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Are you a T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS fan? Then you may be interested in this great softcover volume I picked up (and paid for, naturally) in a local Glasgow comicbook store back around 2005. Unfortunately, it's too tightly bound to be able to open it wide enough to scan any internal pages, but it's a 'must-have' for all followers of WALLY WOOD's '60s super agents.
However, rather than bore you with my woeful waffle, check out the back cover below to see what this superb book contains. (Click on image, then click again for optimum size.)
Probably still available, so rush out and buy one today!
Oh, go on then - I'll risk damaging the book to show you just
one page. I'm far too good to the lot of you, I really am!
Very nice looking book (great cover by Ordway) surprised that the back page blurb states the THUNDER agents were created to complete with Marvel Comics Group, in 1965 - I would have thought that DC that were the big guns in 65 that most publishers were "after" - although I suppose Marvel were at that time around the same size as Tower.
ReplyDeleteMarvel were garnering a lot of attention in '65, McScotty, so I imagine the back cover claim means that Thunder Agents were created to compete with (more like 'cash-in' on) the impact Marvel was then currently making on the 'comics scene'. Of course, there's always a chance that the book's just plain wrong. Tell you what, just to show you what a generous guy I am, I'll let you take your pick. Can't say fairer than that, eh?
ReplyDeleteWell, perhaps the idea was started around '65, but the first issue didn' t reach these shores till early '68. Knock off a year for travel and this was a big year for Marvel. But the Tower comics, ( like Mighty comics ) weren' t in the same league. The back - up story, UNDERSEA Agents was dull. I found the original THUNDER Agents to be a poor copy of the Avengers.
ReplyDeleteYet STILL I would buy every copy I saw !?!?
I don't think that Undersea Agent was part of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. group, JP - at least, not in the original Tower Comics run. Deluxe Comics retroactively incorporated him into the T-Team in the early '80s 'though. He had his own separate comic and doesn't appear as back-up in any of the original issues in my collection, although I don't have them all. (I've got the DC reprint volumes as well, and he doesn't appear there.)
ReplyDeleteThe book, of course, refers to '65 because it's an American book and is looking at things as they'd have experienced them, not we Brits.
I must have been remembering UNDERSEA in the same book as THUNDER from reprints in Alan Class then. It"s so long since I had the comics.
ReplyDeleteHe's not a back-up in any of the Alan Class T-Team reprints I've got, JP, but mine are from the '70s. He may well have been in the '60s versions, as they cut the page-count with '70s issues. However, full-page ads for Undersea Agent may well have appeared in the American T-Agents mags, hence you associating the characters with each other
ReplyDeleteMy Class comics were all in the 60's ( 68 pages ). Anyway you were spot on with his own title - 6 issues in '66. AND the US Thunder Agents did indeed start in '65 - sure took a long time to sail over here!
ReplyDeleteThe old ballast in ships delay no doubt, JP. A load of 1965 Journey Into Mystery Annuals (#1) turned up in a few of my local newsagents in 1973 or '74.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, I never saw any T.H.U.N.D.E.R.-Undersea team-ups or crossovers in the original Tower Comics run in the mid-1960's, and never saw an Undersea strip as a back-up in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents or Noman. (Admittedly, though, I had very few issues. Their distribution seemed kind of spotty, even in the US.) Of course, there were ads for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. in Undersea Agent, and vice versa, but, in the stories themselves, I don't recall even a passing mention of one in the other.
ReplyDeleteBesides the Deluxe run, there was an attempted revival by JC Comics in the early 1980's, with both reprints and new stories. I don't remember whether those tried to incorporate Undersea into T.H.U.N.D.E.R., but they may have. I seem to vaguely recall a sort of cameo appearance by the Undersea guy.
Tower Comics quality was hit-or-miss. There seemed to be little coordination between different writers, so the style, characterization, and continuity were inconsistent. Some stories were straight super hero adventures (like Silver Age DC), some tried to imitate Marvel (more character-driven drama, more complex plots), and some were high-camp (like Batman on TV) or tongue-in-cheek spy spoofs (like the Flint and Matt Helm movies). You never knew what to expect. Tower could have benefited from a strong editor, a Stan Lee or Julius Schwartz, to oversee T.H.U.N.D.E.R. and its spin-offs.
In the Deluxe Comics stories, Undersea Agent was incorporated into T.H.U.N.D.E.R., but as you say, it didn't happen in the original run - as far as I can determine. I completely agree with your third paragraph, TC - although even the character-driven stories weren't quite up to Marvel's standard in my estimation. The mags certainly had 'something' - but it wasn't quite enough.
ReplyDelete