Great Review on Undersea Agent Shax, and I did not see much of them when I had a chance to do so. When, I do it was considered one of my favorites at Tower Comics. What's catches me it's the Covers and that alone makes me want to grab it and read it. Sadly, I've only borrowed it from friends at the time that I had a chance to read it. That's pretty much true with all issues in Tower Comics World.

That is one AMAZING cover! Horror and romance all in one -- I want this issue.

Oh no. Not Tor Johnson...

Are you saying Tor Johnson isn't sexy?

Okay, you win ... Tor is Sexy too!

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #12 (April 1967)



My first impression was that this cover was lifted from the earlier image seen below:



but while it may be traced or copied, it's definitely different from the original. Beyond the background details and the absence of several characters, look at NoMan's cape, or Lightning's sudden lack of goggles in the cover image.


Anyway, even if the ancillary Tower titles are faltering at this point, the core T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents title remains a cut above them. Were I twelve and reading comics in 1967, I'm still not sure Tower offered anything that would have made them stand out from Marvel, DC, Charlton, Gold Key, or any other competitor for me (beyond the unique premise of NoMan), but this is definitely some of their finer work, as you'll see below.


Dynamo: "Strength Is Not Enough!"
Script: ?
Pencils: Steve Ditko
Inks: Wally Wood
Colors: ?
Letters: Bill Yoshida ?

grade: A-


Welcome back, Steve Ditko! While his art doesn't shine so much as you might expect it to in this story, I've found the greatest strength of the few Ditko stories done for Tower have always been their characterization. Ditko had a hand in plotting back at Marvel, and he clearly continues to do that here, as his stories bring characters like NoMan and Andor to life in a way that no one else does. In this case though, instead of exploring any depth to be found in Dynamo (and he certainly needs some!), the limelight really ends up falling upon "Rocky" Stone, a seemingly generic, hardened ex-con employed and empowered by S.P.I.D.E.R. who begins unexpectedly earning our sympathy quite early on:



and quickly becomes the most endearing character Tower has ever offered us:



Punches aren't pulled here though, and so, while we gain a unique sympathy for "Rocky," he remains a hardened and volatile criminal who ultimately undoes himself (as well as S.P.I.D.E.R.) in a fit of rage after learning of his looming fate:



But I find myself nearly grieving for the character in the process. It's more sympathy than I've ever felt for a Tower character previously. Sure, there are plot holes a mile wide in this story, but there was poignancy too.


IMPORTANT DETAILS:

- S.P.I.D.E.R. has found a means of surgically granting Dynamo's powers to others, though it ultimately kills them.




Lightning: "Speed Demon"
Script: Steve Skeates
Pencils: Mike Sekowsky
Inks: Joe Giella
Colors: ?
Letters: ?

grade: C

I love when a looming threat builds over the course of a T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents issue, and we have that happening here, S.P.I.D.E.R. now having found a way to surgically create a nemesis for Lightning, just as they did in the previous story for Dynamo. Apparently, S.P.I.D.E.R. isn't stopping there either.



Skeates loves showing Lightning getting his butt kicked though, so this guy is even faster than Lightning is. But, in a surprising moment of continuity, Lightning goes into T.H.U.N.D.E.R.'s locked storage areas to uncover "Deadly Dust" once used against him (I can't remember where -- I try to forget the Skeates/Sekowsky stories) but, instead of slowing down the Speed Demon, it kills him because, unbeknownst to T.H.U.N.D.E.R., the speed effect was speeding up his metabolism and aging process far moreso than it does to Lightning.

As far as Skeates/Sekowsky stories go, this is definitely the best one I've seen. At no point did I find the art nor writing obnoxious nor thoroughly nonsensical. I still didn't enjoy it, but that's the nicest thing I've ever said about a Skeates/Sekowsky Lightning story.


IMPORTANT DETAILS:

- S.P.I.D.E.R. can also surgically create agents who are far faster than Lightning, though they also die quickly.





NoMan: "The Rock"
Script: ?
Pencils: John Giunta
Inks: John Giunta ?; Sal Trapani ?
Colors: ?
Letters: Bill Yoshida ?

grade: B

Well, S.P.I.D.E.R. doesn't seem to have a miracle surgery for creating androids who can broadcast their consciousness into other bodies nor turn invisible, so we go off-theme with this story and have NoMan fight yet another frustrated scientist gone evil who has a special chemical that can alter the makeup of any substance. There's a ton about this story that makes no sense, from a beat police officer deciding to notify T.H.U.N.D.E.R. of a crime



when NoMan just reminded us in NoMan #2 that T.H.U.N.D.E.R. is a top secret agency no one knows about, to our android who (we've been told repeatedly) can feel no pain nursing a broken wrist:



to NoMan being assigned to the case because of his expertise in science, but we were just reminded (again) in NoMan #2 that he's a cyberneticist, not a crack forensic chemist:




But, if you put aside these plentiful but minor errors, you get some fantastically moody art:






and some truly fun action once NoMan makes creative use of "The Rock's" special chemicals:








Visually, a tremendously fun story which excuses its many failings.



IMPORTANT DETAILS:

- NoMan's cloak now apparently has a limit as to how long it can be invisible before running out of power. Previously, there was no indication that it utilized any kind of power source.





T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents: "The Road to Spider HQ"
Script: Steve Skeates
Pencils: Mike Sekowsky
Inks: Frank Giacoia; Joe Giella
Colors: ?
Letters: ?

grade: C+

Don't get too excited; it ends up being a satellite headquarters. Still, this culmination of at least the first two stories in this issue pays off nicely, as we finally get multiple super powered baddies:



leaving me to wonder if the writers will remember that S.P.I.D.E.R. can do this once the next issue rolls around. Or are we just going to assume that, with the destruction of this minor HQ, they will magically lose the ability to make these guys anymore?

The action is strong, the plot as nonsensical as we've come to expect, but the one detail that really irks me about this story is the following panel:



"ALL agents present" We've learned over the past few issues that there are at least three T.H.U.N.D.E.R. HQs across the country, maybe more, and we're supposed to believe that the only agents working for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. are the folks we've already met? I mean, we've seen faceless T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents beyond these guys in the backgrounds before and, heck, in the last issue of Dynamo, we were introduced to Diana Dawn, another T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent that shared some romantic tensions with Dynamo. I guess Skeates forgot about all of this.


Anyway, loved the complication of multiple S.P.I.D.E.R. Agents with super powers this time around, but the resolution was unsatisfying (it wasn't really S.P.I.D.E.R. HQ after all) and didn't satisfactorily address the question of whether or not S.P.I.D.E.R. will be making more super powered bad guys in the future.




Raven: "The Storm Troopers of Xochimilco"
Script: Manny Stallman
Pencils: Manny Stallman
Inks: Manny Stallman
Colors: ?
Letters: ?

grade: B-


It occurs to me at this point that Raven is completely apart from the rest of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. features. Beyond the fact that the character has made exactly one appearance ever outside of his own feature, his feature itself never once makes mention of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. If you were reading Stallman's stories alone in some collected edition, you'd never guess he was an agent in a larger organization. He is summoned directly by authorities, answers to no higher-ups, and never makes mention of any fellow agents. Similarly, the art and plot are both too mature for the age range the rest of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents volume typically appeals too. This is a dense, dark piece about tracking down a Nazi war criminal -- not the kind of thing an 8 year old has the patience for.

And yet, as a mature adult, I still don't love what's being done here. Stallman's art is back to its usual luster:



but the story takes far too long to get moving in only ten pages, the intricacies don't interest me, and the action is...confusing. I'm not sure if Stallman is trying to convey Raven's speed or just being lazy, but I honestly can't tell what Raven is doing to defeat these hordes of Nazis:



Okay, he took out one there. How is he avoiding getting shot though? I don't get it. The next page assumes some really unusual angles that make it even less clear what's going on, and then we're just supposed to accept that he and the police force behind him defeated everyone.


I believe this marks Stallman's final work on The Raven. Next issue, they'll replace the feature with UNDERSEA Agent, and then Raven will return, this time under the creative control of Gil Kane. Stallman's Raven had tremendous potential and, in its first two installments, was my favorite feature in this mag, but it was both uneven and a poor match for the target audience.



Note: In this issue, the letter column also states that, going forward, creators will have the option of providing credits on the first pages of their stories, but it also asserts that "...not all the artists or writers are too keen on the idea." Not sure what to make of that. The letters page often made promises it had no intention of keeping, but maybe these guys really didn't want to be credited. It was freelance work, and some of them clearly weren't putting their best into these stories. I just found this interesting.

That Stallman art is great!

I'm surprised to see so much by Sekowsky and Giella--I would've thought they had plenty of work from DC at this point.