The THUNDER that Fizzled

I acquired the complete 5-issue set of "Wally Wood's THUNDER Agents" published by "Deluxe Comics" back in 1984.  I had one issue of this series back in the day, but I'll be damned if I can remember which one. All I DID recall was that I was impressed by the grim nature of the "Lightning" feature. The whole "suit gives you super speed but ages you really quickly, too" thing seemed to have originated here, as far as I can tell.

The reason that this is a "complete" set of what was intended to be just one of several ongoing series from the publisher has a lot to do with the fact that publisher, Dave Singer, was mistaken about the "Public Domain" status of the THUNDER Agents characters.

Specifically, he was mistaken that were in the Public Domain at all. The person who did own the rights to the characters took legal issue with Singer's usage, and Singer did not win that argument.

So, there went the flagship title in Singer's rather expensive new business venture. This, combined with a ton of unpaid invoices from various distributors spelled the very early demise of this could-have-been-great little outfit.

And it had to a pretty pricey proceeding, indeed. "Deluxe" wasn't just the name of the company, but it seemed to stand for Singer's standards for his company and its product.

To this day, the paper stock for these issues feels great, which seems to have allowed for better coloring techniques than many of their contemporary competitors offerings. Each issue is pretty thick, too, easily qualifying for a "double-sized special" cover blurb were they published by Marvel or DC at the time.

Sure, Deluxe charged for all of that, with a $2.00 cover price, but it was hard to argue that the books weren't worth the asking price. 

Because beyond the high quality of the packaging, there was the quality of the TALENT that had been hired to fill those pages with content.

George Perez (on interiors, not just covers), Dave Cockrum, Steve Ditko, John Workman, Jerry Ordway. Keith Giffen,  Steve Englehart, and others make up the creative lineups, and not one of them could have come cheaply, even back in the early 80s.

Speaking of "back in the early 80s," it appears that George Perez's penchant for working his belly-dancing wife into the pages of his work goes back at least this far, as her actual stage name of "Phoenicia" (as well as her supposed likeness) is given to one of the brand-new characters that joins the THUNDER roster.

I won't get into too much detail, but suffice to say, that for the most part, all of this expense seemed justified. Mostly. Until the final issue.

I don't know if Singer knew that things were coming to an end, but the final issue of this series finishes off with two of the more uninspired stories of not just this series, but of about any comic book stories I've ever read. Combined with trying to force a "crossover" with one of Deluxe's other series, what started off with a bang really ends with a whimper.

It's a shame, because what came before was seriously A-game, highly engaging stuff. I must admit that Keith Giffen's "Lightning" feature was the flat tire of the first 4 issues for me: the story felt padded, even with its limited page count, and the art was created at what I consider to be the worst of Giffen's "I really want to rip off Jose Munoz's style" phase.  I honestly think the series would be better off without this feature.

Overall, though, I'm left pretty sad that this company's wings were clipped so quickly. I feel like the subpar efforts in issue 5 were either a fluke or a direct result of Singer's mounting legal and financial woes. If those factors could have been alleviated, I think we could have had one truly cool indie comics legacy to look back on at this point in time.