Reviews

I’ve been wanting to read this comic ever since it first came out; I wanted to see if the original T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents’ stories were as good as I remember them being. Since this issue kept selling out I had to wait a while before I got the chance to read it and write a review. I’m happy to report that it was worth the wait. The stories reprinted in this issue where every bit as good as I remember them being and that is saying a lot. I mean, there have been a lot of things including comics, movies and TV shows that I remember loving as a kid that when I read or saw them again years later they just didn’t measure up to my memories. Part of that is due to my taste maturing with age and part is due to my looking back through rose-colored glasses. What I mean by that is that nostalgia for these childhood favorites has clouded my memories and inflated the quality of these things to such a degree that the real thing could never measure up to what I remember.

I do have to warn everyone that even though this issue is 100 pages long it only reprints a few of the stories from the original series. The stories that are reprinted form an overall story arc but obviously a lot of the details are left out. Among the things we do get in this issue are introductions to most of the main T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents including Noman, Menthor, Dynamo and the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad. We are also introduced to the main villain the Warlord and one of the best underlings of all times the Iron Maiden. The reader is treated to a lot of other things you just don’t see in lesser comic stories. Things like the hero actually running away from the villain or the main hero almost being fired from his job as an agent for poor performance. If that is not enough we also learn Menthor’s secret a secret no other hero ever had before or since as far as I know. One of the greatest comic fights of all times, between Dynamo and Dynavac, is also reprinted as is the death of one of the main heroes and when this hero died it was for real and not some lame sales gimmick.

If everything I’ve told you already is not enough to get you to pick-up this comic then just look at some of the names of the people who worked on these stories. Some of the greatest talent ever to work in the comic book industry including Wally Wood, Gil Kane, George Tuska and Steve Ditko all had a hand in one or more of the stories reprinted in this issue. If those names alone are not enough to get you to read this comic then I don’t know what will. Take it from me this comic is well worth reading. Now, if DC would just put out cheap color reprints of the entire original series.

Keith Forney