When last we saw T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, it was over at DC Comics with Nick Spencer at the helm, and it was a critically-acclaimed and bleakly compelling affair, if not particularly accessible. The New 52 showed up and put it out to pasture, and now the property has landed at IDW, where writer Phil Hester and artist Andrea di Vitto are attempting a revival, albeit with a much different tone.
The new T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 is much more straightforward than Spencer’s was, although it still drops us right in the middle of things, opening with a much more traditionally supervillainous Iron Maiden triumphantly holding the head of the artificial NoMan and claiming that the Thunder Agents are dead. Pull back, and we see a duplicate NoMan watching the situation from afar, with Agent Kane, Director of T.H.U.N.D.E.R., and an Agent Marshall, a target of NoMan’s disdain. It seems Kane had some serious secret end-of-the-world level business going on at Field Station 123 that Iron Maiden has fouled up at the behest of a mysterious employer named Warlord. The villains have also captured an agent named Lightning, which leaves the team to try and figure a way to stop whatever Warlord is planning and free their friend – and that includes dipping into Professor Jennings’ toybox of poorly-documented miracle devices that give people superpowers at a cost.
In the last series, that cost was a much more rapidly approaching death. Here, the “Thunderbelt” just looks to cause a lot of pain, and they need to find someone with a crazy threshold for it. Agent Marshall knows just the guy – washed out hockey player and current protection-racket goon Len Brown (named for the original creator of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents back in the 1960s at Tower Comics). Brown hates his life and what he’s done with it, but he’s just trying to keep on rockin’ in the free world, and that freedom seems in jeopardy when Marshall tracks him down. However, Brown jumps at the chance to avoid prison, rat out his scumbag boss and enter the big time world of whacked-out, government-sponsored superheroics. The Thunderbelt fits him fine, barely hurts him at all, and allows him to become Dynamo. However, he’s thrust into action without any training, and botching his first skydive and quite possibly falling to his death. Although not bloody likely, given we’ve spent the whole issue getting to know a character named for the creator of the book.
The intrigue is mild with Hester’s version of the concept, certainly in a much lesser quantity than Spencer’s series had it, but it’s there with Kane’s mystery project. NoMan is at least more present and less cryptic, at one point using the phrase “chromed butt cheeks.” The dark drama isn’t there either, as it has a much lighter tone that lets you breathe a bit easier than Spencer’s did. It’s possible it will be a bit more fun, but so far it doesn’t have all that much to differentiate it from standard fare. Di Vitto’s artwork is solid, bright and pleasantly standard as well, and while nothing is particularly exciting about it, it gets the job done.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 is a decent start, but it won’t blow anybody away. It doesn’t seem to be trying to – it’s likely a brightening response to Spencer’s dark take. It’ll be more of an ‘oh, hey, these guys. Neat.’ sort of response than anything.
