T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents in the 80s Part 2: The Deluxe/Solson Days of Thunder

Last Week, we looked at the early days of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents revival of the 1980s. This time out, we look at the last days...

By the mid-80s, John Carbanaro's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents revival was in a downward spiral. The folks at Archie had let him down by making his books low priority. And then there was the furor caused by John C.'s sometime acquaintance/employee, David M. Singer. David was studying to be a lawyer, and his quizzical mind learned what Jim Shooter had learned--or at least, believed: Tower Comics had failed to properly copyright its T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents material. According to Singer, regardless of any agreements between Tower and John C., the Agents were public domain and anyone could publish T.A. comics*. And so he did.

Listen, when you're a young comics fan and you hear that a much-loved comicbook is making a comeback with the hottest artists of the day at the helm, you don't ask questions, you just buy. Singer's Wally Wood's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (which he published under the Deluxe imprint) gave us George (New Teen Titans) Perez, Keith (Legion of Super-Heroes) Giffen, Dave (Uncanny X-Men) Cockrum, Jerry (All-Star Squadron) Ordway, Rich (70s star) Buckler, and even legends like Steve Ditko and Murphy Anderson between its covers. On Baxter paper. In full-process color. 52 pages worth. For two bucks (the major sticking point as far as most fans were concerned in the days of seventy-five cent/one dollar comics). Singer and company were trying to recapture the old magic by using top artists and the same format as the original Tower series (but with fewer ads!). Oh, yeah, they had "pretty good" writers, too. Steve (Avengers, Batman, Captain America) Englehart, Dann (Roy's wife) Thomas, Tom and Mary (Legion of Super-Heroes) Bierbaum, and Roger (Captain America, Daredevil) McKenzie. The first four issues were amazing. Perez and Thomas made Raven cool; Giffen and the Bierbaums made Lightning weird; and Englehart, Cockrum, Anderson, and even Singer, himself, turned out some pretty cool T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents stories.

Why no solo Dynamo stories? Because Singer planned on spinning off a second T.A. book with Dynamo as the star. Didn't happen. John C., who, no matter what Singer or anyone else had to say, had paid for the rights to the Agents and he wasn't going to sit still for anyone else using them.**

By the fifth issue, though, it didn't really matter. Yeah, McKenzie and Ordway took over the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents strip and Ordway's art really captured Wood's style while keeping things slick and modern. Giffen and the Bierbaums were still running Lightning through the proverbial mill (pun intended--no matter how rancid). But Perez, Cockrum, and Englehart were gone. Instead of replacing them with more super-stars (Can you imagine Frank Miller on Raven? John Byrne on any of the Agents? The mind boggles!) , Singer was hiring up-and-comers like Mike Harris, John Statema, and Ron Lim who, while quite good, weren't exactly the marquis names we were expecting. Poof. Wally Wood's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was gone to that great back-issue bin in the sky.


In 1987, Gary Brodsky, son of Marvel Comics legend Sol Brodsky published one issue of an "alternative future-timeline" version of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, simply titled T.H.U.N.D.E.R. through his Solson publishing company. Brodsky licensed the book through Carbanaro, but it lasted only one issue. When you get past the "why is No-Man constipated to the point of pain?" cover, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. is not a bad book. Written by Michael Sawyer with very nice art (though a bit too much on the gray scale) by James E. Lyle and Ron Wilber, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. was set in a future gone mad, with a No-Man seemingly gone mad, as well. The daughter of Len (Dynamo) Brown would don her father's belt to become the new Dynamo, and it looked like a new Raven and other new agents were waiting offstage. Lots of potential, but as with many publishers during the "black and white boom/bust" no follow through.

On and off during the 1980s, DC, First, and even Marvel's Epic line tried to work out deals with John C. but nothing ever came to fruition.

The Agents made a couple guest-appearances in the 80s, as well. One, in Dark Horse's Boris the Bear #11-12 (Summer 1987), was unauthorized, with John C. sending DH a "cease and desist" order to keep it from happening again. Another, in Apple Comics' Thunder Bunny #11 (Fall 1987) got Carbonaro's okay after he saw the issue for himself. Apple Comics licensed T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents from John C. for the remainder of the 80s, but never did anything else with them. When their contract expired, John C. allowed the publisher of Penthouse magazine to license our heroes, which led to their legendary appearance in Omni Comix #3 in the 1990s. Oh, that Gulacy/Austin art!

Those are the highlights, Groove-ophiles. For all the skinny on the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, might I suggest you nab a copy of TwoMorrows' excellent T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Companion? I learned a lot from it, thanks to its interviews with the actual creators. I think you'd dig it, too.

*For more info on that situation (as well as details on the Archie Comics deal), directly from the typing fingers of the late John C. himself, check out his discussion forum, which is still up and running.

** Detailed in Robert J. Sadaro's "The Resplendent Sound of T.H.U.N.D.E.R.", in the section sub-titled "The Coming Storm".

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents in the 80s Part 1: The JC/Texas/Red Circle Days of Thunder

Like I promised last week, I'm back with a huge (I'm talkin' gi-normous!) post on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents of the 1980s. It's so big, in fact, that it's gonna wind up being two posts (at least--I keep finding more stuff to write about! Halp!), so this week Ol' Groove is gonna look at the early part of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents revival (JC Comics, Texas/Noble, and Red Circle/Archie Adventure), next week will cover the rest of the 80s (Deluxe and Solson, plus a surprise or two, perhaps...). Why am I tellin' ya all of this? You're intelligent--you'll figure it out! Onward!!

In late 1981/Early 1982, the Silver Age super-team created by Wally Wood and company started on the comeback trail. Throughout the 70s, fans pined away for the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, wishing someone, somehow would bring Dynamo, No-Man, Rave
n, Lightning and the rest back in new adventures. It almost happened in the late 70s, when Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter tried getting the publishing rights to the Agents, but found them mired in legal questions pertaining to their ownership. When the Agents did finally make their triumphant return, those same legal questions would plague them in ways worse than the Warlord, Dynavac, Demo, or Red Star ever could. Be that as it may, ad-man/uber-fan John Carbonaro licensed and eventually bought the rights (murky as said rights might have been--and remain to this day!) from original T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents publisher Tower Comics. His first T.A. project JCP Featuring T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents set comicbook fandom abuzz. Pulling together many of fandom's top creators, guys like Chris Adames, Lou Manna, Mark Texeira, and Pat Gabriele, JCP Featuring T.A. was a black and white, magazine-sized comicbook featuring not only a brand new "preview story" featuring almost all of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents back in action, but reprints from the MLJ/Archie/Mighty/Red Circle line of comics, namely the Fly (by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby) and the Black Hood (by Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, and Gray Morrow). JCP Featuring T.A. was meant to be a sampler of what we could expect JC Comics to publish in their planned color comicbook line.


Somewhere along the way, Carbonaro went from licensing the MLJ/Archie/Mighty/Red Circle for his own publishing company, to partnering with Archie to bring back their Red Circle imprint, and all of the super-heroes from the MLJ/Archie/Mighty/Red Circle library...in addition to publishing the new adventures of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. Carbonaro would edit the Red Circle line while Archie "silently" helped him publish the Agents under his JC imprint. Carbonaro's number one priority was the Agents, while the Archie big-wigs, naturally, were more concerned about getting Red Circle up and running. That's where the problems really began. (I warned you this was complicated stuff!)

Carbonaro planned for a T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents/Mighty Crusader crossover to help create bigger buzz for both companies' projects. The crossover was written and, according to Carbonaro, handed over to Rich Buckler (who had taken over as editor of the Red Circle line so Carbonaro could concentrate on the Agents), but the powers-that-were at Archie wanted Buckler to skip the crossover because, again, according to Carbonaro, he was already too far behind deadline-wise with the regular Red Circle books. A crossover did happen, though--with Noble Comics' Justice Machine. In the legendary Justice Machine Annual #1, a Texas-based fanzine publishing company called Texas Comics got the rights to Noble Comics publisher Mike Gustovich's Justice Machine and approached Carbonaro with their idea of doing a crossover between Justice Machine and the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. Carbonaro agreed that it sounded like a good idea and gave Texas the go-ahead. And as cool and important as that story might be (written by Bill Loebs with art by Bill Reinhold, Jeff Dee, and Bill Anderson), it was eclipsed by the back-up story by a new guy by the name of Bill Willingham. A little thing he called the Elementals, which went on to become one of the most popular titles of the 80s.

Still, in all of this confusion, Carbonaro and his associates were able to complete three issues of the new T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and three issues of Hall of Fame before Archie's priorities shifted completely to Red Circle, leaving Carbonaro and company high and dry. But wait, I said three issues of T.A., but only two were published, right? Well, in spite of all the changes in Archie's handling their end of the T.A. deal, Carbonaro kept a decent relationship going with them. When Blue Ribbon Comics #12 looked like it was going to miss its deadline, Carbonaro worked out a deal with the Archie folks to let them publish the completed-but-abandoned third T.A. story--the story that would have been T.A. #3.



Despite the behind-the-scenes drama, the JC/Texas/Red Circle era of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents produced some excellent comics. Carbonaro had a definite vision for the Agents, staying faithful to the Tower version while updating the strip for a new decade. He avoided "re-imagining" the Agents, bringing back the "real" characters fandom had fallen in love with back in the 1960s. Keeping the costumes, powers and characterizations intact allowed Silver Age fans to enjoy the JC take on the Agents, while fun stories and exciting art grabbed new fans and reeled them in. His choice of artists (especially Texeira, Manna, and Blyberg--oh, and that dude named Ditko wasn' t bad, either...) were as good as anyone working at Marvel or DC at the time, and perfectly captured, then updated, the Wally Wood style. If the Archie connection had stayed strong, and Carbonaro and his compatriots had been allowed to strut their stuff for another three or so issues, JC Comics' T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents could have been a huge hit, rather than another great, short-lived comic in the annals of "what might have been".

Next week: The Deluxe and Solson Days of Thunder