T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents

Cafe Society
1

I started reading comics during the rebirth of Superheroes (the late 50’s).Superman,Batman,and Wonder Woman held the fort against Sugar and Spike,Bob hope and the Jerry Lewis comics.After the birth (rebirth)and success of the DC Justice League Stan Lee turned his horror comics to his fallible super hero line.But I thought the art was crude and the characters too disagreeable.I liked harmony.In the 60’s ,I found The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserve.I still don’t know what that means,but they had harmony and were fallible.I never saw them act as a team.Each had his own adventures and weaknesses.Dynamo,the strongman had a belt of power ,which only worked for 60 seconds.The speed guy (I forget his name) would eat up the minutes of his own life for each burst of speed. Whatever happened to those guys? and does anyone have any info on Magnus,robot fighter?I loved the covers on gold key comics

2

The series died, but last year, DC, who now owns the rights, re-issued them in a hardcover book. Try checking… heck, I will
THUNDER Agents companion
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1893905438/qid=1131330460/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-2120160-6465460?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

THUNDER Agents vol 1 of 5
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1563899035/qid=1131330460/sr=8-4/ref=pd_bbs_4/103-2120160-6465460?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

You can find the rest.

3

I’ll assume that you encountered solely issues drawn by Don Heck, because if you think this about Jack Kirby, you need to get your eyes checked. :wink:

E-Sabbath covered your question w/r/t the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. As for Magnus Robot Fighter 4000 A.D., the old Gold Key comics are being reprinted in a similar hardcover format by Dark Horse Comics, although I’ve heard that folks are disappointed with the reprint quality of the Magnus volumes. If you’re interested, I’d suggest taking a flip through the book before buying it. Most places in the world, that’d be hard to do, because most comics shops aren’t going to carry a niche item like this. Fortunately, since your location line says you live in Northern Virginia, you’re pretty close to one of the few shops that does, Big Planet Comics in Vienna. (There’s also one in Georgetown and Bethesda if they’re more convenient.)

–Cliffy

4

In addition, there have been several revivals of Magnus… most recently, Acclaim? Comics, I think. (Akklaim? Some weird spelling, IIRC) Not really worthwhile, the Ninjak line was the best of the lot.

5

So much to love about this line. Here’s an okay History. There are likely better ones, but this seems to cover it pretty well.

I was always a fan of Noman.

6

Tower Comics and the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents were part of the jump-on-the-bandwagon superhero phenomenon of the mid-late 60s that was buoyed by the success of Marvel and the Batman TV series.

You had Doc Solar at Gold Key, the Charlton heroes line (Capt. Atom, Blue Beetle, etc), Mighty Comics, Tower Comics, ICG, even Harvey and Dell tried to get in on the superhero act. However, all of that pretty much went away by 1970.

7

Tower Comics and the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents were part of the jump-on-the-bandwagon superhero phenomenon of the mid-late 60s that was buoyed by the success of Marvel and the Batman TV series.

You had Doc Solar at Gold Key, the Charlton heroes line (Capt. Atom, Blue Beetle, etc), Mighty Comics, Tower Comics, ICG, even Harvey and Dell tried to get in on the superhero act. However, all of that pretty much went away by 1970.

8

Valiant, then Acclaim (which was indeed sometimes spelled Akklaim). Valiant was the line started by Jim Shooter in the early '90’s; Shooter, who started writing Legion of Super-Heroes when he was 13, spent most of the '80’s as Editor-in-Chief of Marvel. After being forced out, he started Valiant with both original properties and licenses of the Gold Key Silver Age Magnus, Doctor Solar, and Turok strips. I thought those early Valiants were quite good, including in particular Magnus, although the art was typically pretty bad (although more boring and static than affirmatively unattractive). The idea of the Magnus strip in particular was that it was a direct continuation of the Gold Key strip from decades before. I’ve read almost none of the Manning Magnus, so I don’t know how accurate that is, but I doubt it maintained that fidelity for long. Still, good comics for a while – maybe 30-40 issues until a new direction came around, which blew, IMO. (And was later replaced by yet another new direction, which also blew.)

Anyway, video-game company Acclaim Entertainment eventually bought Valiant. The line foundered, and Acclaim eventually relaunched several Valiant titles, including Magnus, with completely different characters and settings that had little to do with the prior incarnations. That went bust soon after as well.

Anyway, all that’s neither here nor there. While I liked Valiant comics, including Magnus and many others, most of their takes on the character owe little to the '60’s version except for the fact that Magnus wore a miniskirt. While the very earliest Valiant issues did bear strong resemblance to the source material, they’re 14 or 15 years old now and are going to be a hell of a lot harder to find than the hardcover will be.

–Cliffy