interesting. Last issue's NoMan story used the phrase "Beyond the Farthest Star" and , coincidentally, both that and "One of Our Planets is Missing" will later be titles of two ST:TAS episodes.

The Internet tells me that Beyond the Farthest Star was a science fiction novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

"Remember me? Diana? Diana Dawn!" She's not only full of exposition today, she's also pretty obvious about her attracting to his new body. "Gee," she gushes, "now that you look human, I've got to re-examine my feelings about you." And that's not all. She continues, "No, I mean it! You're beautiful! Just beautiful!" 

Since he does have feelings and memories from before, and finds her attractive, this explains his going into a funk.

After the scientist hoses her down, he explains….

"I know!" interrupts NoMan. "They cost a million dollars apiece!" He could just as easily have said, "I know! I'll destroy them myself soon enough!" Apparently THUNDER has learned how to produce them more cost-efficiently because they used to cost "millions of dollars apiece." Or, more likely, this type of android is cheaper to build. "The new bodies are more nearly human," cautions the scientist, "therefore, they are more vulnerable." 

Are they “fully functional?”

By the way, that jet he turns into an unguided missile ain’t cheap, either.

I'm not sure why he would need to be "transported" there using the labs equipment; up until this point he could transfer into pretty much any body he wanted, anywhere.

It’s all kinda rushed, but I think his human-looking body was left behind in the “android holding compartment” in panel 7 on page 5. In panel 8 he’s activated the West Berlin android (which shouldn’t have a cape, unless it’s a fake). The transportation is physically flying from West Berlin to the USSR location of his other android, since he can’t just transfer because the bad guys have prevented it.

I'm also not sure why the body he transfers into in West Berlin is wearing the cape. Oh, yes I do: writer's fiat.

His cape being in West Berlin jumped out at me, too.

[We used to have an emoji which showed the words "Writer's Fiat" smashing the words "Common Sense," but that one's not in the library. Too bad; this is not the first time I could have used it while discussing THUNDER Agents. But I digress...]

That emoji is there. The current batch of emojis can be accessed from the “Smilies Folder” link on the left side of the board’s home page. You may be looking at the temporary library that one of the guys dug up or created when the original wasn’t available.

LIGHTNING:

Because  Lightning is the only once fast enough to stop... oh, let's call him the Tornado... the THUNDER doctors begin looking for a way to speed up his recovery. "There's only one way to do it!" the doctors explain. "Use the speed inducer rifle to increase his metabolism to nearly the breaking point! That way the drug's effect will be over in a matter of hours. As his metabolism is sped up, the hallucinations will grow in intensity... creating a strain on his sanity! And if the strain is too great, permanent damage will result!"

Or (bear with me here)... they could just wait to days for the drug to wear off! What's more, the doctor leaves the decision up to Dynamo and NoMan.

Well, Guy and the others didn’t have to be THUNDER agents, either. The doctor asks them what their friend Guy would want. Waiting two days would let the Tornado destroy a lot of their facilities, and nobody else can stop him.

THUNDER AGENTS:

A SPIDER agent named Rublick has infiltrated THUNDER's New York HQ as a technician and has learned that "THUNDER Central" is not really in New York. When agents pass through a holographic wall into the Council Chambers, they are actually passing through a matter transmitter which takes them to the actual THUNDER Central, which, Rublick has also learned, "is located in the heart of a mountain, thousands of miles from New York!"

Rublick and SPIDER pinpointed the mountain location by tracking the enormous energy use. (Sounds like Rublick should be running SPIDER)

"At that moment, thirty miles from THUNDER's mountain retreat," the Disruptor causes a power failure in "four small towns." (I'm trying to wrap my head around this.) Those must be pretty small towns if they all fit within the area of five square miles. Perhaps they have more than one "Disruptor" unit? Also, if the towns are 30 miles from THUNDER Mountain and the Disruptor is 30 miles from THUNDER Mountain, does that mean the Disruptor has to be within its own field of influence to function? But isn't the disruptor itself a "man-made energy source"? My head is already starting to hurt.

I guess they have somehow shielded the disruptor from itself.

Maybe the small towns were affected one at a time, and individually got their power back. They’d still want to investigate. (or they have more than one disruptor)

"We'll put our scientists to work immediately to produce something that will nullify SPIDER's Disruptor," says Dynamo. )...and we'll have to find another location for THUNDER Central," adds the Chief. 

I think both of these statements belong to the Chief.

DYNAMO:

Len Brown has succumbed to combat fatigue and, in this story, was controlled by NoMan by "an injection of a hypnotic serum which enabled [him] to bypass his consciousness and control him like a robot."

Isn’t that special?? (Church Lady voice)

Isn't "combat fatigue" (or "battle fatigue") another WWII anacronism? Wasn't it being called "operational exhaustion" by then?

They rename it constantly, since it’s a real thing they don’t want to talk about if they can help it.

Now they’ve renamed UFOs.

Hmm?

"Fortunately," the doctor cheerfully relates, "we have a crash therapy program, and in a month or so he will be as good as new... in fact, better!

In Young Frankenstein, I think it was the doctor who cheerfully stated “He’ll be right as rain!”