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.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Richard Willis said:

Jeff, I just received my set of the eight IDW original comics. Did you get the TPBs? 

Yes, as a matter of fact I bought them today.

(I plan to read the DC series first, in release order.)

[Captain Comics]

So, I've got the first DC series (10 issues) in TPB, and the Deluxe series (5 issues) in THUNDER Agents Archive v7 (from DC), so I guess I'm missing the second DC series (6 issues) and the IDW series (8 issues). Are either of those available in trade paperback?

Also, what about the JC issues? Are they collected anywhere?

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I'm unfamiliar with the JC series (1984, 2 issues) other than to know it exists. Beyond that...

Wally Wood's THUNDER Agents (1984, 5 issues) - Archives v7

1st DC series (2011, 10 issues) - tpb

2nd DC series (2011, 6 issues) - uncollected

IDW 2013 series, issues #1-4 - tpb v1

IDW 2013 series, issues #5-8 - tpb v2

[Jeff of Earth-J]

"I'm unfamiliar with the JC series (1984, 2 issues) other than to know it exists."

According to this wiki: "In 1981 the rights to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents were bought by John Carbonaro, who published two issues of a new series in the early 1980s under his JC Comics line, the storyline of which concluded in Blue Ribbon Comics #12, published by Archie Comics' Red Circle Comics line."

Ohh! "J.C."

[Dave Elyea]

The first JC issue of THUNDER Agents was a magazine sized one-shot dated Dec. 1981, which was pretty rough around the edges.  I'm pretty sure the Agents appearance in Justice Machine Annual #1 came out before the JC color comics, but since it's merely dated "1983", I'm just trusting my memory that it actually preceded the color JC issues.

[Philip Portelli]

I have the magazine...somewhere but I do have access to the two JC issues, Justice Machine Annual and the 5 Deluxe issues.

[Richard Willis]

Both of the DC series are available on DC Universe Infinite, which is where I'll be reading them. 

Captain Comics said:

So, I've got the first DC series (10 issues) in TPB, and the Deluxe series (5 issues) in THUNDER Agents Archive v7 (from DC), so I guess I'm missing the second DC series (6 issues) and the IDW series (8 issues). Are either of those available in trade paperback?

Also, what about the JC issues? Are they collected anywhere?

[Richard Willis]

ISSUE #19:

As Tower winds down, no one even bothered commissioning a new cover. As with #18, #19 features three Dynamo stories and one NoMan.

Again according to GCD, they reprinted the Speed Demon story from THUNDER. Agents #12. Like the previous issue, they printed its last two pages on the inside back cover and the back cover.

1ST DYNAMO:

Dr. Orgo of SPIDER has learned how to make android duplicates of THUNDER Agents with his Transformer device (although his Raven duplicate uses Manny Stallman's costume design, not Gil Kane's redesign). The action begins when the Chief assigns Dynamo to investigate a bomb threat at the U.N. "But Chief," protests Dynamo, "what if it's a hoax?" "Good point," the Chief responds. "Better just ignore it" (said no law enforcement executive ever). "Fooey!" protests Dynamo (to himself). "why do I get all the dumb jobs...?" (and Dynamo did actually think that).

He sure says/thinks “fooey” a lot.

Sometimes, a bomb threat is a hoax. Sometimes some genius who actually works for you will call it in from a pay phone (when you could find a pay phone) a couple of hours before quitting time so they can go home early. Do you take a chance? No.

Our election office never called the cops. Checking the building was up to us. After this happened a few times we didn’t even evacuate. We just went around and looked in any place you could hide an actual bomb. Unsurprisingly, none were ever found and the bomb threats dropped off to almost nothing. Today there might be an actual bomb.

Having no clues to follow, Dynamo goes home.

I like that level-headed Weed tells him to go home and get some rest.

Back at SPIDER HQ, Dr. Orgo orders that the belt be removed, but is surprised to discover that it has no clasp.
"That's a little improvement we've made," Dynamo informs him. "It's one solid band of metal" (which actually raises more questions than it answers).

This would have prevented the theft of the belt last issue in the Yeti story. Hopefully, it’s loose enough so he can clean under it.

2ND DYNAMO:

First of all. interesting splash page: three "widescreen" panels with the title, "Dynamo vs. the Ghost", spread across them and casting shadows on the ground. It depicts the ghost phasing through walls and Dynamo, in pursuit, smashing through them, and appears (to my eye) to have been drawn by different hands than the main story.
As the story opens, the chief introduces "recently promoted trainee" Tom Conroy to Len Brown.

Every time they show us a new hire he turns out to be a traitor. Their screening process sucks.

Conroy has been chosen to be the recipient of the "atomic polarizer" which "dematerializes the wearer's atomic particles by suspending their electromagnetic polarity!" It is not without its drawbacks, however. For one thing, the wearer must materialize in order to pick up objects, then "re-dematerialize" with the object inside the devices field. For another, should the wearer materialize within a solid object, doing so would cause a "tremendous atomic explosion." (I think Tower Comics thinks "atomic" means "really big"; that's how they've been using it all along.)

I don’t think the explosion of a person would be huge. It certainly would smart.

Finally, the wearer must also wear a gravity belt to keep him from sinking into the ground. With the resolution to the story firmly foreshadowed, the story is ready to begin.

Here they mention that the gravity belt must have its power source replenished, "like Dynamo’s belt." This is the first time they’ve said anything about recharging their devices. NoMan’s androids are usually “resting” in containers, which presumably recharges them. Along with Dynamo’s belt, this means that Lightning’s suit and Raven’s wings need recharging. The 10-page story lengths don’t allow for much clarification.

Dynamo locks himself in a safe hoping that "the Ghost shows up before these oxygen capsules are used up,"

Oxygen capsules? Why didn’t they make a couple of air holes in the back of the safe?

But Conroy doesn't understand how his own gravity belt works.

Why not? It was thoroughly explained to him on page two, including that the gravity belt needs recharging.

As far as Alice getting shot is concerned, "the next day" we learn that "it was close... but she's past the crisis."

Did anyone think that Alice would die? When we had the supposed body of the Chief in the previous story I didn’t think he was dead, either.

3RD DYNAMO:

Len Brown, apparently taking advantage of the fact that Alice is recuperating from a gunshot wound, meets Roxanne for lunch. Suddenly, he is accosted by a woman named Cynthia Updike, who lures him back to her apartment. It's a trap. of course, and, Len being Len, falls for it.

Her gas attack probably was meant to stop Len temporarily. The whole page seems like a waste.

He escapes, however, and returns to HQ to find that an "all-girl gang" has been terrorizing the city.

It’s hard to believe they are terrorizing the city. They seem to only have one gun between them.

Back in New York, Dynamo sees headlines that the all-girl gang has struck again. Suspecting something is wrong with the Chief, he calls the "electronic department" an authorizes a tap of the Chief's phone line (which doesn't seem like something a subordinate should be able to do, but this is THUNDER after all).

If they had more pages they could have shown Len going to a lot of trouble to get approval from whoever the second in command is.

Roxanne is on the line and informs him that she has been kidnapped (which raises the question of why he has been cooperating up to this point if he only just found out).

I think he found out in the earlier unrecorded call. This dialog should have been rewritten.

Satana (Demo's former assistant and leader of the all-girl gang) instructs him to drop off a briefcase full of top secret documents in the park. Dynamo follows, but is stymied by the all-girl gang. "What can I do?!" he stammers. "I can't bash a girl! It's not... I can't..."

Since they know some of the criminals are women, Len should have an alternative to hitting them. He’s strong. He could hold them and be prepared to tie them up (he never carries anything that might come in handy.).

They gas him and escape. He awakens in the office of the chief, who admits he had been following Satana's orders, but slipped a tracking device into the briefcase full of fake documents. Dynamo tracks the signal and somehow recognizes Satana as Cynthia Updike, even though she's wearing one of Marla Drake's old catsuits (which Selina Kyle would eventually buy in a Gotham City resale shop two decades later).

I had to look up Marla Drake. Didn’t Dynamo meet Satana in one of the earlier stories? If so, he should have recognized her when she wasn’t wearing a mask.

Later, back at HQ, the Chief resolves to "face the music" for his actions.

Not that they have a lot of time, but it’s unlikely we’ll see a resolution of this. Actually, using fake documents and a tracking device was a very good way to go. Maybe he’s sorry about sending the agents on wild goose chases.

NOMAN:

SPIDER has "given" amnesia to Dr. Einzwei (Dr. "Onetwo"), "the world's foremost authority on electrical transmission and cybernetics,"

One SPIDER agent says “he thinks we’re the good guys.” Often, bad guys think they are the good guys.

….the practical upshot of which is that he can control THUNDER's matter transmitters remotely. In this story we learn that the super-agents all have matter transmitters installed in their homes. All of a sudden, after many examples of THUNDER Agents walking home in their costumes, it has become important that "no one must know that this building is THUNDER HQ... or be able to track you to your homes."

After all this time they finally realized that their recognizable agents shouldn’t amble to their homes on public streets. Only a couple wear masks.

NoMan has one, too, but doesn't use it; he simply transfers his mind to a more human-looking body at home.
The next day, Dynamo, Lightning and raven are all late to work. Two hours later, NoMan arrives (he must be working a different shift...?) and the Chief asks him to use the transmitter, the only commonality in their disappearances. I don't know where NoMan thought he would end up, but it's in a cave in which the others are being held captive.

The three (then four) superagents are tied up with what appears to be regular ropes. NoMan has to untie himself even though his android body is strong enough to break loose. Without it being stated, the other three eventually loosen their bonds and break loose.

The Chief later reveals that THUNDER HQ is wired in such a way that, had SPIDER successfully invaded, he could have killed everyone in the building without harming any innocent bystanders.

He also reveals that THUNDER is international and that the end of that facility and its agents wouldn’t have ended the organization. (and that its nerve center is deep in the earth, not in the mountain we learned about earlier.)

[Jeff of Earth-J]

He sure says/thinks “fooey” a lot.

In that "ancient Rome" story from #18, he said, "Cheee!" "Yipes!" ""Gleeps!" "Holy Hat!" "Yerps!" and "Sheez!" among other things.

This is the first time they’ve said anything about recharging their devices.

I always assumed they were self-charging (like a self-winding watch or solar powered or something like that). I never thought they needed to be "plugged in" to a power source. I have wondered how long after use is the device fully charged/recharged but, as you say, "The 10-page story lengths don’t allow for much clarification."

"Why didn’t they make a couple of air holes in the back of the safe?"

Yeah, they could have used another "mighty mouse" to beat its head against it.

"This dialog should have been rewritten."

Exactly! (That would have been an easy fix.)

"I had to look up Marla Drake."

(I provided a link.)

"Didn’t Dynamo meet Satana in one of the earlier stories? If so, he should have recognized her when she wasn’t wearing a mask."

Remember who we're talking about here.

ISSUE #20:

The final issue is all reprints (except for a four-page recap of Dynamo's origin). Tower tries to put a positive spin on it ("You now hold in your hands the greatest THUNDER Agents magazine ever published! We have received many,many letters concerning THUNDER from its countless fans inquiring as to whether there would ever be a THUNDER Agents Special. Well, here it is... The magazine YOU asked for... the SPECIAL COLLECTORS EDITION OF THUNDER AGENTS!"), but the whole "Dear THUNDER Fan" letter smacks of desperation. Looking back on the original series as a whole (most of which I was reading for the first time), here are some of the things I learned.

• Wally Wood art can save a mediocre story.
• The early issues are better than the later ones.
• Tower Comics had no editorial direction to speak of.
• The stories themselves were reminiscent of the simplistic comics of an earlier era.
• The comics themselves were assembled in a "shop"-like fashion.
• Steve Skeates emerged as one of the better of Tower's (mostly "unknown") writers.

Feel free to add observations of your own.

Going forward, if anyone asks me about Tower Comics' series, I will recommend IDW's 2014 collection THUNDER Agents: Best of Wally Wood HC first and foremost.  Beyond that, if this hypothetical person should be interested in characters other than Dynamo, the first archive edition (or tpb) should provide a good overview of the best material. There is one other Tower series collection I would like to cover for completeness' sake...

GIL KANE'S UNDERSEA AGENT:

As discussed previously (briefly), Undersea Agent was something of a "sister" title to THUNDER Agents. It lasted only six issues, with the best of the work being done by Gil Kane in #3-6: #3 (10 pages), #4 (13 pages + cover), #5 (20 pages + cover) and #6 (20 pages). the stories were written by Steve Skeates and Gardner Fox. I almost didn't buy IDW's 2015 collection because I (mistakenly) thought I already had it all in the still-shrink-wrapped archive editions I hadn't read yet. But I'm glad I did because Davy Jones was not a member of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. but rather a member of U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A., the "United Nations..." aw, who cares? 

I really enjoyed the Wally Wood "Dynamo" collection and expected to like having all of the Gil Kane "Undersea Agent" material between two covers as well, but even so, this is a pretty thin collection (an $18 HC of 63 pages worth of story + two covers). The GK artwork is nice, but the stories themselves are really lightweight. I expected (hoped for) something more along the lines of Kane's "Captain Action" or even his "Raven" stories. Speaking of which, I see Undersea Agent having more in common with DC's Captain Action than Tower's own THUNDER Agents. Actually, IDW's Wally Wood  and Gil Kane collections complement their 2022 Captain Action collection (which contains both wood and Kane) quite nicely. 

The completist in me would like to have seen all six issues of Undersea Agent collected in their entirety ("Gil Kane's" would have to have been dropped from the title), but if the stories in the Kane collection (and the one non-Kane from THUNDER Agents) are any indication (and I think they are), doing so would have added expense but not much value. 

That's the end of the original 1960s run of THUNDER Agents, but it's not the end of this discussion. Tomorrow we will move on to the Archive v7 and the 1980s Deluxe Comics revival. 

[Eric L. Sofer]

Looking forward to the Archive v7 and the later treatment of the THUNDER agents. I did collect "Wally Wood's THUNDER Agents" and I enjoyed a lot of it. But it seemed built on what had already been established without enough new answers (e.g., what WAS the story with fifty million dollars worth of destroyed NoMan android bodies?)

Jeff, I'm really digging your and Richard's commentaries on these! Keep up the good work!

[Richard Willis]

ISSUE #20:

Looking back on the original series as a whole (most of which I was reading for the first time), here are some of the things I learned.
 Wally Wood art can save a mediocre story.
 The early issues are better than the later ones.
 Tower Comics had no editorial direction to speak of.
 The stories themselves were reminiscent of the simplistic comics of an earlier era.
 The comics themselves were assembled in a "shop"-like fashion.
 Steve Skeates emerged as one of the better of Tower's (mostly "unknown") writers.

Those are pretty much my impressions. I wonder if they ever considered switching to the smaller 12- to 15-cent (at the time) format? I think the lack of editorial control and consistency between stories hurt it as much as the price. If a reader rolled the dice and bought a copy, especially a later copy, they would say “I spent twice as much for this piece of (junk)?” and never come back.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

"Jeff, I'm really digging your and Richard's commentaries on these! Keep up the good work!"

Thank you, Eric! I appreciate the positive feedback.