T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #4 – Review

By: Nick Spencer (writer), Wes Craig (artist), Hi-Fi (colorist), Sam Keith (feature artist), Jeromy Cox (feature colorist)

The Story: NoMan teaches us that living in a clone body can’t get in the way of friendship!

The Review: One of the things I really like about T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents—and there are many—is its point of view.  Most of the superhero titles on the stands are fairly clear-cut in who the good and bad guys are.  Even that darkest of knights, Batman, is obviously a force for good in the world, no matter what the urban legends say.  Very rarely do heroes have a moral quandary that’s truly unnavigable; in the end, they nearly always do the right thing.

About the only series that really mired itself in gray area was Gail Simone’s Secret Six, which almost took masochistic pleasure in confronting hard questions and having no answers.  Though completely different in tone and substance, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents is very much a spiritual successor to the Six.  Both feature a cast of characters thrust into unpleasant situations for which no easy solutions can be found, forcing them to take uncertain moral chances in their attempts to come out the other side in the black, however slightly.

The major difference, of course, is the Six made no pretensions about being heroes, though (very) occasionally motivated by principles of justice.  The Agents, on the other hand, sincerely believe what they do, they do for the greater good.  Ultimately, however, they owe their existence to a wrongful war, and we all know that nothing exactly equates to the greater good in such circumstances.  At best, the Agents can only hope for what all war victors hope for: that history will vindicate them in the end.

That’s what makes Henry Cosgei’s (a.k.a. Lightning)—spoiler alert—sacrifice so meaningful and yet so tragically pointless.  While the death of Dynamo seemed sudden and had little emotional weight, given how little we knew of him, Spencer actually invested a great deal of time in Cosgei’s background and reasons for joining the Agents.  When you reflect on the fact that he put his life on the line to restore his honor after a bit of athletic cheating, you really understand the measure of the man, but too late.  And what did he die for?  For the Agents to retrieve their irreplaceable weapons?  To strike a blow against an oppressed people?

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2 – Review

By: Nick Spencer (writer), Wes Craig & Jerry Ordway (artist), Hi-Fi & Chris Beckett (colorists)

The Story: All I’m saying is if Demo grows a tiny mustache on his upper lip, I’m outta here.

The Review: Spencer is an interesting beast of a writer.  From his work on Morning Glories and Supergirl, you know he can weave some of the more engrossing, layered plots this side of modern comics.  He can also go wholeheartedly for the silly and heartfelt, as we’ve seen in his tremendous Jimmy Olsen.  Both of those sides of his writing character seem to come together in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, which can be totally sophisticated with the most outlandish material.

And you don’t get much more outlandish than “underground green-skinned nomads, who hid from the surface population for the better part of a millennium.”  It’s these kinds of concepts that made the Silver Age such a wonderfully bizarre period, a perfect feeding ground for comics.  But Spencer not only works such concepts into his story as an homage to earlier times; he gives them fresh spins to make them feel not only up-to-date, but relevant.

Consider his portrayal of the Subterraneans, who retain most of their goony appearance, yet now have a very overt political bent to them.  It’s no coincidence that at a time when the stability of Middle Eastern nations is in flux due to uprisings both nobly and criminally motivated, Spencer chooses to write the Subterraneans as a downtrodden, fragmented people (whose attraction to the more “civilized” people is their natural resources) searching for a leader, any leader, to speak out and take charge of their many grievances.

You can’t really say Demo is the best man for the job, however.  With his talent for rhetoric (“I have heard your mothers’ wailing as their children are forced to work in the mines, filling up the coffers of our oppressors!”) and his clear derangement, he brings back echoes of the Third Reich and the French Revolution, an egomaniac who feeds upon the unhappiness of the people he claims to represents to feed his own ambitions.  So, yeah, not exactly the ideal man of the people.

Demo does, however, make an intriguing villain, possessing the necessary intellect to know exactly how to take advantage of the two Agents he already has at his disposal—and I do mean that in the most basic meaning of the word.  He also has one other thing to his advantage, one which may connect directly to the last big twist from the former T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents ongoing: Iron Maiden’s claim to Colleen that, “I know he’s still alive.”  “He” being the original Dynamo.

Demo #5 – Review

by Brian Wood (writer), Becky Cloonan (artist)

The Story: Lisbeth can travel through time.  She decides to travel backwards to visit her teenage self so that she can try and steer herself clear of living the empty and vapid life she’s found herself in the present.  While there, she also decides to take brutal revenge on her abusive father, but nothing is ever that simple.

What’s Good: I’m a sucker for time travel stories.  So, as I read this issue of Demo and realized that’s what this issue was, I was elated.  There’s just something about plots that concern damaged characters trying to change what made them who they are through the use of science fiction that gets me every time.  Wood’s tale of Lisbeth and the straight-forward approach with which he treats her gift are refreshing.  Most time travel stories are full of plot points and morals that teach you that you should never use time travel for personal gain and that, above all else, you can never, ever, change events in the past because of the cataclysmic effects such an action might have on the present.  In this issue of Demo however, the writer immediately throws such concerns to the wind.  Lisbeth is living a financially successful life due directly to her abusing her time traveling abilities.  When she travels backwards in time to visit her younger self, she physically touches the young Lisbeth (a common no-no in these types of stories) and is very candid about what she needs to do in the future.  Not only that, but she kills (or at least tries to) someone who I assume is meant to live longer, whether or not he deserved to.  It’s a nice change of pace to see a protagonist change things in such a personal, almost-selfish way and have everything still work out for the better in the end.  Moral lessons are great and all, but sometimes it’s nice to see that you really can get what you want when given the means, universal laws be damned.

Becky Cloonan’s artwork has always been perfect for the Demo series.  She’s an artistic chameleon who adapts to different types of stories as she sees fit while never losing her own stamp on her pencils.  Her design of the characters, especially of Lisbeth, feels perfectly appropriate.  Her visual representation of time travel, while a bit confusing initially, is wonderfully sparse and graceful.  The decision to contrast the falling Lisbeth with a blank slate, so to speak, also works nicely with the black and white artwork.