Thunder Agents Companion Preview by TwoMorrows Publishing

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1984-86: THE DELUXE COMICS YEARS Dave Cockrum, Steve Englehart, Keith Giffen, Jerry Ordway, George Pérez, David M. Singer, Dann Thomas and John Workman ..................125 Jim Shooter on T-Agents Ownership ................147

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS: CONTEXT & CHARACTERS T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Road!: Those Timeless, Titanic Agents of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. ..................7 Distant Thunder: James Bond 007 & Marvel Comics Setting the Stage for T-Agents ............................................8

1987: THE SOLSON INTERLUDE John Carbonaro, James E. Lyle and Michael Sawyer ....................................148

Those Halcyon Days of the 1960s’ High Camp Heroes ........12 T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents 101: In-Depth History of the Heroes of Tower..............................14

1987: BLUNDERS OVER T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Boris the Bear & Thunder Bunny....................156

Death of a Hero: Demise of the Man Called Menthor............24

1995: PENTHOUSE COMIX “T&A”GENTS Terry Austin, Paul Gulacy, John Carbonaro and Jordan Raskin ................158

Days of Blunder: Mocking the Men from T.H.U.N.D.E.R.........26 THE T.H.U.N.D.E.R. FILES The Curious Background of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents ................30

1995: T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS ANIMATED? Dan DiDio and Marv Wolfman........................162

The Ultimate T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Checklist ......................31

2003: THE “ALMOST” NEW T-AGENTS: Marc Andreyko & J.G. Jones ........................164 DC’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Hype..............................165 Death of the DC New T-Agents’ Deal ..............167

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. ARTISTS SECTION T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents by Dave Gibbons..............................41 1965-69: THE TOWER COMICS YEARS A Man Called Wood: The Masterful Artist Behind T.H.U.N.D.E.R. ........42

2005: JOHN CARBONARO’S T-AGENTS ........168 Elvira and The W.I.N.D.Y. Agents ....................171

Witzend and Mr. Wallace Allan Wood ..............45

John A. Carbonaro v. David M. Singer A Look at Their Thunderous Legal Battle ..........................174

Jack Abel, Dan Adkins, Dick Ayers, Len Brown, Reed Crandall, Steve Ditko, Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia, John Giunta, Larry Ivie, Gil Kane, Sheldon Moldoff, Joe Orlando, Bill Pearson, Paul Reinman, Samm Schwartz, Mike Sekowsky,Harry Shorten, Lou Silverstone, Steve Skeates, Manny Stallman, Chic Stone, Sal Trapani, George Tuska, Ogden Whitney and Al Williamson....................46

The Curse of T.H.U.N.D.E.R.? The Helter Skelter Ride of Wood’s Heroes ........................176 ADVENTURES IN THE THUNDERVERSE Iron Maiden by Garry Leach ..........................................178 T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents by Alan Davis ................................179 Post-Modern T-Agents Art by Jay Stephens, John Backderf, James Kochalka, and Dean Haspiel..................................180

The Secret Origin of Tower Comics....................85

“Dreams Past” Art by Garry Leach ..................................182

1981-84: THE JC COMICS YEARS Will Blyberg, Charlie Boatner, Paul Bonanno, John Carbonaro, Lou Manna, John Workman ..109

“Cold Warriors Never Die!” Art by Paul Gulacy & Terry Austin Script by George Caragonne & Tom Thornton ....................189 “Prologue to Zero” Art by Paul Gulacy & Terry Austin Script by George Caragonne & Tom Thornton ....................216

1983: A NOBLE EXPERIMENT Justice Machine Annual #1 and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. John Carbonaro and Bill Reinhold ..................124

Gratitude: For the Love of T.H.U.N.D.E.R.! ........................224

the Marvel Age of Comics: the Agents of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Revival of the 1960s was singularly a result of the Batmania craze of ’66, though the William Dozier-produced, twice-a-week TV sensation was a huge factor in the onslaughting barrage of “high-camp heroes” that flooded the marketplace. More properly, credit—or blame, if you prefer—needs to be given to Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and all the Marvel Bullpenners who perhaps brought comic book entertainment to a new level of self-awareness and pure joie de vive. As beautifully delineated as DC’s super-hero and war books were, they were humdrum compared to the sheer exuberance of the Marvel Age of Comics. And the kids responded by paying their 12¢ to Martin Goodman’s House of Ideas. But—funny thing this—Marvel’s revolutionary approach to super-heroes, as envied and copied as it would become by the mid-’60s, was itself the result of a Goodman directive to duplicate their main competitor’s hot new title. Oft-told legend has it that during a golf game with DC Comics publisher Harry Donenfeld, Goodman took note of his rival’s boasting. Seems DC’s latest book, one teaming up Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and other DC super-characters, is getting some action on the newsstand… how ’bout that, eh? Well, Goodman, whose own company had a considerable cast of once formidable, now dormant costumed-characters, went back to the office, hung up his golf cap, and gave cousin-in-law and editor-in-chief Stan Lee instructions to put together a Marvel Comics super-hero team to compete with Harry’s Justice League of America. But, instead of raiding the house inventory and forming a super-squad with Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, and Marvel Boy, Stan—with the essential input of his frequent collaborator, the genius artist also known as “The King,” Jack Kirby—decided on a quartet of new characters… sorta. Throwing in a twist that this crime-fighting group was actually an extended family, Lee and Kirby ushered in The Fantastic Four, the first title of the publisher’s great second act, the Marvel Age of Comics. Still, as cool as Stan and Jack’s team of Mr. Fantastic, the Thing, Invisible Girl, and the Human Torch were, the new Marvel hero that most effectively captivated comic book readers was Stan and artist/co-creator Steve Ditko’s friendly neighborhood web-slinger, the Amazing Spider-Man. It was Peter Parker, the angstridden teen riddled with self-doubt, burdened with too much power and too much responsibility for such a tender age, who resonated with fans. In comparison, Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne were, well, corny with a capital “K” compared to the emerging relevance of Marvel’s anti-heroes. But we all know how DC cashed in on corny, right? The all-encompassing success of the Batman TV show, as over-the-top and hokey as all get-out, proved that there was plenty of money to be made in camp, and so with the Dynamic Duo and Spidey showing the way, a flood of costumed tights paraded across the stands, much of it pure drek (remember the short-lived Captain (“Let’s Split!”) Marvel?), but some titles held more than a hint of inspiration. (Interestingly, 1965’s most important innovator, publisher James Warren, of Famous Monsters of Filmland and Creepy fame, resisted the temptation to exploit the trend—at least in sequential form, if not in merchandising!) It was an ex-Bullpenner (albeit a member of Stan’s team for mere months) who gave Marvel real competition in the creativity department. 9

gun-toting playboy spies suddenly invaded nearly every aspect of culture. Celluloid knock-offs included a pair of Our Man Flint flicks, a Matt Helm movie trilogy, two Dr. Goldfoot comedies (melding espionage with the beach party genre), and even the animated feature, The Man Called Flintstone. But it was on television where the fad had the biggest impact. Shows sporting the Bond influence included I Spy, Secret Agent, Mission: Impossible, The Saint, Wild Wild West, Get Smart, and Saturday morning fare, such as Jonny Quest, Secret Squirrel, and Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp. And the most significant TV spy show of all was The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (a series that spawned The Girl from… spin-off), which popularized the novelty of adding clever acronyms to the fad. Sure, Bond fought agents of SPECTRE (the SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence Terrorism Revenge and Extortion), but it was the heroes of the United Network Command of Law and Enforcement, in their battle against the villains of T.H.R.U.S.H. (the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and Subjugation of Humanity) which inspired a plethora of letter combinations, including Derek Flint’s agency, ZOWIE (Zonal Organization for World Intelligence and Espionage). And, of course, comics jumped on the same aspect when cashing in. Marvel updated its howling sergeant of WWII with Nick Fury fighting baddies as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (the Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-Enforcement Division). And so the joining of such trappings of the spy sensation—nifty acronyms, gadgets galore, sexy bad girls, and ruthless and shadowy worldwide conspiracies to combat—with the newly-invigorated costume crimefighter genre was a natural approach for the funny books to adopt, and the best of the lot were those adventures of the agents of The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves. Now, let’s discuss the brilliant comic book creator responsible for Dynamo and Co., the head artist behind the artifacts, Mr. Wallace Wood:

Regardless of the legendary artist’s professed disdain for costumed characters, Wallace Wood, fresh from a brief but exceptionally memorable stint as artist and re-designer on Marvel’s Daredevil, accepted Tower Comics publisher Harry Shorten’s directive to create a totally-new super hero comics line with vigor and obvious enthusiasm. Melding the then-au currant James Bond 007 spy craze with the Marvel Method, Tower’s art director—and, importantly, the line’s de facto editor—gathered the best available artists (Reed Crandall, Gil Kane, George Tuska, Mike Sekowsky, neophyte Dan Adkins, Chic Stone, later Steve Ditko and Al Williamson, among others) to create the unforgettable T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. Woody’s comics could be grim (featuring the first-ever death of a leading super-hero!), funny (the antics of headliner Dynamo’s alter-ego, Len (ahem) Brown, still evoke a chuckle today), sexy (sometimes decidedly on this side of S&M, judging by the femme fatale to beat them all, the Iron Maiden), angst-ridden (every time Lightning ran at super-speed, he shaved minutes off his life), wonky (as we shouldn’t neglect Manny Stallman’s gloriously strange “Raven” strips), and just plain fun! All in all, they were a superb part of American comics in the ’60s and, for those willing to gamble an entire 25¢ for each bi-monthly issue (a hefty price, one usually reserved for the annuals of Marvel and DC!), Woody’s heroes would leave invaluable and lasting memories in many an American kid. Let’s delve for a moment on the other significant cultural influence, one outside of comics, that resulted in the development of the colorful team of superspies in question, the spy craze if the 1960s: If the youth culture of the mid-1960s was about anything, it was about manic obsession. Whether Bridget Bardo, The Beatles, boss rides, or bitchin’ waves, kids consumed fads in a big way. And few trends were as big as Bond… James Bond. Ian Fleming’s series of British spy novels depicting the violent exploits of espionage agent 007 (licensed to kill, natch), would lead to a killer cinematic and merchandising phenomenon that has been rarely matched in retail history. Spurred on by the incredible success of the third Bond film, Goldfinger, dozens of suave,

Those Halcyon Days of the

The Great Super-Hero Revival of mid-1960s American comic books was an era when the exploits of costumed adventurers flooded U.S. magazine shelves, a period rivaled only by the “Golden-Age” years following the 1938 debut of the character who single-handedly created the genre, Superman. Publishers, some old, some brand-new, were suddenly eager to catch the wave of renewed interest in masked crimefighters that swept the nation, a fad generated (perhaps ironically) by an instantaneous—and idiotic—smash-hit TV show, Batman.

And while Stan Lee and his Bullpen were achieving no small degree of success with the college crowd through Marvel’s unique take on capes, cowls ‘n’ secret identities, the camp-saturated approach of ABC’s twiceweekly, corny-as-all-get-out series starring the Dynamic Duo proved the one more usually imitated. Thus silly super-heroes prevailed on the airwaves and in the funny books between 1966 and ’67, albeit with some notable comicbook exceptions (though the—thankfully!—shortlived sit-coms Captain Nice and Mr. Terrific prove that broadcasters were apparently invulnerable to even the most moderately intelligent presentation). There were some well-intended and handsome titles: Former chroniclers of Captain Marvel—the “Shazam!” version—including legendary artist C.C. Beck, produced two issues of the charming and quaint Fatman, The Human Flying Saucer; his salad days as top

camp (kãmp) n. 1. An affectation or appreciation of manners and tastes commonly thought to be outlandish, vulgar, or banal. 2. Banality or artificiality, when appreciated for its humor. — adj. Having the qualities or style of camp. To act in an outlandishly or effeminate manner. [Origin obscure.] — camp’y adj. —American Heritage Dictionary.

by Lou Mougin [This fine overview of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and the Tower comics line appeared in slightly different form in The Comic Reader #197 back in 1982. Please note it contains some personal opinions some may not agree with—Ye Ed takes exception to Lou’s characterization of Manny Stallman’s delightfully bizarre artwork—but it is a clear and thoughtful retrospective of the high points (and low) of Wally Wood’s glorious super-hero comic books.—JBC] Let us turn back the clock to that Wonderful Year, 1965. A new comics company was about to be born. DC had, for the past nine years, shown that super-heroes were once again a viable market. Marvel Comics had sparked a revolution that made their books prime college-age reading fodder. Archie had retooled its Adventures of the Fly title to feature an Avengers-like team of revived heroes. Best of all, news had leaked about a new TV show to debut in early ’66 featuring Batman. Nobody knew if it’d be a hit yet, but the fact of its existence proved that attention, favorable attention, was finally being paid to comic books. Considering the fact that the industry had almost gone belly-up ten years earlier and were only saved by the advent of the Comics Code, that wasn’t bad news at all. So, in this era of The Beatles, Sean Connery’s James Bond, Lyndon Johnson, and early renewed commitment to the Vietnam War, a paperback publisher named Tower Books decided to hit the racks with a new comic series. Its publisher was Harry Shorten and its editor was Samm Schwartz, both veterans of the Archie comics group. For a chief artist, they hired away a mainstay of the EC/Mad bullpen from Marvel, where he was winding up a short but acclaimed run of Daredevil. Given the freedom to write and design characters, Wallace Wood came over, and brought others with him. And the product of their labors soon became available on spinner racks across the country, in a hope of challenging Marvel, DC, and the competitors who were shortly to flood the market with new super-hero books as soon as the debut of the Batman television show. Its title was T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents # 1, dated November 1965, hit the ground running. With a 25¢, 64-page package of six superbly-drawn tightly-plotted stories, the book packed in three new super-heroes, a horde of secret agents, mystery men, super-villains, monsters and action, action, action! One look at the book and the reader could tell that here, indeed, was the king of the backseat comics; it was the only mid-’60s title to successfully compete with Marvel and DC super-hero fare. It set the pace for two years of giant-sized comics that most fans of that period recall as fondly as anything from the two major publishers. 14

This page: Detail from Dynamo pin-up, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #3. Art by Wallace Wood & Dan Adkins.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents 101

In-Depth History of the Heroes of Tower

This page: Panel detail, “A Day in the Life of Dynamo,” Dynamo #1. Art by Mike Sekowsky & Frank Giacoia.

Basically, Tower Comics, which published T.H.U.N.D.E.R. and the several spin-offs, boiled down to one person: Wallace Wood. As creator of the series, major artist and writer and self-admitted freelance editor, Wood produced his best commercial comics work of the ’60s while at Tower. The nearly two-dozen books he worked on during the 1966-68 period showcase some of the finest super-hero art of the “Second Heroic Age,” particularly his numerous Dynamo stories. As a result, Tower became the only third-force publisher to equal, and at times, surpass Marvel and DC in art quality. Others who wielded the pencil and brush at Tower were equally renowned. Gil Kane, Reed Crandall, Steve Ditko, Dan Adkins, John Giunta, Al Williamson. Few super-hero books would ever boast such a distinguished crew. “I was not only Tower’s top artist, I created the characters, and wrote most of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents stories,” admitted Wood. “As to why Harry Shorten (head of Tower Books) decided to publish comics, I don’t know. But he came to me and asked me to work up a super-hero book. I then functioned as a freelance editor and did as much of the art as I could.” The concept of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. was a skillful blending of two separate genres that had each, in 1965, been proven sure-fire successes. Secret agents had ridden a wave of popularity since the first James Bond films of the early ’60s, and the Bond/Flint/Solo cult was never bigger. (The popularity of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in particular seemed to have the greatest impact on this book.) And super-heroes were the rage in comic books; that went without saying. Well, then, why not a cloak-&-dagger type who wore a costume beneath the cloak? That line of thinking resulted in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1. The cover, drawn by Wood, introduced a triad of new arrivals to the super-hero biz: a blue-clad Superman-type lifted an armored villain overhead, surrounded by a complex of machinery. He was flanked by a cloaked, transparent man on his left, and on the right was a late-comer who apparently had ripped off the Atom’s uniform. The cover, colored only in various shades of red, blue, and yellow, and devoid of any blurbs, was perhaps less flashy than it should have been. Compared to Marvel’s slam-bang broadsides of the period, it looked positively static. But it served to showcase Dynamo, NoMan, and Menthor for their first public appearance. And the greatest back-seat heroes of the mid-’60s were born!

Page one opened with a battlefield scene as we glimpsed a squad of landing UN paratroopers through shattered glass. A caption informed us: “A team of special U.N. agents lands at a remote mountain lab…” In the space of two pages we learned that the unit was on a rescue mission, intent on saving the life of Dr. Emil Jennings, the greatest scientist of the Western world. As fate would have it, the bad guys escaped unharmed in a helicopter, and Jennings was cold meat on his laboratory floor. “This has to be the work of the Warlord!” muttered a squad leader. “Just who is this Warlord, sir?” asked a soldier, thus allowing us to be introduced to the villain of the piece. The Warlord proves to be the mysterious leader of a SPECTRE or T.H.R.U.S.H.-like organization, with every available criminal and spy at his beck and call. His objective: The theft of every scientific development on Earth. Masked by a purple hood, the weird spy-chief held congress only with his top lieutenants, and not even they had seen his true features. “Now he’s gotten to this experimental station and our most advanced research, and since the professor never kept notes, all these devices will be his sole property… we can never duplicate them!” finishes the officer. “They didn’t have time to get everything, sir,” says another crewman. “Look at these!” The scene immediately shifts to a high-level conference room in New York. A wall is decorated with a figure of the Western Hemisphere and the words, “The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves.” T.H.U.N.D.E.R.’s Inner Council stands assembled, considering the three recovered devices from Jennings’ laboratory… a metallic belt, a blue-black cloak, and a rigid helmet in the form of a headmask. “The first is an electron molecular intensifier belt which will make the wearer’s body structure change to the consistency of steel!” says a speaker, holding up the belt. Next, he gestures to the cape, and explains its ability of becoming absolutely black, reflecting no light and rendering the wearer invisible. “And this one we’re not sure of,” he says, fondling the strange helmet. “It seems to be a cybernetic helmet… it could be dangerous, but it could amplify a man’s brain power many times over…” Quickly, the heads of the free world’s greatest 15

Unsuspectingly, Len Brown follows his guide through several checkpoints to Level Seven, the meeting place of T.H.U.N.D.E.R.’s Inner Council. Confronted by a semi-circle of the West’s top spy-chiefs, he is offered a chance at becoming an agent, and, in the best comic book hero tradition, accepts. One panel later, Brown is stripped down to blue trunks and boots and offered Jennings’ blue metal belt with the strange dial in the buckle position. “Because of your physical stamina, you’ve been selected to use the Thunderbelt,” says one attendant. “It will change your body’s atomic structure,” explains another. “Put it on!” (Tower was never noted for excess dialogue, as you can tell.) After allowing the belt time to adopt itself to his metabolism, Brown turns the dial. Abruptly, a surge of electrical discharges bathe him in blue fire as the energy released rends the air with a spectacular CR-RACK! Shades of Captain Marvel! It was obviously derivative of the Big Red Cheese, and just as fun in 1965 as in 1940. With a weight of over 1,000 pounds, and a density approximating that of titanium steel, Len Brown was setup to become T.H.U.N.D.E.R.’s first super-agent. The attendants instruct Brown to take a poke at a wall target with an impact gauge attached. “Okay… here goes. I’ll probably wind up breaking my hand… WHA…!?” KRUMF! One panel later, Brown steps into the adjoining office through the hole he has just made in the wall. Instant super-hero! In the final steps of the super-hero ritual, Brown is informed of the necessary Achilles Heel: That prolonged use of the belt can so drain his physical energy as to be fatal. (In later stories, the belt would be outfitted with a timer to turn itself off after a half-hour had passed.) The brownhaired Brown is provided with a blue-and-white costume of metallic fabric and dubbed “Dynamo,” for obvious reasons. And none too soon… for, at the bottom of the page, the Warlord strikes again! A pair of armored trucks proceeds to blanket New York City under a dense fog composed of iron particles (?). Under cover of the mist, teams of armor-clad raiders stage snatch-and-grab raids of radioactive materials. At this point, the reader first glimpses Dynamo’s longest-lived ally and adversary… the Iron Maiden, Tower’s version of the Dragon Lady. A beautiful redhead who wore a suit of gleaming metal that hugged her curves like a body-suit, the Iron Maiden played Catwoman to Dynamo’s Batman. In over nine separate clashes with T.H.U.N.D.E.R.’s big blue blockbuster, she represented the ultimate and 16

Left: NoMan illustration, Gosh Wow! #2. Art by Reed Crandall.

semi-secret defensive organization come to an agreement. A full-scale assault must be led against the Warlord, spearheaded by three agents who will employ the inventions of Dr. Jennings against the man who ordered his murder. “…And so the search begins,” reads the final caption. The four-page introductory sequence fairly breathed clichés, from the doomed scientist who creates super-heroes to the opposed agencies locked in global Cold War conflict. But the plot was solid, the concepts didn’t stretch reality to the breaking point, and, of course, Wood’s art pulled the entire thing together. It set several concepts that T.H.U.N.D.E.R. would follow to their final issue: Tight, pulp-like plotting, an economy of dialogue (word balloons were kept to two per panel most of the time) and believability. The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, rather than gaining power from radioactive spiders or gamma bomb explosions, were human beings whose abilities were augmented by mechanical devices. It was a welcome touch of conservatism in a comics universe already top-heavy with sorcerers, omnipotent entities, parallel dimensions and heroes with every super-power conceivable. T.H.U.N.D.E.R.’s biggest blockbuster was introduced two pages later with a one-page Wood splash panel. The blue-&-white-clad figure from the front cover grimly towered over a pile of rubble, hands on hips. Behind him was a hole he had made in a brick wall at least two feet thick. Dynamo was unleashed! Tower’s steely superman was originally dubbed “Thunderbolt,” but a last-minute change substituted the name “Dynamo” instead and his new name was lettered over the old one. [Cf. the reprint of page 10, panel 2 in the Dynamo paperback, where the caption reads, “Even Thunderbolt’s iron frame is shaken by the concussion…”] Undoubtedly Charlton, whose Thunderbolt debuted a short time later, was grateful for the change. The 12-page origin story was scripted by Len Brown and drawn by Wood and opened with a waist-shot of our hero as a desk-bound administration official in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. H.Q. An obvious secret identity type you could recognize at 20 paces. “This paperwork isn’t for me!” he muses. “I’m afraid I made a mistake when I accepted this job!” Suddenly, his superior enters the room. “Leonard Brown, will you come with me, please?” (How’s about them apples? The above is the only case I can find in comics history in which a scripter named a major super-hero himself! But, after all, Leonard Brown is at least as believable a moniker as Clark Kent or Peter Parker, so it was allowed to stand.)

Top & bottom left: Panels from “A Matter of Life and Death,” T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #7. Art by Wallace Wood, Dan Adkins & Steve Ditko.

It simply was not done… at least not in the “Silver Age” of American comic books. Sure, Marvel had Captain America’s World War Two-era boy sidekick, Bucky Barnes, fall to his (ahem) untimely—and off-panel—death in a flash-back when the star-spangled hero was resurrected in The Avengers #4 (Mar. ’64), but ’60s funny-book editors just didn’t instruct freelancers to kill off their super-hero players. And though it seemed every other issue of Superman depicted the Man o’ Steel as suffering from some fatal Kryptonian malady or in some particular stage of super-rigor mortis (surrounded by the obligatory crowd of mourning pals and girlfriends), it always turned out to be a cheat of some kind (phew!), whether in the form of an “imaginary story” or a ruse to outwit some murderous scoundrel. Even supporting cast members readers could only dream of seeing iced (Snapper Carr anyone?) who lived on, never aging, never changing, always annoying. Understand that the Grim Reaper was hardly a stranger in “non-imaginary” costumed hero exploits—these were the hyperbolic comic books of the overwrought ’60s, after all—as Marvel founding fathers Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, for instance, crafted a melodramatic gem in Avengers #9 (Oct. ’64), a tale that introduced one Simon Garth, a novice good guy known by the sobriquet Wonder Man. The Lee & Kirby spin? The newly-born super-hero dies in the very same ish. For good. (At least until second generation writers at the House of Ideas got their hooks into the cadaver, bringing the character back from the dead nearly a dozen years later.) But standard practice assured that regular stock characters were assured eternal life (at least until cancellation). But in the late Spring of 1966, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #7 changed all that. Shocking captivated fans to no end, Wallace Wood and company did the unthinkable when the Master of Mental Force, Menthor (“Is he hero? Is he turncoat?”), bites the Big One in the cave lair of the villainous Warlord. In that issue’s final story, “A Matter of Life and Death”(written, layed-out and inked by Wood and Adkins, with tight pencils by Steve Ditko), the valiant wielder of T.H.U.N.D.E.R.’s cybernetic helmet struggles to

Death of a Hero!

Demise of The Man Called Menthor

Days of Blunder!

Certainly the heroes of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. had an impact on the other comic book publishers of the mid-1960s. The Tower Comics’ line sported a consistent level of quality that not only attracted the fickle attention of increasing sophisticated readers, but undoubtedly the concerns of the Big Two, as well. Wallace Wood’s titles—T-Agents, Dynamo, and NoMan— were among the best-looking comics on the stands, the covers artdirected to perfection, often exquisitely colored, rarely marred by any hyperbolic blurbs of the Stan Lee sort. And the interior work… well, we all know how extraordinary the level of art in those inside pages. Yet Tower’s marketshare—or lack thereof—limited due to newness, lousy distribution, and their gamble to price all titles at 25¢ apiece (even if they were all-new giants, but still twice the price of DC and Marvel’s 12¢ books) must have given some comfort to the more established publishers weary of the upstart. But any solace didn’t stop them from poking fun at the competition. The first issue of The Inferior Five [Mar.-Apr. ’67] mocks Woody’s heroes (and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) with “Five Characters in Search of a Plot!” (written by E. Nelson Bridwell with Mike Sekowsky pencils and Mike Esposito inks), as DC’s goofy super-powered team does battle with a crime organization called H.U.R.R.I.C.A.N.E., an acronym for Heinous, Unscrupulous Rats and Rogues Initiating Criminal Anarchy and Nefarious Evil. (See if you can guess the source of the parodied agents’ names: Powerhouse, Missing Fink, Mr. Mental, Yellow Streak, Blackbird, “Tabby” Katz, “Nitro” Gleason, and “Crabgrass” Wilde.) Later that year, in September, Marvel’s Brand Echh #2 gives us writer Gary Friedrich and artist Marie Severin’s take on Dynamo and company with a Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. caricature—Knock Furious, Agent of S.H.E.E.S.H.—(aided by his howling “coldbricks”) duking it out with an abbreviated crew of B.L.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Dynaschmoe, and NoBody (with mention of agent “Pussycat”). The seven-pager is particularly effective in satirizing Tower Comics, especially the Wallace Wood clichés, mocking Woody’s rendering of handsome heroes always effortlessly smashing through brick walls, as well as his perpetual use of lighting effects. The difference between company writing styles is also tweaked, with Dynaschmoe exclaiming, “Over at B.L.U.N.D.E.R. we just fight… and let the competition talk themselves silly!” (Oh, and the House of Idea’s take on the agents’ organization name? Bedraggled League Uv Nations Defenseless Encroachment Reserves. Nuff said?)

Mocking The Men from T.H.U.N.D.E.R.!

The adventures of those colorful and beloved operatives of The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves— the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents to those of us in the know—traverse the decades, beginning in the waning months of 1965 with a crowded rebirth in the ’80s, and continuing (sporadically, to be sure) into the mid-1990s. The beleaguered and supremely talented crew who produced these celebrated sagas of the initial Tower Comics run (of whom you’ll learn quite a bit more about in the sections to follow) were obviously having a blast at their job, as Wallace Wood and team included numerous in-joke references throughout the series’ initial ’60s appearance. For instance, Woody named the headlining hero code-named Dynamo’s alter-ego after young Topps Bubble Gum copywriter Len Brown with whom the artist had worked on the Mars Attacks! trading card set in the months prior. (And, as the fates would have it, the real Leonard Brown also moonlighted as a scripter on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, as you’ll later see!) However much fun the creative folk were having, Wood and company—as well as those to follow: the artists, writers, and editors who were responsible for the ’80s and ’90s revivals of Dynamo and his fellow operatives—worked their fannies off to bring the heroes to life on the comic-book page. But though credit lines in the stories themselves (detailing contributions of the various talents involved in producing a comic book) are commonplace today, back in the ’60s, that wasn’t always the case. And so it was at Tower Comics, where many artists and writers aided creator/ writer/artist/art director/de facto editor Wood, but often with no acknowledgement. (Please also keep in mind that Wood ran a studio with assistants coming and going, some like Dan Adkins who was able to execute an entire story, but also others who were assigned background work and the like.) In the following checklist, as exhaustive and comprehensive as it is, there’s no absolute guarantee that every reference is authentic. With the indispensible assistance of many helpful people, some who worked on the material themselves, others experts in identifying uncredited work, we have done our best to correctly peg the creative personnel behind every issue of T-Agents and its associated titles. Given that the Tower work is nigh-on 40 years old today , there is bound to be some oversight and mistakes found (and if you find some questionable listings, please send any corrections to the editor in care of this publisher), but rest assured this is the most complete checklist of all T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents appearances to date.

The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Files

A Complete Checklist of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents

The Curious Background of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Wallace Wood has been frequently credited as being the creator of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (abbreviated throughout this volume as “T-Agents,” in deference to the typesetter, who would otherwise wear out the period key!) and this same tome is no exception. But, in truth, creative minds other than just Woody were involved in formulating concepts and characters within the series. In addition, there have been other influences—some from outside comics— which have made their ways into the respective origins of our heroes, a few revealed many years after the initial appearances. Longtime pop-culture fans can immediately recognize the archetypical basis for numerous characters in T-Agents: • Though sans cape and flying ability, Dynamo is reminiscent of the Man of Steel, Superman, by way of a Hourman-like story device—albeit Thunderbelt in place of a pill—granting super-powers only for a limited period • With cloak, invisibility, capability to possess other humanoid vessels, and otherworldly skin color, NoMan has The Spectre written all over him, with a nod to Robotman • Menthor, a bad guy forced to be good by a cybernetic mask, is an inverse of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tale, with a mind-controlling helmet in the Doctor Fate mold • Who else but The Flash provided a template for super-speedster, Lightning, although the agent has his own disability of dying a little every time he uses his powers • A modern-day Dragon Lady best describes Iron Maiden

• The Raven is a generic soaring hero, à là Hawkman, though one with a hidden jet-pack • T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad, minus Kitten, might be mistaken for a red-clad version of the Blackhawks (only without one airplane per member)… or the cliché characters of virtually every single World War II movie made up to that time • Andor, the tragic anti-hero who sojourned through the titles, perhaps can be described as a Tarzan knock-off (only raised by malevolent Subterraneans, not affectionate apes), by way of Doc Savage, if one plagued with Job-like tribulations As for actual development of the characters, memories of some Wood associates differ. “Dynamo was a mutual creation,” Len Brown told Christopher Irving in CBA V.1, #14. “I named the character because of the belt. I was going to call him Thunderbolt, and have him wear a ‘Thunderbelt.’… I remember maybe even suggesting Thunder Riders, and Wally suggested T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. My hero’s name was Thunderbolt, and Wally changed it to Dynamo… originally the name of the villain).” (Irving added, “Interestingly, Dynamo is mistakenly referred to as ‘Thunderbolt’ in one panel of the character’s debut story.”) As homage to his young friend, Woody gave the civilian name of T-Agents leader Dynamo, Leonard Brown. Larry Ivie, sometime Wood assistant, remembers being the one —simultaneously but separate from Brown—to come up with “The Thunderbolt“ (as well as compatriots “The Thunderbird” and “The Thundervision”), as well as quite a few other aspects of the series, including the name of the group and being the one to define the acronym. The name Dynamo was substituted because, Ivie says, Wood was concerned with DC’s Western hero, Johnny Thunder. (Ivie’s extensive comments are in the “T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Artists” section.) While he says the name NoMan, chosen by Wood, was taken from the stories of Homer, the character’s ability to transfer consciousness from one body to another was Ivie’s concept. But Russ Jones, another Wood assistant from the ’60s, recalls, “Wood’s love for [science-fiction author] A.E. Van Vogt gave birth to NoMan; [Vogt’s novel] The World of Null-A. Woody loved ol’ A.E., [and] the Null-A books were his very favorites. The hero [of Null-A] switched bodies; the origin of NoMan.” Disagreements over who specifically originated what will doubtless go on, as new details may also emerge, but regardless, few of his associates would argue that the one, truly creative powerhouse behind T-Agents was no one less than the late, great Wallace Wood.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS (TOWER) #1 NOVEMBER 1965 COVER: Wallace Wood THUNDER: “First Encounter” 4 PGS. ART: Wallace Wood SCRIPT: Larry Ivie Dynamo: “Menace of the Iron Fog” 12 PGS. ART: Wallace Wood SCRIPT: Len Brown & Larry Ivie NoMan: “THUNDER Agent NoMan” 10 PGS. ART: Reed Crandall (with Wallace Wood) SCRIPT: Larry Ivie NoMan: “Face to Face” (text) 2 pgs. WRITTEN BY Larry Ivie Menthor: “The Enemy Within” 12 PGS. ART: Gil Kane, George Tuska & Mike Esposito SCRIPT: Lou Silverstone THUNDER Squad: “THUNDER Squad” 10 PGS. ART: Mike Sekowsky & Frank Giacoia SCRIPT: Larry Ivie T-Agents: “At the Mercy of Iron Maiden”10 PGS. ART: Wallace Wood & Dan Adkins SCRIPT: Wallace Wood & Dan Adkins

#2 JAN. 1966 COVER: W. Wood & D. Adkins Dynamo: “Dynamo Battles Dynavac”13 PGS. ART: W. Wood & Richard Bassford/W. Wood SCRIPT: Len Brown NoMan: “In the Warlord’s Power” 10 PGS. ART: Dick Ayers/Wallace Wood & Joe Orlando Menthor: “Menthor” 10 PGS. ART: Sekowsky/Giacoia SCRIPT: Lou Silverstone Dynamo: “D-Day for Dynamo” 13 PGS. ART: W. Wood & D. Adkins/Wood & Coleman THUNDER Squad: “On the Double” 10 PGS. ART: Mike Sekowsky/Frank Giacoia SCRIPT: Lou Silverstone Junior THUNDER Agents: (text) 2 PGS. ART: Mike Sekowsky TEXT: Lou Silverstone #3 MARCH 1966 COVER: Wallace Wood Dynamo: “…Battles the Subterraneans” 10 PGS. ART: W. Wood & D. Adkins/Wood & Coleman NoMan: “…Faces the Threat of the Amazing Vibraman” 10 PGS. Art: John Giunta/W. Wood & Tony Coleman

SCRIPT: Bill Pearson Dynamo: “The Red Dragon” 10 PGS. ART: W. Wood & D. Adkins/Wood & Coleman THUNDER Squad: “Invaders from the Deep” 10 PGS. ART: Sekowsky/Giacoia SCRIPT: Lou Silverstone Dynamo/Menthor: “Dynamo vs. Menthor” 10 PGS. ART: W. Wood & D. Adkins/Wood & Coleman SCRIPT: Lou Silverstone (?) Dynamo: PIN-UP 1 PG. ART: Wallace Wood & Dan Adkins/W. Wood NoMan: PIN-UP 1 PG. ART: Wallace Wood & Dan Adkins/W. Wood The Thunderbelt: PIN-UP 1 PG. ART: Wood & Adkins (or Ayers?)/W. Wood Menthor: PIN-UP 1 PG. ART: Wallace Wood & Dan Adkins/W. Wood THUNDER Squad: PIN-UP 1 PG. ART: Wood & Adkins (or Sekowsky?)/Wood LETTERS 2 PGS.

A Man Called Wood

Wallace Allan Wood was born into a creative and talented family, on June 17, 1927, in Menahga, Minnesota, and he later told interviewer Shel Dorf, “I was born in Minnesota, but I grew up in Wisconsin and Michigan.” In these rural environs, the boy and his older brother, Glenn, reveled in the newspaper adventure comic strips of the Depression-era—Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant, Captain Easy, and Terry and the Pirates—and the siblings would while away the hours endlessly drawing. (Tellingly, by 1942, Wallace would study the increasingly innovative storytelling of Will Eisner in The Spirit newspaper supplements.)To quote EC’s “Artist of the Issue” feature in Weird Science #12 [Mar. 1952], “[Wood] has worked as pin-boy, bus-boy, usher, dental lab assistant, printing plant apprentice, factory worker, lumber-jack, stevedore, and truck loader!” During World War II, Woody—who despised being called “Wally”—became a widely-traveled Merchant Marine and later a paratrooper in the 11th Airborne. Returning to the states after completing his service, the fledgling artist began making rounds of New York City’s comic book publishers, where in a lobby waiting a portfolio review, Woody had a chance—and fateful—meeting with fellow young artist, John Severin. The future EC contributors discovered mutual interests and John invited the newcomer to visit the studio he shared with Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder. There the trio put Woody in contact with none other than Will Eisner, one of the young artist’s idols, which led to a short first stint on The Spirit, as letterer and eventually background inker. In 1948, Wallace enrolled in New York’s Cartoonists & Illustrators School, a veritable factory that pumped out innumerable comic book artists, courtesy of luminary instructors Burne Hogarth, Roy Krenkel, Jerry Robinson, and Paul Reinman. Attending the art school was a seminal event not only in his artistic development, but also in meeting an astounding array of talented fellow students. At C&I (later to be renamed the School of Visual Arts, which still thrives today), the young artist’s classmates included Al Williamson, Jack Abel, Dick Ayers, Marie Severin, Ross Andru, Mike Esposito, and future partner (and later science-fiction author) Harry Harrison. During the early Wood era, the artist contributed to a number of comics for various publishers (sometimes with Harrison or oft-partner Joe Orlando), among them Avon, Fox Comics, American Comics Group, Magazine Village, as well as perhaps his highest profile work at that time, returning to work for Eisner—this time as full-fledged artist—on three weeks worth of The Spirit (for the story-arc, one of the long-running series’ final storylines, “The Outer Space Spirit,” as referred to today). But in what would prove to be a most important event, it was during this time when young Wallace Wood began freelancing (initially with cohort Harrison) for Entertaining Comics, the struggling outfit run by publisher William Gaines and editor Al Feldstein. It was at EC Comics where the Wood legend was born. Proving versatile in virtually every genre, the artist particularly excelled at drawing the quintessential science-fiction comic book story, as well as becoming one of 42

Left: Prior to the character’s name change to Dynamo, original splash page intended for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1. Art by Wallace Wood.

The Masterful Artist Behind T.H.U.N.D.E.R.

Harvey Kurtzman’s finest “finishers” on many of the best beloved Mad satires during its comic-book beginnings. The artist’s EC material (subsequently called by snooty fans—shades of Stardust Memories!— “Wally’s better, early stuff”) gave truth to the (albeit misspelled) phrase, one intended as a self-deprecating joke, “When better drawrings are drawrn… they’ll be drawrn by Wood. He’s real gone.” With his exceptional work at Gaines’ imprint, Wallace Wood would become one of the most significant influences on every stripe of cartoonist, and inspiring comics work in so many genres, whether humor, sci-fi, war, historical, or superhero. At EC, Wood became an American icon, or as close as a comic book artist could get in the Eisenhower years. After the mid-’50s Wertham/Kefauver/Comics Code debacle, which forced the closing of dozens of comics publishers (including the oppressors’ most sought-after target, horror/crime comics publisher EC Comics, which switched to producing Mad magazine), Woody would toil in just about every available venue then open to someone of his considerable talent: newspaper comic strips, magazine illustration, advertising work, trading-card design, pulp mag illos, and whatever scarce four-color funnybook work available during those lean years. No doubt, Woody’s frustrations over the inequities between struggling creative freelancers and comfortable “fat-cat” publishers started to emerge during the Mad magazine years. The humor publication was attaining unheard of circulation numbers, even with the departure of its genius creator, Harvey Kurtzman, and with those phenomenal sales, scads of wealth for the suits (and endless knockoffs by rivals), who reprinted the material in every conceivable form— over and over and over—and sold rights to innumerable foreign markets, all the while hogging growing media attention, profiting alone from the publicity. And what did the powers-that-be give in return to those artists and writers who produced such wildly popular content, work that was recycled into countless paperbacks, specials, hardcover books, and foreign editions? A one-time page rate, however “generous” for the time, plus the indignity of not having the original art pages returned to the artist. Surely, Wallace Wood began to realize the exploitation he and his peers suffered.

Another frustrated and brilliant cartoonist, who would continue to be bitter about the injustice ’til his death, Kurtzman did attempt quasi-creator-owned magazines after departing Mad, hoping to repeat his earlier success with the superbly over-produced Trump (published for a mere two issues by Hugh Hefner, a Kurtzman admirer awash with Playboy riches) and the tragically underproduced Humbug (financed by Harvey and his collaborative team of artists, in an early effort at independence), 1950s efforts to which Woody contributed. But the artist must have become increasingly cynical by witnessing former editor Kurtzman’s failure at achieving independence. Into the ’60s, Woody would work for Topps Bubble Gum (where he first met a young Leonard Brown, another future T-Agents cohort), as well as Galaxy magazine, as well as continuing as one of the “usual gang of idiots” at Mad. During that time, costumed super-heroes began to grow in popularity, reemerging as a profitable genre in the comic book business long after their 1940s’ heyday. And yet with the masked characters’ return, it is interesting to note how little of Woody’s work appears in the milieu until his work in the mid-’60s for Stan Lee. The artist’s masterful grasp of adventure was breathtaking, his anatomy spot-on (not to mention sensual), and combined with his commanding sense of storytelling, he was obviously a natural choice to delineate the exploits of DC and Marvel’s

great thing. I used to sleep in there, and I was afraid all the filing cabinets would fall on me or something. Then, I slept in the living room sometimes, on the couch in there. I was up there all the time! Jon: Did you see, there was supposedly a ritual that Woody would, one day a week, just do tear sheets, just go through magazines and just tear out pictures for reference? Do you remember that? Dan: No, I don’t think he did that. I think most of that happened beforehand. He might’ve had that ritual earlier on or something. But I was up there seven days a week! I lived there! [laughs] Jon: It was just an amazing amount of work you guys put out. Dan: We put out all the Tower stuff, three or four series for Topps, stuff for Harvey, the Total War and Fantastic Voyage stuff for Western… We even did an eight-page monster story for Western. We did that Alka-Seltzer ad that appeared on TV. We did Argosy ads, we did those six record album covers. Jon: How long were you with Woody? Dan: 16 months. Jon: [Laughs] Wow! Dan: Yeah! I know I did 60 different assignments. It was great fun; I had nothing but fun all the time. Jon: Did you do some writing? Dan: Yeah, I killed Menthor. Jon: [Laughs] So that was your idea? Dan: Yeah, yeah. Jon: What was your thinking behind that? Dan: I guess it was because my parents and everybody treated me bad. [laughter] I used to have dreams of everybody coming to my funeral, and they were all weeping and sorry they treated me so bad. Jon: You’ll show them! [laughs] Dan: So, this came out in my “Death of Menthor” story. Instead of writing it Wally’s way, with a happy ending, I wanted to show the people that characters can die. [laughter] It just wrote itself. I sat

Left: Back cover line art, Comic Book Artist V.1, #14. Art by Dan Adkins.

know. I guess he still works for Topps! Jon: He just finally retired. Dan: [Laughs] Oh, so that’s what happened! He was so young when I was up there, he was in his 20s. Anyway, it was just me, Ralph and Coleman up there for a year-and-a-half, and his wife, Tatjana. Jon: This was Tony Coleman? He was out of Canada? Dan: Yeah. He went back to Britain. I did such a good job on “The Battle of Britain” [Blazing Combat #3, Apr.’66] because of those little digests, British war magazines that Tony had. [laughs] I swiped just about everything in “Battle of Britain” except the first page, which Wally laid out. But in between, I used most of those British comics. Jon: Coleman was an artist over in England? Dan: Yeah, he was a comic book artist of the type like Mike Esposito would be, you know? Not too flashy a style. But a good journeyman. He worked for Wally for under six months, just to get enough money to get back to England. He lost all his money in Canada or something, and Joe Orlando sent him up from DC to work for Wally, which means Orlando must’ve been editor down at DC during the Tower time. Jon: So Joe and Woody always maintained their friendship? Dan: Yeah, they were always great buddies. Jon: Did they go out and socialize together? Dan: Wally never went out. [laughter] Wally went out twice a week to see a psychiatrist. Jon: Did he order everything out? Dan: Yes, we did. We ordered a lot of stuff out. Jon: Did you have a hot plate? Did anyone ever cook? Dan: We had a kitchen right next to us, then down the hall was the bathroom, and then the swipe room, which was filled with about 22 cabinets. Wally had made his own swipe machine, it was a great, elaborate affair! [laughs] Like this great big house was coming down on us. Yeah, we turned a crank wheel, and a big wheel at the side there, and Wally made the lenses and everything himself. It was a

bought them out. Esso (later Exxon) saw them as something of a threat. The brothers now had all this money to go into another business, so they hired some market research people to find out what kind of business to start. The war was just getting over and the market research people predicted that there would be a baby boom and chewing gum would be a great thing to get into. Trading cards wasn’t the first thing Topps got into. It was chewing gum and then later it became bubble gum. The first gum that they put out was just called Topps and it was like Chicklets (which was very popular around that time). Jon: You got into the company in 1960? Len: I actually started in 1959. Jon: You worked on a Civil War set? Len: The Civil War set was a couple of years later. Let’s see, I started in ’59 so this would have been about ’61, I guess. I was very

Left: Pencil roughs for Dynamo #1 cover art. Art by Wallace Wood.

involved in that. I wrote the backs of all those cards and, together with Stan Hart and Woody, we would plan the scenes. We would actually describe very dramatic battle scenes. We wanted picture cards that looked like a pulp magazine cover. High drama! Woody, who was very instrumental in the look of the set, brought in some of the old gum cards that he had collected over the years and this would have been Horrors of War and some of the Gum, Inc. cards from the 1930s which used illustration and blood ’n’ guts and all the things that kids liked. Jon: [Laughs] Kids still do! Len: A lot of gore, yeah. They were very much inspiration to the Civil War set. Jon: Were they explicit cards in the 1930s? Len: Oh, Horrors of War was a very explicit set that was published in the 1930s, depicting the Japanese-Chinese war of that decade… it showed incredible gore. It outdid Mars Attacks!, let me put it that way. One card depicted a scene of a bombed city, and there would just be severed hands holding the steering wheel of an automobile. Just the hands and nothing else left of it! That was one particular image which stuck in my mind. That was about as bad as it got. I remember that Woody told me that the Japanese embassy complained to the Roosevelt administration, just before they bombed Pearl Harbor. [laughs] They actually complained that this was an awful thing that this American company was doing, depicting the Japanese as these barbaric soldiers, that they were being shown as the bad guys in this war with the Chinese. Anyway, it was one of the most graphic sets and it’s highly collectible. If you look in any of the non-sports guides, a complete set is worth thousands of dollars. Jon: When did you first meet Wally Wood? Len: I was telling Woody Gelman about EC comics because he was aware of them but he wasn’t following comics in those days. I’m sure I brought some in and mentioned Wally and Al Williamson. I remember we tried to contact Al Williamson but he was living in South America at the time and we couldn’t reach him. We did locate Jack Davis and hired him to do a funny monster set. Jon: Did you introduce Woody to the work of the EC artists? Len: Oh, yes, very much. Because of my love for EC. Woody Gelman instantly saw that these guys were very talented as soon as I showed him these comics. We brought Wally in to do a parody of Ripley’s Believe It or Not which we called Crazy Cards, not a great name but they were a funny set. Wally would draw the front of the card in a typical Believe It or Not-type style. On back of the card was the punch line and a Mad-style cartoon. Jon: With your generation’s sensitivity to comic books and Woody’s prior generation’s to comic strips, there was a real kind of synergy at Topps? Len: I think so. As for the EC guys, we also had George Woodbridge do something for us, Bill Elder came in and did an odd item for a little while and then Harvey Kurtzman was even hired as a consultant and brainstormed a few ideas. So I got to meet Harvey a few times. Jon: What years roughly?

first reaction to the pages was dismay that the title panel took up over half the page and that there was no dialogue balloon in it. “Title panels should just use the top third. And you’ve got dinosaurs in the story. Kids don’t like dinosaurs!” (My friends and I had always reached for issues with dinosaurs first!) I wondered what he would think of the next two title pages he would see. Wally’s first episode, and my second one, both began with full-page scenes! Then he pointed out something I hadn’t thought of—that the ceiling lamps in the second panel would be out of perspective if attached to the slanting ceiling. For the first time in my experience in comics, I was receiving editorial comment that was right! Then, he brought out a page of art, for my comment, on another title they were working on. “Archie!” I said, not needing to make it a question. Tower was going to be the new publisher of Archie Andrews? He seemed disappointed. “It looks a little too much like Archie? I guess we’ll have to change the face a little!” It wasn’t just the face, the entire style was Archie, and suddenly, I began to understand! All of his views, of how a comic book should be, were based on Archie! (As I later learned Shorten had been the first editor of Archie, and Samm had probably spent most of his career at that company!) We were never going to be in tune on the production of adventure stories! Shorten, however, seemed to like what he saw, and wanted Wally and me to see him again, for an interesting offer…. The offer from Tower, at a time there was a move to give comic book writers and artists a slight degree of creative rights, was an extra $10 a page for art or a percentage of the title’s profits. Wally jumped at the increase for art, already planning his assembly-line of cheap help. “What publisher,” he asked cynically, as we discussed the choices at his studio, “has ever been honest? $10 in the hand is better than the few cents an issue the account books will probably end up showing. The ones we would be shown!” The decision, however, would not be of benefit to me, as I was soon asking Shorten if I could buy back the Sky-Boy work I had been paid for if I could provide a suitable replacement material in time for the first issue. Although page count is the primary factor to most comic book publishers, Shorten took some time to make a decision with Samm—and Wally after they contacted

Left: Pencil layout, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #12 cover. Art by Wallace Wood, based on design by Larry Ivie.

vertical line to see if the formula would work again with the word SILVER—Silver Agents. Again, the first five letters came instantly, but not the next. After a long pause, trying to think of an “R” word, I was suddenly writing over a dozen of them, but we began laughing so hard at some, I decided to leave that choice to Wally, who agreed to replace the word T.H.U.N.D.E.R. throughout to S.I.L.V.E.R.… or something! It was obvious, whether he realized it consciously, or not, that the more in the title he could feel was his, the happier he would be… which was okay with me, as long as I could get enough time to not have to rush the rest of my pages. Then Tower said that instead of putting out 32-page issues for 12¢, it was going to be 64 pages for 25¢. They would need twice as many pages… in the same time! Before even finishing the first, I began work on the second “Sky-Boy” episode, soon realizing the quality I wanted couldn’t be maintained with 20 instead of 10 pages an issue. Wally suggested bringing in other artists with additional characters. Envisioning a cover with so many characters none of them would seem important, I suggested adding a feature called “The S.I.L.V.E.R. Squad,” with a blandly-dressed unit containing so many members none of them would compete with the three major heroes. Wally’s eyes lit up. “A military unit!” he exclaimed with interest and I think he suggested a plot idea, but eventually the task of writing fell to me, along with the issue’s two-page text story, and I don’t think he got beyond a few sketches before turning the art, also, over to someone else. Eventually, even much of the work seeming to be by Wally was by others who could imitate his style as well as I could, with most of it being produced in his studio by under-paid students—using a projector to trace figures from past stories. His wife did lettering, and what resulted was often good, but not the format I had envisioned, with three dedicated creators each conceiving, writing, and drawing 10 pages an issue of a character that would be theirs alone. An additional big drain on time came with a request from Samm to see the first chapter nearing completion in pencil, before it was inked, to see how it was coming. The only one that far ahead was mine, so I took time out to take the first 10 pages (the last page not fully drawn) to the Tower office. Samm now had a small room on the left-hand side of the hall. His

Samm Schwartz Sam (Samm) Schwartz was born on Oct. 12, 1920, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He attended the Pratt School of Design, among other art schools. Though Sam (who also worked as a staffer in the Demby shop in the early 1940s), is best known as the pre-eminent artist on Archie Comics’ “Jughead” strips, his early work for MLJ includes the super-hero strip, “Black Jack.” Of his ’50s work on “Jughead” and “Reggie,” Paul Castiglia writes in Comic Book Marketplace #55 (Jan. ’98), “Looking at his work from this period, his comedic flair, graphic design and pacing are

Comics’ official comics editor (and resident Archie-type cartoonist) Samm Schwartz, conducted by Angel Marcana and William Bracero. Originally titled “We Face Tower!” the piece included a prologue and epilogue, which are included. Prologue: When we reached 185 Madison Avenue at noon on August 19th, we were almost dead on our feet. We had gotten on the wrong train, took the right train to the wrong station, walked dozens of blocks in the wrong direction, and finally gave up and took a taxi to the place! Oh, how we fans suffer for our cause! But it was worth it all! Our fatigue left us as we entered the office of Tower’s editor. True, the place was not the bridal suite, but it was our goal, and we had reached it. There was the usual conglomeration of paper, ink bottles, T-squares, drawing boards, bulletin boards, finished and unfinished strips and the smell of ink everywhere; but it all 86

Left: Panels from opening page, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #19. Art by Paul Reinman.

Paul drew a few features for the Tower Comics line, working on “Dynamo” and “Undersea Agent,” possibly over Wallace Wood layouts. (Paul had worked for Avon for a brief spell in 1948, where he quite possibly first met the young artist Wood.) Paul would move back to Marvel in the latter ’60s, doing uncredited production work and an occasional ink job. In the ’70s, the artist would show up from time to time drawing mystery stories, as well as fill-in strips for Hero for Hire and Ka-Zar. He also reportedly did some stories for Gold Key. I am uncertain of exactly when Paul passed away, but his last comics work was seen in the mid’70s.—Nicholas Caputo T-Agents work: ART: T-Agents #13, 19; Dynamo #3; NoMan #1.

flawless. Schwartz knew the value of page layout, and pushed the envelope perhaps more than any other Archie artist of his time, often experimenting with unusual or open panels and never being afraid to go beyond exaggeration for a laugh.” Starting in 1939, Samm stayed with Archie Comics for some 50 years (!), even taking into account a leave of three years to serve as editor of the shortlived Tower Comics line (between 1965-67). The artist also worked for Ace, Fiction House, and DC Comics. Samm, who died of cancer in 1997, was quoted in CBM as saying, “I may not be a wealthy man and leave a lot of riches behind, but at least I know I made a lot of children laugh.” The following interview was originally published in the fifth issue of Bombshell, a 1960s fanzine, and it features a talk with Tower

Don Martin was called “Mad’s Maddest artist.” Whether or not that’s true, I don’t know. Wally liked to smash his characters through a brick wall. He was such a fantastic artist, and it was pure luck that I was able to work with him. When I went over to Cracked, John Severin was another great artist I got to work with. I wish I could tell you more about T-Agents, but I was just an independent worker, so it’s difficult. Bob: In addition to T-Agents and Mad, what else have you done? Lou: I did a lot of writing in animation, including The Jackson 5ive. Michael Eisner, the head of ABC at that time, saw the group perform in Las Vegas, and he thought they would make a good TV series. Jack Davis, who is also a Mad artist, was hired to do the caricatures. I also did Candid Camera and several one-hour animated specials, one for King Features, which starred every King character there was, from Popeye to Prince Valiant. I also worked with Al Capp on Li’l Abner, which was fun. I did comedy bits for a stage show called “Freedom Jam” that toured schools and colleges during the Bicentennial. I had a radio show. I did a lot of men’s magazines and stuff like that. When I moved over to Cracked, readers said that “Cracked sucks and Mad kicks ass,” but gradually we got more and more letters that said, “Cracked rules!” which was fun. Bob: You also have a couple of books out there: Politically Mad, The Mad Tell-It-Like-It-Is Book, Mad Book of Horror Stories, Yecchy Creatures and Other Neat Stuff, Mad Book of Mysteries…. Lou: Yeah, I did six of those books, which were great. That was another thing at Mad: Those books were a great source of income, because we got a big up-front fee. Now that I’m freelancing, it’s not the same thing. It’s hard to even get someone to look at scripts, because they all want you to have an agent. I wanted to do a comic book, and sent a five- or six-page detective story to Image, and they e-mailed a reply that said it would make a great comic book and they kept sending me encouraging

Left: Splash page, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2. Art by Mike Sekowsky & Frank Giacoia.

head writer. It was fun doing Tower, but then they had a financial problem there so… I guess you could say this is inside information! [laughs] We were getting $10 a page, which was horrible, but we were doing something entirely different. Then Wally called up and said he was taking over completely. He said he just wanted, more or less, a very rough script, which he’s going to re-write and edit, and then the writer would only get half the money, $5 a page! I said, “No way!” Wally said, “Well, the other writers don’t object.” But I did. So I went to [Tower Comics editor] Samm Schwartz, and he said, “Well, go write Tippy Teen,” which was their other comic book title, which wasn’t any fun to write anyway. (I also actually wrote a “Little Archie” one time.) Bob: So what do you think of The T-Agents Archives? Lou: Oh, I think it’s beautiful, only now I wish I had used my name! [laughter] DC did a beautiful job. Most of what I wrote for Tower ended up in the first volume. I can say that almost every story starring Menthor and TSquad listed as by “writer unknown” is by me. Bob: Is there any other information about what was going on at the time? Lou: I only worked for Wally. I used to go up to his place and we’d kick around ideas. I never met any of the other writers or artists. With the exception of the Marvel bullpen, most writers and artists worked at home. We never saw each other. (That’s why the Mad trips were so great: As a group, we spent time together, going to different places.) I’d write a script, they’d hand it to an artist, and I didn’t see it until it was printed. Bob: The T-Agents have survived to this day because of the legacy of Wally Wood. Lou: To me, Wally was just a former Mad artist who was down on his luck, more or less, who created a lot of his own problems. He had a lot of demons in him, but when I worked with him, he wasn’t drinking anything stronger than Pepsi Cola. He’d just sit there at a drawing table, sipping Pepsi. I still don’t know why he left Mad, because he was one of the originators, but there was one story that he didn’t get along with the editor. The version that I heard was he was jealous that

Right: Pencil art by George Tuska.

Mike: Favorite characters? You drew a few “T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad” stories, did you enjoy the strip? Was Weed based on Woody? George: Didn’t really have a favorite character, they did remind me of The X-Men though. If Weed was based on Wally Wood, you’d have to ask the writer, as I really don’t know. Mike: Do you recall what your page rate was? How did it compare to Marvel and DC at the time? George: I think it was something like $20 a page, Marvel was less; I didn’t work for DC at that time so I don’t know what their rate was; probably higher. Mike: What did you think of the Tower material? George: Same as the Marvel stuff, super-hero stuff, you know. The Tower stuff had a James Bond kind of touch to it, though. Mike: Do you think the Tower comics were developed to capitalize on Marvel’s success? As far as you recall, was the Batman craze in full-swing when the books were coming out? George: At that time I really wasn’t fully into Marvel; that didn’t happen until the Buck Rogers strip was over. I remember when Batman was very popular, but I was just freelancing, doing pick-up work for places like Marvel and Tower at that time. It didn’t occur to me that the TV show had any effect on all of comics. Some said it was bad for comics. Mike: You’re renowned especially for your ’40s crime stories for Mike Gartland: How did you get the Tower gig, George? Crime Does Not Pay. Did you wish genres other than super-heroes were George Tuska: I was freelancing work at that time while popular during the ’60s and ’70s? working on the syndicated Buck Rogers strip, I really don’t remember George: I liked the action in super-hero books, but preferred doing who told me about it. the Crime Does Not Pay material. The stories were more thrilling to me Mike: Did you deal with editor Samm Schwartz at all? because they seemed more based on real life. I would’ve like to have George: His name rings a bell, but I don’t believe I ever met him. seen the Crime stories make it to the ’60s and ’70s, but those Mike: Do you know anything about the Tower Publishing background Kefauver hearings put an end to them in the ’50s, shame really. and why it decided to get into comics? Do you remember the types of Mike: Did you consider Wally Wood a tragic figure? paperbacks the company produced? Did you know of Harry Shorten? George: Tragic figure? I think that he felt he had to take his own Any anecdotes? life was a tragedy; he was a very talented man. George: I guess Tower was just jumping on the super-hero bandMike: Did you socialize with other comic book artists in the 1960s? wagon, along with the other publishing houses that devoted some of Where did you live in the ’60s and what was your family situation? their space to super-heroes at that same time. Harry Shorten I don’t George: Since I was freelancing, I didn’t really see many artists; know of, sorry. sometimes I’d run into someone at the office if I was bringing in or Mike: Did you visit Wally Wood’s studio with any frequency? taking out work. I lived on Long Island (in Hicksville) at the time with George: Believe it or not, I never knew Wally Wood nor visited my wife, two daughters, and son. I liked to golf and still do as often him. I knew Bob Wood when I worked at Lev Gleason, but I don’t as I can. I did golf with Stan Lee on several occasions. think they were related. Mike: What‘s the story behind your brief Marvel foray—drawing Mike: Who wrote the stories you drew? Did you write any stories? “Captain America,” for one—in the mid-’60s? Why didn’t you stay Were the scripts Marvel-style or fully written? longer? George: I don’t recall who wrote the stories, I may have George: The Buck Rogers strip was very time-consuming, and contributed some stuff, but without having the books to refer to, I you always had to be on top of it; it’s like that with many syndicated couldn’t tell you. I think the stories were full scripts; I only remember strips. You also had to get and pay for the letterer and inker. Also, working Marvel-method at Marvel. I liked Marvel method because it Marvel’s rates for a penciled and inked page didn’t give you enough allowed you more of a free reign to move the plot your own way. I’m incentive to stay, although I did prefer doing comic book stories to the really sorry, but without the books I couldn’t recall any anecdotes of syndicated stuff. interest; at the time it was just fill-in work, you understand. Mike: When and why did you return to Marvel? 101

“Let us consider just what an educated man knows of the past. First of all he has the realest of all knowledge—the knowledge of his own personal experiences, his memory. Uneducated people believe their memories absolutely, and most educated people believe them with a few reservations. Some of us take up a critical attitude even toward our own memories; we know that they not only sometimes drop things out, but that sometimes a sort of dreaming or a strong suggestion will put things in. But for all that, memory remains vivid and real as no other knowledge can be, and to have seen and heard and felt is to be nearest to absolute conviction.”—Herbert George Wells, Discovery of the Future

Left: Splash panel, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #15. Art by George Tuska.

This particular story is almost autobiographic, as many of the places, people, and events have been gleaned from personal memory. Forgive me, if I seem to ramble on just a bit. While attempting to sort several decades of nostalgic memories into words, it is disquieting to realize how quickly the years have flashed by. It seems like it was only yesterday, when, at the age of 12, I first discovered an artist named Ogden Whitney. To be more specific, the year was 1965. As it is with most discoveries, it came quite by accident. It was in the Spring and I was bed-ridden, suffering from a bout with the flu. As an act of love (or possibly to quiet my sniveling), my father brought me a couple new

Ogden Whitney Outside of the fact that, according to Who’s Who of American Comic Books, Ogden Whitney was born in 1918, little biographical information appears to be known about the legendary artist. The following essay by Ron Frantz, which first appeared in The Return of Skyman #1 [Sept. ’87] (published by Ron’s imprint, Ace Comics), is less about Ogden’s life and more on the journey of a fan looking for the man behind the art. The article was originally titled “Searching for Ogden Whitney,” and appears here courtesy of Ron (who also made some revisions). ©2005 Ron Frantz. 102

Bottom left: Plate detail from SQP’s The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Series Set One. Art by George Tuska.

George: The Buck Rogers strip finally was ended and Stan was always asking me to come back, so around 1967 I started doing some inking, then some fill-in stories, then Iron Man. Mike: When did you start working again for DC Comics? Did you primarily work for [DC editor] Murray Boltinoff? George: I got into DC through Carmine Infantino; one day Sol Brodsky told me that they didn’t have any work for me; so I took some of my Marvel samples to Carmine and he said “This is what we’re looking for.” So what happens? He puts me on romance stories! Ugh! [laughs] Later on I ran into Stan who asked why wasn’t I working for him anymore. So I go up to his office and explain that I was told I wasn’t needed around here; and John Verpoorten, who was sitting next to me in Stan’s office said “He’s right, Stan.” [laughs] So I was back at Marvel again. I worked with Carmine and Joe Orlando at DC, although I did know Boltinoff, also. He lived a short distance from me in Long Island and sometimes I would bring my work to his house rather than go into the city. Mike: Any memories of other Tower contributors? George: I remember Sekowsky from the Eisner-Iger days, but didn’t see him anymore after that. Reed Crandall was there, too, and I used to watch him draw along with Lou Fine; they were very good. Others like Esposito, Stone, and Adkins I know from their inking stories I drew the others I know only from conventions, while some I’ve never met. T-Agents work: T-Agents #1, 7, 8, 10, 13-17, 19; Dynamo #2, 3.

the android agent’s name was “NorMan,” so maybe my opinion isn’t all that reliable.) Other memories include being touched by NoMan’s dilemma and soliloquy in his solo story in #7 and bemused by Dynamo’s bravado in being shot from a cannon (Dynamo #1?). On the other hand, the all-powerful Menthor struck me as an obviously bad idea. He had to start losing his helmet regularly, starting with his second story, just to make for fair fights. Although there were good stories after #8, I thought the series jumped the shark there, after the Subterraneans were beaten.

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Left: Pencils intended as JC Comics’ T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents cover. Inked piece eventually adapted as centerspread pin-up in T-Agents #2. Art by Murphy Anderson.

me that Archie Comics was reviving their super-hero characters. I called (this being before they moved upstate) and was introduced to John Carbonaro soon after. Things moved quickly, so I ended up working on T-Agents instead. Working with John was very satisfying. There were a lot of laughs and hanging out with his associates and plotting stories on cocktail napkins. John was full of enthusiasm and wanted his books to be fun. Jon: On some credits, you’re listed as writer and others artist. Are you a double-threat? [Your imbecilic editor misread artist B.C. Boerner’s credit as being Charlie.—JBC] Charlie: Any art credit must be mistaken. I am a cartoonist, but have never had my art published by the mainstream. (You can see my cartooning in the Friends of Lulu anthologies, Storytime and Broad Appeal.) Jon: Can you give us an overview of Red Circle at the time? Charlie: Archie’s Red Circle line had three editorial directions in a period of something like one-and-a-half years: John C, Rich Buckler, and Robin Snyder, with each working their own approach. Any one of them was legitimate, but I think the constant shifting helped the line to fail. JC Comics was what it sounds like, just John, with me and a few other associates giving suggestions. Bonanno and Blyberg (and Ditko and I) were all freelancers, some in town, and others through the mail. Willie Blyberg was such a skilled inker, he was rarely hired for full art, as I think he would have liked, although Blue Ribbon Comics #12 shows his ability. Jon: Were you witness at all to the Carbonaro v. Singer controversy? Charlie: No, I was out of the picture by then but, having worked with John, I felt his claim was legitimate and was glad he was vindicated. Jon: John mentioned a T.H.U.M.P.E.R. Agents story, and also says that you are particularly good humor writer. Is that so? Charlie: Out of the blue, John suggested the idea S.P.I.D.E.R. was a less interesting batch of villains. From there, there of “Dynamo Duck.” I mulled it over and came up with a silly variation was less Wood art and the stories lost focus. on the origin story: If the Warlord had interrupted Prof. Jenning’s work Jon: What do you think of Wally Wood’s work? Did you ever earlier, the prototype devices would have still been in testing on lab meet Woody? animals. Parodying the format of Marvel’s What If? stories, it was Charlie: I never met Wood. His artwork was the first I could introduced by Archie’s janitor Svenson—the Vatcher (of vindows)— recognize. Not long after my introduction in T-Agents #2, I read a back “So what if the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents had been cute, cuddly animals?” issue of The Avengers, when Wood was inking Don Heck (#19 or soon The plan was to make the parodies a back-up feature in JC’s Hall of after). I recognized the machinery in the splash panel right away and Fame with #4. (Of course, there was no #4….) it was confirmed in the credit box. He is still one my favorite three Jon: What happened with JC Comics, and did you have further super-hero artists. contact with Carbonaro? Jon: How did you hear about the T-Agents revival? Charlie: JC Comics ended when Archie Comics cancelled it. Charlie: My friend George Lamboy, from Regal Entertainment, told Perhaps it would have done better in today’s environment, when print-

instead, but didn’t. But I always had an affinity for the characters; I always liked them. Wood’s art was always great. When I got a little bit older I started to buy them and was a fan from that point on. Jon: Did you know John Carbonaro? Lou: I started to work in this business around 1978 or ’79. I thought of bringing samples around to DC around 1975. The usual two or three years of redemption, and work on samples of this and that. Then I wound up meeting Jimmy Janes, who was working on black-&white Warren comics. So I was able to ghost some stuff and assist him a little bit in his studio. Later on, Rich Buckler worked in there, as did Denys Cowan and Mark Texeira. I met Pat Gabriele there and, through Pat, John Carbonaro. John and I hit it off, and John just had gotten the Louis Peter Manna was rights to the characters. He born on August 9, 1954, asked me if I would do the in Staten Island, New first b-&-w story, which was York, where he was raised The Raven. Mark Texeira and still resides. A selfinked that. From there I taught artist, Lou never started laying out some of had a lesson except for the other books for him, and one night class at the then Pat did some work, and School of Visual Arts. then Mark did some work. The artist spent five years Everybody pitched in, and submitting samples to then we put out that book, Marvel and DC before and it was successful. finally landing his first pro Jon: What was John like? assignment, House of Lou: John was very Mystery #305, characterpossessive of the characters. ized as a “great learning He knew them inside and experience.” Lou also out, and had tentative ideas assisted artist Jim Janes on about what he wanted to The Rook and Legion of do. He would bend a bit. Super-Heroes, and had When we started working on solo work appear in the comic book, he trusted Infinity, Inc., Young AllStars, Spider-Man, Rogue, Jaguar, The Phantom (a personal favorite), me to do a good job on a color comic, and I remember doing a lot of among others. He has also produced corporate art for Chase Bank and the plotting with him and [editor] Chris Adames. I think, at the time, Accenture. Lou is currently working for Layne Morgan Media on their we all banged around a plot. I know John had some specifics in mind. book line, and cites his 2000 independent series, Salem St. James, as I remember working on that first splash with NoMan. We seemed to a career highlight. He was interviewed by phone in June 2005. work pretty well together; we were fairly comfortable. Jon B. Cooke: When were you first exposed to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. In the beginning, we worked really well together, then he had Agents, Lou? some ideas he wanted to do, I had some ideas I wanted to do, and Lou Manna: I was a big comic book collector from when I was we would butt heads on certain things. But overall, I think we eight years old. I remember seeing those T-Agents comic books, picking respected each other and stayed friends. up a copy, seeing Wally Wood’s work, and saying, “25¢? That’s too I remember he and I sat down, and I was looking for a Wally expensive!” I couldn’t afford it at that time. When you’re a kid and Wood-type inker, and I had seen Willie Blyberg’s stuff in The Comics you have 25¢, you could buy two 12¢ comics. So I remember seeing Journal. I think he was just semi-pro at the time. I said, “Boy, this guy has a nice Wally Wood inking style. He’d be good.” John listened to them, thinking the art was great, and wishing I could buy those

Lou Manna

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Left: Partially inked splash page of unpublished Dynamo story. Art by Lou Manna (pencils) & James E. Lyle (inks).

his art but I guess saw something in my crestfallen face and gave them to me. Twenty+ years later I still have them. I have to admit that my marketing skills were weak at that time, and I was too trustful of people I helped in the beginning. I listened to people and grew a bit as an editor back then. Learning a good many things that hopefully will get this book back on track as a new series. My lumps/failings will help in the future. I met good people along the way as well as the bad ones. The Archie people were outstanding no matter how they differed with me on things. (Say, are you gonna print this? I’d better shut up!)

Right: Splash page from Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1. Art by Dave Cockrum.

novel was not in print anywhere in the world for a set period of time, rights returned to me. Later, I asked for it to be reprinted, they said no, and I got the rights back. Jon: Aardwolf Publishing eventually reprinted the complete series? Dave: Right. They finally published the “lost” fourth issue, the one that Lodestone didn’t publish. Jon: Do you feel that The Futurians suffered by being bounced between publishers and the lapse of time in between? Dave: Probably. I don’t know how well it sold for Lodestone, but I knew that they were having money problems from the get-go. Jon: Was there a connection in your mind that, at first, he was offering these excessive rates—as much as twice the going rate—just hemorrhaging cash, and that was the cause of subsequent difficulties? Dave: Probably. He said that he had a print broker backing him, that was where his money was coming from. He was having to wait for the proceeds of a given issue to come in before he could afford to print the next one. Jon: [laughs] So much for business acumen. Do you have any idea why The Futurians was published under the Lodestone imprint and not Deluxe Comics? Dave: He used whichever name he was using that month… one month he was Deluxe, the next Lodestone, and at one point, he considered using “D.C.,” but didn’t think he could get away with it. [laughter] Jon: Did you know Singer prior to doing business with him? Dave: No. It’s when he first approached me that I was introduced to him. Of course, I also did a couple of T-Agents stories in between The Futurians. Jon: So T-Agents and The Futurians were produced simultaneous. For that time frame, were you exclusive to Lodestone/Deluxe? Dave: Yes, but I really wasn’t fast enough to keep on doing all of that work in the time required… but I mostly got it done. Plus, in the one issue where we brought back Iron Maiden [WWTA #3], Singer

plotted it but I wound up scripting. I also wound up finishing George Pérez, because he was only able to do a few pages and I drew the rest of the story. Jon: Were you trying to emulate Pérez? Dave: I don’t know if I was or not. Jon: George told me you had little time to complete that job? Dave: Yeah. Jon: Was it fun to do T-Agents? Dave: Yes. These were characters that I loved. The splash page I did with NoMan walking down the street was a swipe of an issue of Captain Marvel I did (Marvel’s version). Jon: Was the first job for Singer that poster images of all the Agents? Dave: I think so. Jon: You had your old employer, Murphy Anderson, inking your pencils. Dave: Well, Murphy had inked be prior, on the first three “Legion” stories I did. (At least on the first one, editor Murray Boltinoff credited Murphy first, because he was afraid Murphy, being an old-timer, would be offended to be listed underneath a newcomer. But I was the penciler and Murphy was the inker. Jon: There’s a panel of Lightning reproduced from pencils…. Dave: David liked my pencils so much on that, he reproduced them directly. Jon: Would you like to return to the characters someday? Dave: Sure, yeah. I talked to John Carbonaro on this possibility by e-mail a couple of times, and he indicated that he wouldn’t mind if I contributed. This was back when DC was planning on doing an ongoing series. (I gather that whatever they were going to do wasn’t very good.) All of that fell through. Jon: In one story you did, there’s a character with glasses and big hair. Is that a caricature of Dave Singer? Dave: No, that’s supposed to be Singer’s accountant…. I didn’t know what that guy really looked like; I just drew what I thought an accountant would look like. [laughter] The title for the “next issue”

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Steve Englehart

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Left: Panel from Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1. Art by Dave Cockrum.

Steve: They asked. Jon: By most accounts, Singer was… ummm… a flamboyant character. What were your dealings with him and what’s your opinion of the man and his comics line? Steve: Singer was obviously not reliable, on any level. You always felt he had a hidden agenda... and that turned out to be so. But he was pleasant enough, as I recall. Jon: How were the rates at Deluxe and how’d they compare with the rest of the industry? Steve: I don’t remember. I imagine I got my usual rate for the time. That may be one reason he decided to write the second issue himself. Jon: How did you come to get the assignment for the T-Agents story (as opposed to Raven, Lightning, etc.)? Did you choose the team segment of the book? Steve: That was what Singer offered me. I have a rep for doing team books, so it seemed like a sensible idea. Jon: Obviously, in short order, you were no longer writing for the company. What happened? Steve: Dunno. Singer just called up and said he wanted to write the second one himself. Jon: John Workman mentioned that Singer had a compulsion to rewrite the material. Did that happen in your case? Steve: It didn’t happen on my first and only issue. Maybe that’s Stephen K. Englehart, was born on April 22, in Indianapolis, Indiana. why he wanted to write the second one himself. Raised in his native city and Louisville, Kentucky, he later earned a BA Jon: The second issue features your plotting. Did you read the in Psychology at Wesleyan University. Steve has written a zillion published version and make any impressions of Singer’s interpretation? comics, first coming to prominence in the comics field in the early Steve: I’m sure I did read it at the time, but I haven’t looked at it 1970s. Some of his most renowned work appeared in Captain since. I naturally thought I could have done a better job! America, The Avengers, Doctor Strange, Detective Comics, Coyote, Jon: As far as you could see, what were the respective strengths and Scorpio Rose, and recently a reteaming with artists Marshall Rogers weaknesses of Deluxe Comics? and Terry Austin to produce a Batman mini-series. He has also worked Steve: They had good characters and they had good people in film (Batman, Nightman, Team Atlantis: Milo’s Return), video games doing them. Without all the internal problems, Deluxe should have (Tron 2.0, Hard’s Tale, Spider-Man, etc.), children’s books (Countdown succeeded. But the problems were obviously their weakness. to Flight, The DNAgers, etc.), and has written the adult novel, The I only know what I think is common knowledge: They didn't Point Man. He currently lives and works in California. Steve was really own the characters. So the whole basis for doing the book… interviewed by e-mail in June 2005. for the talent, it turned out to be bogus, but I have to believe that for Jon B. Cooke: Were you familiar with T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents in Singer, he knew it was bogus. And if he knew, he was operating the 1960s? knowing that he might be brought down at any moment. That can't Steve Englehart: Yes. I liked the original series and went out lead to stability. of my way to collect it, since it was badly distributed. Jon: Any idea of what became of David Singer? Jon: How were you approached for Deluxe Comics’ T-Agents revival? Steve: None.

blurb at the end of WWTA #3 was mine, by the way: “Well, I Guess I Am That Kind of Boy…” [laughter] Jon: Whatever happened to David Singer? Dave: All I know is that he shut down the company and disappeared. I have heard people mention his name in recent years, so I guess he’s around somewhere, but I have no idea. Jon: So was the overall Deluxe/ Lodestone experience negative? Dave: Financially, it was stressful. I didn’t get all the money I was promised, and half the time I delivered work, if he gave me a check, it would bounce. I would have to go back in and demand cash. It finally got to the point where I would come in with a finished story, but I wouldn’t let him have it until he handed me cash. That part of it was not fun, though doing The Futurians and T-Agents was fun. [chuckles] Jon: Did this teach you a lesson to be wary of start-up publishers with grandiose plans thereafter? Dave: Yes, it made me very wary. I tend now to be reluctant to trust people too much unless I know them really well. T-Agents work: ART: WW T-Agents #1-3.

Jerry Ordway Jeremiah Ordway was born on November 27, 1957, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Jerry calls his graphic novel The Power of Shazam! and The Messenger, a creator-owned project done through Image Comics, among his favorite work. The artist currently lives in Easton, Connecticut, where he is working on a five-issue mini-series featuring the Alan Moore/Gene Ha characters from Top Ten, with writer Paul DeFilippo. Jon B. Cooke: Were you exposed to the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents in the ’60s, Jerry? Jerry Ordway: Yeah, back in the days of newsstands. Our major outlet, where we used to get most of our Marvels, was downtown in Milwaukee. I never saw T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents there, which I’m sure was why they probably didn’t survive. [laughs] But we did find the comic on spinner racks in drugstores. In those days, readers would have to go to multiple outlets, in search of titles that were not from the top publishers (like DC and Marvel). T-Agents were also 25¢ each, a big bite for a time when comics were 12¢. That was a lot to pony up to buy a book, but I thought the Wally Wood covers really stood out, so they were worth the extra dough. Jon: Were the Tower Comics discernably different? I assume you were also buying DC and Marvel at the time. Jerry: I didn’t start actively collecting until the Summer of ’67, and then I was only buying Marvels. But I do remember picking up an issue of T-Agents. The cover just jumped out at me. I’m sure that was the moment I began my Wally Jon: Was that your first memory of Wood’s work? Jerry: It’s really hard to pin it down. I just remember it stood out. I would say my first concrete “Wow! Wally Wood is terrific!” moment was when I picked up Captain Action, because I was a big fan of that toy. When I saw Wood had done the pencils and inks on the first issue, it was, “It’s my favorite artist drawing the adventures of my favorite toy!”

At that point I certainly went and sought out more of his work. Wood was a solid draftsman, but he always had that cool lighting effect—double-lighting and all that—and I was just amazed by his art. Jon: While I wouldn’t immediately say that you two have similar styles necessarily, there’s something about your work that reminds me of Wood. Was he an influence on you? Jerry: Oh, yes. After Captain Action #1, I started spotting his work everywhere, though I probably had been exposed earlier without even realizing it. Regarding Wood’s influence, my style is probably a couple of generations removed, and I was probably influenced by the artists who were influenced by him. Once I started really collecting Wood, I wound up following a thread back to him. Then I realized a thread from Wally Wood back to Hal Foster and Alex Raymond. So if there’s any real stylistic approach now, it probably comes from that Alex Raymond/ Hal Foster school, Woody’s roots. Jon: Did you ever meet Woody? Jerry: No, but I certainly picked up his fanzine, witzend, in the ’70s, but the closest I ever really got to Wood was having a casual friendship with [former Wood collaborator] Joe Orlando and others who had worked with Wood. I’d always hear Wood stories; Gil Kane had them, as did Mike Zeck, who worked as a Wood assistant, maybe the last one, when he moved up to Connecticut from Florida. Jon: Did you draw any T-Agents in your days before turning pro and in your early professional career? Jerry: I can’t remember doing anything, except that occasionally, back in the early ’80s, when I was doing convention sketches, I had requests for them. I think I did a couple of Dynamo shots. My first professional experience with the characters was when I did a Lightning pin-up for the unauthorized Wally Wood’s T-Agents that David Singer published back in the mid-’80s. Then I wound up doing a 15-page story for WWTA #5, at the end of its run. But nothing since until I did a centerspread pin-up in Comic Book Artist [vol. 1, #14]. That was the first actual fun time I had. [Jon laughs] Jon: How did David Singer contact you? Did you know him at all? Jerry: No. Singer was calling everybody who had any kind of profile in comics around that time. He really worked hard to get me to do a story. I’m probably stupid in this way, but I’ve never responded to people calling me up and offering to throw tons of money at me, which is what he did. I ultimately wound up doing it out of love for the original material. That’s what it comes down to. But it was a bittersweet experience, because part of me held out until I felt convinced that Singer did have rights to the material (which was debated in the fan press, at the time). I’m no lawyer, but since he had published

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Left: Pin-up detail. Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1. Art by Jerry Ordway.

what shook me up most of all. When I think back to the opportunities I had, the access I had to the best in the business… Wood, Toth, Ditko, Kubert, Kirby… and I blew it. Damn! T-Agents work: ART/PLOTTING: WW T-Agents #1-5.

background just because that orange sky they used—I drew it thinking of a night sky—was a little brighter than I had anticipated. [laughter] Jon: I saw on some index of your work that you’re listed as illustrator on a T-Agents role playing game. Do you recall that? George: If it had any of my artwork, it would have been pick-up art [reproduced from work specifically done for the comics]. Jon: You were quoted in Comics Interview #50 [1987], in your interview conducted by Andy Mangels, saying you weren’t very happy with the inking on your pages. In retrospect, do you still feel that way? George: Dave did a credible job and Dan Adkins had to follow my incredibly loose pencils and there was nothing that he added, so I don’t think we worked well together. He probably was told he was getting full-pencils from me, but they were just layouts, so they just ended up looking like inked layouts. And I don’t think that Bill Wray and I were a good match either. The T-Agents doesn’t stand out as a high water mark in my career. I did it for the money—and I can say that about a lot of work—because, as tempting as the money can be, I can’t take a job if it’s only about that. I need to be interested. Had I read T-Agents as a kid and then Dave came in with his offer, I probably would have done a better job. The fact that I was aware of them as a historical footnote, as opposed to me having read them when they came out, probably didn’t help my attempt to bring them to any kind of glory.

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Left: Pin-up, Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1. Art by Stan Drake.

Jon: Singer made an announcement about a Raven graphic novel by George Pérez? George: At that point, Dave was doing a lot of promoting, announcing stuff that wasn’t even in the germinal stage…. Jon: So he had not even discussed this with you? George: He would have probably just taken all my pages and called it a graphic novel, but if it was supposed to be an all-original graphic novel, he never talked to me about that. Jon: Do you recall another announcement, Tales of T.H.U.N.D.E.R.? George: I had heard about it but I just assumed he was going to reprint existing material, not anything new. It was during a time when a lot was announced before any commitments were made… and it got to the point where people weren’t getting paid. I think there was a lot of hope that, “Oh, let’s hope that the advance money [from the distributors] comes in, so we actually produce these books.” As opposed to having books ready. That’s my take. I saw my name attached to a lot of stuff that would make me say, ”Hey, nobody told me!” [laughter] Jon: Ahhh, hucksterism in comics! So there was nothing of yours left unpublished? George: No, everything I had done for Deluxe was printed. Jon: Y’know, it just seems odd to have George Pérez, one of the hottest fan-favorite artists at the time, not work on the team or on Dynamo, or even NoMan, but on a third-stringer like The Raven. Do you have any idea what Singer was thinking? George: I honestly don’t know. There were other artists who were going to be involved, who were much more interested in T-Agents than I, so it could have been a case of one of them wanting Dynamo. (I don’t know if anyone would have settled for Undersea Agent!) [laughter] Maybe it was just, “Give George ‘The Raven,’ because he doesn’t care one way or the other.” Jon: Hearing what a showman Dave was, it makes one wonder if he was holding back to build up anticipation for a big release for Wally Wood’s Dynamo #1… but, it begs the question, why not just come out with both guns blazing? George: And T-Agents probably should not have been an anthology book, given the popularity of team books at the time. Introduce them as a team and then split them up into individual titles… put Raven in as a back-up feature. It needed more of a team-book feel to it, to recapture what the cover implied. Who knows what Dave was thinking. Jon: Except for your misgivings about the inking, were you impressed with the books overall? There seemed a sense that they did recapture somewhat the quality of the Tower Comics. George: I was more impressed with everybody else’s work than I was with mine. Quite honestly, I thought that they did a better job because they had their heart in it more than I did. I think I did serviceable work, but I know the difference between that and inspired work. I did get some flattering and favorable comments about those issues, but they don’t have the same resonance personally for me. T-Agents work: ART: WW T-Agents #1-4.

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Bottom left: Text page illustration, The Futurians #2 (also published by Singer). Art by Dave Cockrum.

How he was going to get the artists to go with him, I’ve never figured out. Regardless, he pulled out and started causing trouble. My investors then backed out because they weren’t sure what was going on…. Dwight: There has been a fair amount of discussion about the new printing processes and paper for comics, some people not being entirely pleased with this development. What were your reasons for going this expensive format route? David: Well. I think I answered that in my "publishorial" in the very first issue of WWTA. For the benefit of all of your readers who didn’t see it, let me say this: I like to do things with style. I went to high school in a suit and tie. And I wore five different suits a week. When I was doing public relations, I’d wear a boutonniere to work every day. When I go to someone’s house, I always have a bottle of wine, a house gift, or pastry. It takes an effort to remember to do these things and it costs money, but I like to have style. Anything I do has to have style. I’m publishing comic books now. They’ll be stylish comic books. My goal is to do a comic that a 28-year-old Wall Street stockbroker can take home on the 6:15 back to Connecticut and proudly read that instead of The Wall Street Journal and have no one look at him and think he’s retarded. My covers all look like paintings. The paper is a quality stock. George Pérez is doing beautiful covers. Most of our books are colored by airbrushing! Even most Baxter books are not airbrushed. Airbrushing is really the upper, upper tier. Dwight: When T-Agents first came about, the United Nations had a completely different political make-up than it does now. What’s going to happen to the organization now? David: T-Agents are going to leave the U.N. We felt that from the beginning, we had to do that for a very basic reason. In the 1960s, Red China was not in the U.N. And T.H.U.N.D.E.R. often fought agents from Red China. Well, in 1973, President Nixon threw us a curve. And Red China soon became a part of the United Nations and comic books have never been the same. So there really is no competition for the U.N. now, in terms of being a spy network. Who the heck are they spying on? Dwight: I have a bunch of rhetorical answers for that. [laughter] David: In terms of the U.N. charter, that is. We don’t want to have aliens coming in and attacking the world every issue, or dinosaurs being fought or people coming up from the depths of the earth, because all of that is just not realistic. We’re trying to create a relatively realistic series about nine-to-five Joes who punch a clock. Our standing joke at the office is that the typical T-Agent works a nine-to-fiver, or whatever his shift is, and at three minutes to 5:00 P.M., he suddenly sees this dinosaur rumbling the street. He looks at his watch, looks at his timecard and says, “Joe will be on in a few minutes. Let him

Left: Panel from “Work… Work… Work… Work… Work,” Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #3. Art by Steve Ditko (pencils) & Greg Theakston (inks).

Dwight: Yet Tower was not able to make a go of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. David: Tower went under due to problems on the newsstand distribution scene, not because of sales. The characters went into limbo for many years. Then a gentleman by the name of John Carbonaro began publishing them in a black-&-white magazine, two four-color issues co-published with Archie Comics, and three reprint color issues of the original Tower stuff. John and I were friends at the time, we’re both from New York City, and John and I both knew that the characters were in the public domain because Tower neglected to put copyright, trademark or registration notices on their comics. John Carbonaro published T-Agents for a couple of years. He used mostly fan artists and new artists. The books, were not particularly well-received. Sales were low and Archie Comics decided to pull out of the partnership because they weren’t making any money an the deal. Carbonaro had no funding so his venture went into limbo. About six months later, after his last book had come out, I told him that I wanted to publish T-Agents. The world at large thought that he had exclusive rights to the characters because he had been putting copyrights and trademarks by JC Productions in his indicia. This he could do, but only in the sense of protecting his interpretations. The characters themselves were public domain. Dwight: What happened during that talk? David: Initially, I offered to “license” the characters from Carbonaro—actually, I first asked to buy the rights from him, but he didn’t want to sell. So I said, okay, even though I don’t have to, I’ll license them from you—that way you’re getting something from the characters and everyone will think I’ve got exclusive rights thus protecting my investment as well and it’ll make the whole venture a lot easier for me. We had an agreement. I went to work producing my comics. I originally was going to come out with the first issue in the Summer of 1984. But when John saw how successful I was, getting George Pérez, Keith Giffen, Steve Ditko, Dave Cockrum, and others to work for me, he suddenly decided to take back the “rights” and get those artists at the same time.

[Editor’s note: John Workman’s bio and interview on his work for John Carbonaro can be found in the preceding JC Comics section.] Jon B. Cooke: How did you start working with David Singer? John Workman: John Carbonaro and David had come up to the offices of Heavy Metal and we had a nice talk about T-Agents and what he planned. Then, somehow, John fell by the wayside and it was Dave who came back to me and said, “Would you like to work on T-Agents?” I recall that he was very happy because he had just gotten someone to invest $250,000 in his plans. I thought, “That’s a nice little start, but it’s not an amount of money that’s gonna last forever. You’ll need more than that.” I also remember a party that Dave put together, where he rented a hotel suite, and Steve Ditko was there, as well as others (whose names I can’t remember). I stood there with Ditko, and the two of us were alone in our pessimistic attitude about the possibilities of this whole Deluxe Comics thing. Everyone else was sure that they would put DC and Marvel out of business and really show the world how comics should be done. Now, I liked what they were doing, because they were taking these fun characters and being respectful to them. Of course, they were also using some great talent, including Dave Cockrum, George Pérez, Keith Giffen, Jerry Ordway, Steve Englehart, Dann Thomas, and Steve Ditko. Ditko and I had a nice conversation that night. I always got along well with Dave Singer—he even came out to my house and stayed over a few times—but I do recall one time when I disagreed with his ideas. He was a terrific guy, but we were, politically, total opposites, which is okay, but Dave wanted to bring politics into the comics that he created. These were the Reagan years, but I got the idea that if Bill Clinton had been in the White House at that time, Dave would have been a big Clinton supporter. I never got the impression that he had any real belief in either conservatism or liberalism; he would follow whichever way the wind was blowing. But I do remember us arguing about Franklin Roosevelt. Dave had this great dislike for FDR—”He destroyed the country!”—and all that. Roosevelt has always been one of my heroes. Dave did a book (not related to T-Agents) about an ultra-conservative secret agent character. The original title of the book was going to be

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Below bottom: Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #4 cover. Note the face of Iron Maiden was redrawn by John Workman. Art by George Pérez.

years of devoted fandom. But I do enjoy the “what if” story possibilities that super-powers or super-gadgetry allow with awesome exaggeration and wish fulfillment. NoMan is an interesting character, though I prefer Raven. Jon: Do you have anything to add about George Pérez? Dann: George is a comic-book genius and the ultimate pro who, despite crushing deadlines, has never submitted a mediocre page of art in his life. I have no specific anecdotes to relate, but he always impresses me as a larger than life person—a dynamo. Jon: Roy mentioned there was speculation that he co-wrote those stories with you, though told me he only did small suggestions and minor editing. How do you respond to such speculation? Dann: I am flattered by the suggestion because Roy is one of the best scripters in the field, but no, the writing in the “Raven” series is all mine… for good or ill. Roy’s help was primarily with balloon placement and in giving background and history of T-Agents. Jon: How do you look back at the Deluxe experience? Dann: My memories of the working on the series are nearly entirely positive. George gave me the Bahrain splash page and I’ve framed it and hung it in our entrance hall. I smile every time I look at it. I look forward to reading the book so as to learn more of the legal story. T-Agents work: SCRIPT: WW T-Agents #1, 2, 4.

John Workman

Left: Logo work by John Workman.

endless litigation didn’t drain away all his funds or his love for comics. Nor do I have any idea what his impact on the field may have been. Perhaps the brief realization of his dream inspired some other fan to try his hand at publishing… or discouraged another. I suspect most of the contributors will tell you that it was a fun and lucrative ride while it lasted. Jon: Do you have any affinity for super-heroes? Were there any other T-Agents characters you would have liked to tackle? Dann: My affinity for super-heroes is not as strong as those who became writers after

Right: Previously unpublished cover art for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. #2. Art by Jackson Guice.

that he’d write and I would draw. We’d produced a couple of things, but nothing really caught on. We’d been fans of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents since the Archie/JC revival of the series, and so had been watching the lawsuit between John Carbonaro and Deluxe Comics pretty closely in the comics press. One night, while Michael was loopy from using Nyquil cold medicine, he picked up a copy of Amazing Heroes Preview and read a couple of the joke entries they’d included. He couldn’t quite make out that they were jokes. Willy Wonka’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents stuck with him as he went to sleep, and the next day he had it all figured out: That entry was a joke, but our book wouldn’t be. The problem was, we were under the impression that T-Agents had been declared public domain, and that anyone could do a book based on the original series. So we put our proposal package together and sent it off to Will Shetterly at SteelDragon Press. Will liked what he saw, but had enough sense to suggest that we should change it to something similar, not unlike the Charlton heroes becoming Watchmen, or he’d have to pass on it entirely rather than risk a lawsuit. But we were pretty headstrong—I was 21 or 22 at the time—and didn’t like the idea of changing it at all. About that time Chuck Wojtkiewicz, who had been nice enough to try to get me work on several projects, went to work for Solson Publications. He suggested we run the book by Rich Buckler. I’d had a few dealings with Rich a few years earlier and thought maybe he’d remember me. So we did. Rich thought we had a winner, but also didn’t want to risk a lawsuit. Fortunately, he’d been editing the Red Circle line for Archie when John Carbonaro was doing T-Agents under their JC imprint. Rich still had John’s number, and the two of them worked out a licensing deal. Buckler got the rights for something like five years, I think. Jon: What was your experience dealing with Solson? James: I’d worked mainly for really small press companies up to that point. Escape to the Stars was published by Philip 149

1995: Penthouse Comix “T&A”gents Two fascinating—and frustrating—aspects of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents are that, for one thing, they never stayed in one place very long after the first revival back in 1981, and for another, each respective appearance bares virtually no resemblance to the last. Such is certainly the case for the one-shot appearance the characters made in Omni Comix #3, published by one of the leading men’s magazines of the day, Penthouse. Blanketed in top-flight production values, the appearance was the first in an intended three-part adventure, written by Omni’s flamboyant editor, the late George Caragonne (along with Tom Thornton), with art by penciler Paul Gulacy and inker Terry Austin. Caragonne had big plans for T-Agents, intending to publish a T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #0 (with multiple artists contributing, including a young Jordan Raskin, interviewed below, and a prologue by Paul Gulacy, featured in the pages that follow), and more. Alas, the story of George Caragonne is a tragic one (the editor/writer committed suicide in 1996), a tale that will be soon told in the pages of CBA, and no other T-Agents exploits from Penthouse were published, though innumerable material was prepared, begging the question, is there a T-Agents curse?

John Carbonaro

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Left: Panel detail. Art by Paul Gulacy (pencils) & Terry Austin (inks).

Jon B. Cooke: Who was George Caragonne and Constant Developments? John Carbonaro: At the near-end of the Apple Comics deal, and since they were obviously not going to meet the deadline, I asked [Apple publisher] Mike Catron to let his deal lapse two months ahead of time to allow a new guy in, George Caragonne, who was brought to me by my agent at the time. George pretty much was Constant Developments. Jon: One artist distinctly recalls receiving a check from, of all things, the publisher of Richie Rich, Harvey Comics, for a T-Agents job (though he did say that George brokered the deal). Was the license granted to George before Penthouse Comix came into existence? John: George had developed a great marketing plan during what was a booming time for comic book sales. He got Harvey Entertainment to back him just before they went public. Unfortunately, Harvey’s lawyers insisted that George had to pay back their investment before the books were even published, so he shopped around to other publishers. Chris Henderson, novelist and Batman writer, directed him to Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione. Bob told George that he was unwilling to do super-hero comics but did want to use George’s marketing plan for a proposed line of Penthouse comics, though that unwillingness obviously softened (and you can blame T-Agents indirectly for the Men’s Adventure stuff). Meanwhile, Harvey came back to George with a decent proposal and took over payments for TAgents material that had been assigned. But when they went public, Harvey made a mistake, threatening George by withholding checks due to artists unless he could get me to sign a multimedia deal with them. I told George that I was willing to negotiate

if the deal was right, but instead he asked me not to. His plan was, once they had deliberately missed making contractual payments, he could now tell them to void the contract by threatening to expose their deliberate breach to the new stockholders. So the material came to George and I with payments made to Harvey Entertainment. Okay, so Harvey leaves the picture and George is busy developing the Penthouse Comix line, and my funds once again became limited (and I realized I should’ve taken the Harvey deal, but oh well). Penthouse did make claims after George’s suicide that because he owed them money, they were going to deface all the art (even though, by contract, the rights to the material were mine) unless I stopped my deal with Rob Liefeld and allowed them to publish the stories. So my choice was to sue a guy—one with reputed gangster ties—who might indeed make good on his threat to destroy the art, or allow him to publish a T-Agents story. Guess what I chose? Yep, I chose to live. I let them do their book and took the fallout from Rob, who went and started his version without consulting me. Jon: What was to be included in the unpublished “Issue Zero”? John: A prologue by penciler Paul Gulacy and inker Terry Austin, then an “Andor” story by Paris Cullins (pencils) and Will Nyberg (inks). Also Dave Gibbons did the cover (which appeared as a pin-up in Omni Comix #3). Garry Leach drew one story, plus two pin-ups. Jordan Raskin also drew a three-pager starring Dynamo and Iron Maiden. Jon: I’m confused. Can you detail exactly the plans and chronology of this material? Was it initially supposed to be a comic-size production? Was there any plans for a T-Agents-only title? How much stuff was produced? John: George Caragonne, the actual editor/publisher/writer, intended for “Issue Zero” to precede the Omni Comix #3 story, as a regular comic. It introduced the characters and villains. The Omni story was originally intended as a stand-alone comic (though George did mention using the “Issue Zero” material in subsequent issues of Omni Comix before he killed himself. The intended chronology was: 1) “Issue Zero”; 2) The three Gulacy chapters (first two inked by Austin, final one by James E. Lyle); and 3) the Cullins/Nyberg fill-in completed at the time Paul was doing Batman vs. Predator. Jon: What happened with the whole Penthouse deal? John: George seemed to think he could handle whatever he was

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Animated? In a letter to CBA V.1, #15 (featuring LOCs commenting on the preceding “Tower Comics: Years of Thunder” issue), Dan DiDio, today Vice-President–Editorial of DC Comic, revealed a little known T-Agents fact: “In 1996, ABC Children’s Entertainment optioned T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents [from John Carbonaro] and commissioned Marv Wolfman and Craig Miller to develop the property as a Saturday morning children’s animated series.” Here we speak with Marv, along with a few more comments from Dan, on this fascinating, if ill-fated, project.

Dan DiDio

Marv Wolfman Marvin Arthur Wolfman was born on May 13, 1946, in Brooklyn, New York, and raised on Long Island. He attended the High School of Art & Design, Queens College. From early on, Marv was involved in comics fandom, producing fanzines and frequenting the offices of DC and Marvel in the ’60s. With best friend Len Wein, he broke into the field as a writer for DC’s anthology books. While Marv did serve as Marvel’s editor-in-chief for a spell in the ’70s, he is predominately known as a prolific, multiple awardwinning scripter for innumerable companies, best regarded as creator of Blade and writer of Tomb of Dracula, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and the ’80s revitalization of the Teen Titans. He has also had a fruitful parallel career in animation, and today lives in Tarzana, California, with his wife, Noel. This interview conducted by e-mail in June 2005. Jon B. Cooke: I assume you read T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents as a kid, Marv. What was your impression of the Tower books? Marv Wolfman: I loved T-Agents, my favorite being NoMan. I bought every one of the Tower books (except for Tippy Teen), and I

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Left Dynamo character presentation for animated show pitch. Art by Tom Grummett.

Dan DiDio is a native of Brooklyn and graduate of Brooklyn College. After an extensive career in television (where he worked for CBS and notably as ABC’s executive director for children’s programming, as well a senior vice-president of Mainframe Entertainment), in 2002, with no formal experience in the comics industry, Dan joined DC Comics as editorial vice-president, where he remains. Though an essential player in two “almost” T-Agents projects—a ’90s ABC cartoon show and DC’s aborted comic-book revival in ‘03—Dan declined to be interviewed for this tome (though he kindly shared the Tom Grummett artwork gracing these pages). However, in 2001, prior to joining DC, Dan did write an informative letter of comment to CBA regarding the Tower issue, excerpted here. Dan DiDio: In 1996, ABC Children’s Entertainment optioned T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and commissioned Marv Wolfman and Craig Miller to develop the property as a Saturday morning children’s series. The basic premise remained the same with one major change being that the team leader, NoMan, was controlled by the 13-yearold grandson of Dr. Dunn, Wally Crandall. The team, of course, was unaware that the young boy had assumed the role of his respected grandfather. Remember, this was for Saturday morning. Other changes included an African-American woman assuming the helmet of Menthor and a Native American woman as Raven. In this version, the winged Raven was the only member with natural powers. A full bible, pilot outline and some fine designs, by Tom Grummett, were prepared for the series. But

before they could get to script, Disney (the new owners of ABC) passed on the property in favor of projects they were developing in their own studio. It was one of my favorite projects and was developed to compete with cartoons like X-Men that were ruling the ratings at the time. But instead of a television series, we have just one more footnote in the troubled history of such a promising project.

that fell through. Well, Liefeld felt he had to do a different version since he couldn’t use the Gulacy stuff. Unfortunately, once again, a new publisher felt he had carté blanche to vandalize Wood’s T-Agents. (Come on! Wallace Wood was a sharp guy, one who is a cornerstone of the comics industry! Sure, start a new riff, but why throw away his initial concepts, the essence of the characters’ appeal? Ain’t that a no-brainer?) Rob put out that ad without checking with me. He said he received plots from Jim Valentino, and implied that I should just accept it (so I was told by Matt Hawkins at the time). Another problem was that he had just made a deal to do the Marvel “Heroes Reborn” stuff. I requested that T-Agents be released prior to the Fall debut of his Avengers and Captain America, as I figured I would be small potatoes compared to that re-launch. Extreme said fine, but later I was told that T-Agents were going to be part of an anthology book due at the end of December. Since Rob was tight with Marvel, he tried to have them sublicense T-Agents from him, but never told me nor did he reach an agreement with Marvel. I realized that this situation wasn’t going to work. Rob didn’t seem to want to work with anyone but to do whatever he wanted with other people’s characters. As you mentioned, Rob’s version made radical changes to the group. Later I learned that in the advertisement, that wasn’t a sevenfoot tall Dynamo, but rather his son standing on a step—wait a second! His son gets the belt?—and the buxom woman in the Lightning costume was the daughter of the original. Plus a female Menthor was going to be added… but didn’t I have a female Menthor in my books, the child of Undersea Agent? It was just a mess. Jon: Obviously, T-Agents have a convoluted history, among them having a number of false starts. Do you think there’s a curse that comes with the characters? John: I think the voodoo dolls I bought in New Orleans should take care of that! Seriously, it’s said that if you build a better mousetrap, people will beat a path to your door to buy it. I think, in my case, some people have instead tried to steal my “mousetrap.” To see the characters properly portrayed, I just have to find the right people.

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Left: Splash page of unpublished Dynamo story. Art by Jeff Zornow (who dedicated the work to Joe Orlando, one of his School of Visual Arts instructors.

even the books published by Dark Horse. [Editor’s note: John’s comments on Dark Horse’s unauthorized use of T-Agents in a 1987 issue of Boris the Bear is discussed in the section entitled “Some Blunders Over T.H.U.N.D.E.R.” in this book.] Jon: Comico? John: Well, I knew those guys, but never made any deal with them, but I did give some advice to one of their top creators: When I met Matt Wagner in the early ’80s—he was doing Grendel at the time—he mentioned wanting to do a book about the legend of King Arthur, but DC had just released Camelot 3000, so he was depressed. But I explained that Camelot 3000 was DC’s copyrighted version of a folk story, a centuries-old myth that was clearly in public domain. If his concept was substantially different, I said, then Matt could do his own copyrighted version. Years later, Matt came up at a convention and thanked me. He explained that Mage was his version of King Arthur. While I was grateful for his thanking me, to do Mage, Matt had stopped writing and drawing Grendel, which I enjoyed! (My only consolation was that I was able to purchase the first page of original art from the first “Grendel” story. But when Grendel became popular, I did a smart thing and returned that page to Matt, figuring that he wasn’t a struggling artist anymore and would like to have his very first page back… Hey, Matt, when are you going to do that “Dynamo” story you said you wanted to do? Sheesh!) Jon: Apple Comics? John: Well, Apple Comics tried to package T-Agents with a writer who wanted to change everything, thinking he had carté blanche and could do better than Wallace Wood. So that was a problem and there ended up being not enough time for them to fulfill their end of contract, and we parted ways amicably. Then George Caragonne started on what would later be known as the Omni Comix version. Jon: I've seen a Rob Liefeld-drawn T-Agents promo ad, featuring a top-heavy female Lightning. What was that all about? John: I think that ad appeared during “Babe Month” (Babewatch?) or something. We were in discussion about Extreme finally printing the unpublished Gulacy material that Penthouse was holding on to, but

Curse of the T-Agents?

As Robert J. Sodaro so aptly wrote in his article, “The Resplendent Sound of T.H.U.N.D.E.R.,” appearing in the 1999 Comics Value Annual, Wallace Wood’s team of costumed heroes has somehow endured, yet seems plagued by a bittersweet history. “In some respects, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents have lived a most charmed life, as they have risen Phoenix-like from the grave of cancellation more times and appeared under more corporate banners… than any group of super-heroes has any right to expect. However, on the other side of the coin, there seems to be some sort of black cloud constantly hovering over their collective head as they have never been able to make it past issue #20 in any of their many incarnations over the years.” Is some sinister curse haunting the characters? Surely even the appearance of this very book must, at least in some way, attest to the sheer fortitude of the T-Agents, if not their sustaining popularity. But evidence of their bad luck may lie, in part, in simple statistics. In considering the past four decades of the super-hero team’s existence, if you add up all the months in which at least one of their titles was released, just how many aggregate years have T-Agents comics been on the stands? (Give me a minute now; I’m hardly any good at math!) Well, by this writer’s estimation, taking into account the once-a-year frequency of the original run’s final two issues, as well as the twice-a-year appearance of Deluxe Comics’ six editions (plus generously throwing in 1987’s unauthorized sightings in Boris the Bear #11 and Thunder Bunny #11), it rounds out to a total of 44 months—less than fours years-worth of monthly comics! Even if the calculation is off a year or two, the notion that, for a cumulative 35 of the last 40 years, readers have not encountered a freshly printed T-Agents comic book is a depressing one. (Ironically, one of T-Agents’ longest runs since their debut series has been multi-volume reprint collections of those very same Tower titles, presented again in the guise of hardcover editions and published by DC Comics.) Taking another perspective, during the same month T-Agents #1 debuts—November 1965—Detective Comics #345 is released. On the 40th anniversary of those appearances—November 2005—Detective will be numbered around #809. That’s 464 issues published in those four ensuing decades. (Also keep in mind that Detective was, for a stint between ’73-75, published bi-monthly.) A liberal tallying of T-Agents comics puts the count at around 50 separate issues in the same timeframe, which (compared to Detective) accounts for a difference of 414 comics. While numbers don’t tell the whole story of their varied misfortune, in the last 10 years alone, we haven’t seen even one new T-Agents adventure published… though in 2003, DC Comics did have ramped up a monthly series with two issues ready to go to press. But, alas, The New T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was never apparently meant to be. (Still, yours truly is happy to boast that some previously unpublished (albeit short) stories, as well as a few pin-ups—all first intended for Penthouse Comix titles—are included, courtesy of Mr. Carbonaro, at the tail-end of this very tome!) Shifting now to review the actual content of said comics, we might venture the opinion that while their costumes and character potential are both top-flight, perhaps one major shortcoming of T-Agents is a lack of any respective story development, even across the varied incarnations. The original series do contain notable—and exploitable—story elements, including Menthor’s conflict to chose heroism or villainy, ending with his shocking death; the romantic relationship between Dynamo and his nemesis, Iron Maiden; Lightning’s literal racing towards his own premature death; the inherent ambivalence of NoMan’s self-image… “Am I android or human?”… never mind a bizarre ability to self-destruct and yet live over and again; as well as the possibilities raised by that 176

Left: Splash page detail, “A Slight Case of Combat Fatigue,” T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #16. Art by Dan Adkins & Wallace Wood.

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The Helter Skelter Ride of Wood’s Heroes

fascinating human-raised-bySubterraneans anti-hero, Andor. These are archetypes obviously rife with fertile story potential. With some glaring lapses, the artistry displayed in the infrequent incarnations of T-Agents has been exceptional, their exploits illustrated by some of the industry’s finest pen-&-ink men. But much of the material on the scripting end has been lackluster, sometimes downright bland. And characterizations? Often flat and boring, denying the heroes’ aforementioned potential. While the original series’ trademark infusion of humor now and again were often a welcome relief, Marvel’s Not Brand Echh #2’s T-Agents parody was spoton in contrasting Stan Lee’s easy-going, assured writing against Tower’s over-reliance on fight scenes in place of clever dialogue. And with rare exception (such as Keith Giffen and Tom & Mary Bierbaum’s lively “Lightning” serial in the Deluxe version; and Michael Sawyer’s delightfully innovative one-shot, T.H.U.N.D.E.R.), subsequent writing hasn’t improved much, and here’s hoping the next series will infuse the tales of Woody’s super-heroes with much-needed vitality and imagination. (Though just sad coincidence, there’s also the tragic, self-inflicted—and unrelated—deaths of Wallace Wood and Penthouse Comix editor George Caragonne, one the creator of T-Agents and the other a fervent promoter of same, who separately committed suicide, both in dramatic fashion: Woody by shooting himself in the head in 1981; Caragonne by jumping off of a New York City office building in ’95.) And then, kind reader, consider all the enthusiastic plans and grandiose schemes of those ambitious fan publishers (as well as a couple of established houses), so eager to see their beloved Dynamo and crew back in print, and willing to mortgage their grandmothers to do so. Think about it: How many one-shots and aborted revivals can you recall? (And not only comic books, people! There have also been ill-fated attempts to translate the characters into a role-playing game and an animated TV show, plus now there’s talk of —gulp—a major motion picture…!) Some critics throw blame for problems in the direction of T-Agents owner John Carbonaro. In his online column, Rich Johnston writes that there are two conflicting opinions about the guy. “[He is] described as both ‘dedicated and principled’ or ‘obsessed and overly-moral,’ depending on who you talk to.” Certain people who have negotiated with John about licensing

the characters have expressed frustration in what they see as an uncompromising position about suggestions to update T-Agents, while others admire his steadfast refusal to allow modern-day brutality or any amoral tone mar his “Thunderverse.” And there have been industry pros upset at John’s role as that rare licensor of a coveted property who retains a vested emotional interest in his T-Agents, wishing instead the man would just shut-up, keep his nose out of creative matters, and sign the damn contract already. But might it not be better for those who share John’s passion for the characters to wait even years ’til one day an appropriate series arrives, rather than settle now for some inappropriate, post-modern take? Isn’t a new T-Agents series, one fashioned by creators who understand the underlying appeal of the characters, and who develop an approach that not only makes the grade for the license-holder, but actually does justice to the original concepts… isn’t that all worth waiting for? Why isn’t that preferable rather than suffer new but probably bad versions every year or so, interpretations that might betray Woody’s standard of quality? Time can only tell if T-Agents will return to former glory. Carbonaro has licensed the characters yet again to a new, ambitious publisher, and plans for another version will undoubtedly be released soon. But the original characters have prove durable and resilient through periodic revivals, some good, some bad, and maybe it’s better, if only in recognition of the superb work that has come before, to view their endurance and perennial appeal as less a curse, and more a blessing, courtesy of the imagination of Mr. Wallace Allan Wood.

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Thunderbelt by James Kochalka.

Post-Modern T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents T-Agents & Iron Maiden by Dean Haspiel.

Dynamo & Jet Cat by Jay Stephens.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Villains by Jay Stephens.

NoMan by Derf. 181

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

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The heroes who never die! Though the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents had a relatively short life during their initial run in American comics during the 1960s, you just can’t keep a good team down as evidenced by their periodic revivals over the years, and this is the authorized - and definitive - book on the history of such memorable characters as Dynamo, No-Man, Lightning, Andor, the Iron Maiden, and all the other super-heroes and super-villains created by the late, great Wallace Wood and company! To celebrate the team’s 40th anniversary, included are interviews with Woody’s creative team, as well as those superb writers and artists involved in the various T-Agents resurrections over the decades, and a detailed examination of the origins and exploits of the characters themselves, including the shocking truth behind the first super-hero to ever be “killed,” Menthor, the master of mental force! This exclusive book, the perfect compendium to sit alongside of the recently-published T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents archive volumes, also features reams of artwork, much of it rarely-seen or previous unpublished, including a rare 28-page TAgents story drawn by Paul Gulacy, unpublished stories by Gulacy, Paris Cullins, and others, all behind a Jerry Ordway cover. (224-page trade paperback with color) $24.95 (Digital Edition) $9.95 http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=310

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