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Review: T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1

By | November 13th, 2010
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Written by: Nick Spencer
Illustrated by: CAFU

Would you rather burn out or fade away? That’s the question at the heart of this bold new series about a group of people who, for one reason or another, are at their wits’ end until they’re offered a chance to become superheroes. The catch? Their powers will kill them.

Writer Nick Spencer (Morning Glories) and artist CAFU (WAR OF THE SUPERMEN) present a fresh take on the classic comics property, starring a new batch of recruits brought in to take over the original agents’ mantles and make some difficult choices of their own — all while dealing with global threats the rest of the DCU doesn’t even know exist!

Nick Spencer has had the Midas touch lately, as every book he’s touched has turned to gold. Not only that, but he’s getting a ton of new work thanks to the hot streak. This week, DC launched T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, a new book from Spencer and artist Cafu that found the two of them reimagining the old DC characters. Did Spencer’s streak stay alive?

Find out after the jump.

When launching a new book – a completely new one, not a continuation of a story featuring characters everyone is familiar with – there are a few things you have to do to ensure that readers come back for the second issue.

First, you need to quickly invest readers into the characters. Without characters a reader can care about, the plotting, concept, and everything else is more difficult to invest in.

Second, you need to create a world and concept for these characters to exist in that readers would be drawn into. That may seem a little bit backwards, but personally, I get sucked into books with dynamic characters before high concept delights.

Lastly, you have to have some nice art. Comics are a visual medium. If it looks sloppy, they won’t want to come back.

With that idea in mind, I have to say congratulations to Nick Spencer and CAFU. Everyone who picked this book up will be coming up because you completely nailed all three core competencies.

Let’s start with the art. CAFU (does that stand for something?) brings to the table a style that looks like a unique blend of Gary Frank and John Cassaday, except without feeling like he’s overtly aping them. The elements are there, but mostly in the fact that there is both a superficial quality and a just stunning storytelling eye. For me, when I’m reading a comic, I’d rather have the book make sense from both a scene design and overall story standpoint visually than it be pretty (we call that the “Greg Land Corollary” around these parts). CAFU does this with exceptional skill, and it’s just an incredibly enjoyable read from a visual standpoint with big moments (Raven and Lyle soaring above) and small (when Colleen is first asked about Toby) all passing the sniff test.

The first two options are also well done, with Nick Spencer doing what he’s been doing for a while now: making comic book gold.

I found myself quickly invested in the leads, Colleen and Toby. They both, even in just the first scene, fell like three dimensional characters that exist in a real world Spencer has developed for us. Toby in particular reads rather true, as he’s a clever man with a real presence. Spencer writes him as fearless with a real sense of humor as well, and the scene where he’s being brought up to speed about the enormous failures is maybe the highlight of the whole issue (“Jesus, either these guys are great, or we really, really suck.” – a line that is elevated by the face given to Toby by CAFU).

These two characters exist in a world in which the world’s greatest initiative against crime may be (and always has been) a few steps behind its greatest criminal outfit. Considering the book features the death of the remaining T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (Spencer cleverly closes the book on the old characters here) in a rout of them by their opposite number “Spider,” it’s an atypical position to start a book in, but that atypical nature makes it all the more exciting (as does the last page reveal by Colleen).

Continued below

Conceptually, I also love the idea of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents – people who are circling the drain, given one last opportunity to do something great, even if it kills them (and it will). While I’d love to see an explanation of the statistics the home base agents were saying while the field agents were out on their mission, I found myself incredibly enamored with figuring out exactly what they were saying. Also, doesn’t it just make sense that if man became superman, that eventually it would kill them? I know Spencer didn’t create this concept, but his execution is just so phenomenal.

This is a book that it’s hard to say anything bad about. In fact, I’d go to an extreme. This is already one of the best books DC makes. After one issue. Nick Spencer and CAFU have created a book in which every aspect runs in lockstep to create an incredible whole. If you didn’t pick up the first issue of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, you need to head back to your local comic book store ASAP before it’s sold out.

Final Verdict: 9.4 – Buy


David Harper

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