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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2015 21:36:00 GMT -5
I was wondering if anyone here has read the original Thunder Agents published by Tower Comics in the 60's? I have only read the comics from Deluxe Comics (80's) & DC Comics. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jan 11, 2015 22:01:36 GMT -5
I've tried to read them. I'm a huge fan of Tower's UNDERSEA Agent and, thus, expected to enjoy Thunder Agents, but I found the first issue thoroughly tedious and just haven't had the energy to go back and read more yet.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jan 12, 2015 0:01:38 GMT -5
I'm a huge fan of Tower's UNDERSEA Agent... I never knew that!  Fantastic news, I love me some UNDERSEA Agent. It's a wonderful Silver Age series. It's such a shame that it only lasted 6 issues. I really love the gorgeous Ray Bailey artwork in these books. It's weird, but I find his art, along with the interior colouring (which the GCD tells me is by someone called Vic Gorelick) very comforting...it kinda makes me want to live under the sea and hang out with Lt. Davy Jones. I guess I wanna be Skooby really.  Never tried T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, but I have been tempted, like you because I enjoy UNDERSEA Agent so much. |
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Post by berkley on Jan 12, 2015 0:21:14 GMT -5
Wally Wood is one of my favourite artists so I've always wanted to read all of his THUNDER Agents stories, but so far I haven't seen enough to get a handle on the series. To be honest, I think some of the character designs were a little generic looking - Dynamo, for example - though as an apparent Superman analogue perhaps that was deliberate. Others were more effective - the spooky looking guy - was it Noman? - he was good.
Of course Wood was never known for really inventive superhero costumes a la Kirby or Ditko, but his simpler, more direct design sense came up with some good ones now and then. I think he was responsible for the solid red Daredevil costume wasn't he? I've always liked the way the shaded and coloured regions were often reversed, with solid blacks where the light areas would normally be and the red where you'd normally have the shaded edges and borders to create the 3-D effect. I don't know if Wood came up with that himself or if it was a long-standing technique, but it helped make Daredevil's costume look really cool.
Getting back to THUNDER Agents, I read somewhere that in some ways it was ahead of its time as a superhero team series, so that's another incentive for me to read it. But I'm such a fan of Wally Wood's artwork that that alone is enough to get me to track these issues down (a project still in progress, since I keep on the lookout for relatively cheap reading copies, as I do with all my back issues).
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jan 12, 2015 6:06:55 GMT -5
It's such a shame that it only lasted 6 issues. I really love the gorgeous Ray Bailey artwork in these books. Yep. He was on the first four issues, but the writing changed hands seemingly every other page. Part of the fun of this series was that the tone, scope, and even characterization shifted wildly with each story (let alone each issue). You truly never knew what you were going to get next. Plus, I'm a sucker for that short-lived "the future is under the sea" subgenre of science fiction that flourished in the late 60s and early 70s. Current EIC of Archie Comics. I should know as I obtained his voicemail and left him several messages about not cancelling Life with Archie  |
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Post by Cei-U! on Jan 12, 2015 8:36:24 GMT -5
Wait, Vic Gorelick is STILL editing at Archie??? He was the editor of the uber-campy Mighty Comics line in the '60s!
And I love the Tower books and have since the first time I encountered them while staying the night with my chums, the Cinq-Mars twins, circa '67. Over the intervening decades, I've read the entire run of THUNDER Agents, as well as Dynamo and NoMan. The art is the main attraction for me (with Wood, Ditko, Kane, Sekowsky and Crandall all on board, how could it not?) because the stories are often tedious and the villains lame. I have the run of UNDERSEA Agent but haven't cracked it yet.
Has anybody here read Tower's war title, Fight the enemy? Rumor has it it includes brutal depictions of the Vietnamese comparable to the racist depictions of the Japanese in Golden Age comics.
Cei-U!
I summon the Thunderbelt!
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Post by MDG on Jan 12, 2015 11:41:50 GMT -5
Wait, Vic Gorelick is STILL editing at Archie??? He was the editor of the uber-campy Mighty Comics line in the '60s! I spoke to him a couple of times in the 80s, at shows and on the phone (an artist gave me a reference). Even at that time,. it seemed he'd been there forever. ...The art is the main attraction for me (with Wood, Ditko, Kane, Sekowsky and Crandall all on board, how could it not?) because the stories are often tedious and the villains lame. I have the run of UNDERSEA Agent but haven't cracked it yet. I have two or three 60s paperback collections and maybe one or two originals. Yeah, they look nice, and have some interesting ideas, but the actual stories are pretty by-the-numbers. Has anybody here read Tower's war title, Fight the enemy? Rumor has it it includes brutal depictions of the Vietnamese comparable to the racist depictions of the Japanese in Golden Age comics. I've got a Jose Delbo page from Fight the Enemy, but it's basic spy stuff. |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Jan 12, 2015 12:48:09 GMT -5
I started out with the unauthorized Deluxe line in the 80s and loved them. I haven't read any Undersea Agent, but I have the DC Archives that reprint the rest of the Tower line. The stories weren't always the best written, but they compare favorably with DC's output for the time, and included things and characterization they'd never dream of doing. Plus, of course, Wally Wood.
I enjoyed the characters/concept so much that I even tracked down and bought all come back attempts after the original run (some authorized, most not) just for completeness. I also got both DC limited series and the most recent one from IDW. Suffice it to say, I'm a fan.
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Post by hondobrode on Jan 12, 2015 13:05:01 GMT -5
I've got reprints of some of the original Tower, plus all the Deluxe, and have been meaning to get the IDW's.
I liked the DC series.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jan 12, 2015 18:33:17 GMT -5
I read them when they came out and only remember the great artwork from Wally Wood, Gil Kane, Mike Sekowsky etc. Not Brand Echh had a great parody story featuring the Thunder Agents as well
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Post by Pól Rua on Jan 12, 2015 22:11:25 GMT -5
I've got DC's THUNDER Agents Archives, and I'm currently getting the IDW THUNDER Agents Classics (which is the same stuff, but in Softcover) because I'm a sucker for the TA's.
I love the set-up for the THUNDER Agents, and I really dig the characters (especially Dynamo and NoMan). The art is top notch, and really vibrant, and the stories have a great sense that these are guys doing a job.
The series has two main flaws. The first is a lack of really memorable villains. For the most part, the team are fighting the force of the Warlord (which is pretty much an 'evil commies' analogue), and then, after that, evil criminal organization, SPIDER. The Iron Maiden is excellent, but after her, they really fall away. Lightning battles a number of utterly unmemorable morts that look like they stepped right out of a Mighty Comics story, the Red Dragon (evil Chinese Commie villain) has a neat look (except for his ridiculously lemon-coloured skin) but he's otherwise completely uninteresting.
The introduction of Andor is kind of neat, in that he's kinda a proto-Wolverine who operates like Prince Namor as played by James Dean, but again, between him and Rusty, the team hardly has what you'd call a compelling Rogue's Gallery.
The second is the lack of editorial overview.
Woody was kinda supposed to be in charge, but there doesn't seem to be any kind of unified vision. The Warlord appears in an early story looking fundamentally different to his later appearances, for instance. There didn't seem to be any longer story arc, and the bad guys' motives and objectives were ill-defined. That was, for me, the biggest downfall - especially when you compare them to Stan Lee's work keeping the early Marvel Universe so tight, and the world of the TA's is much smaller.
But aside from that, it's great stuff. It LOOKS gorgeous, and there's more than enough fun stuff in there for anyone. The overtly funny stories and sense of self-referential humour in a lot of the Dynamo stuff is great.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jan 12, 2015 22:17:57 GMT -5
It's funny, I only ever read the revivals and got the same sense that it was art driven and the stories are kinda lame.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jan 12, 2015 23:18:38 GMT -5
I liked the DC series from a few years ago, but I've never ventured out for the originals.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2015 21:21:42 GMT -5
I'm with thwhtguardian on this and I may add that I do agree with Ish Kabbible on the artwork was done with this series and I wished I was more a fan; but I was sidetracked with something else and my interest in Thunder Agents got lost in the shuffle.
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Post by the4thpip on Jan 15, 2015 3:56:21 GMT -5
I'm a big fan. Other than Legion, the only Archives editions I bought at close to full price were theirs. Not all the stories hold up, but stuff like the Dynamo-Iron Maiden romance are timeless.
The recent IDW series wasn't bad, liked it better than what DC did before.
I think the only stories I have never read were those from Archie comics (I think one story?) and Penthouse Comix (because, ew.)
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Fantastic news, I love me some UNDERSEA Agent. It's a wonderful Silver Age series.
