T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #3 Review, by Marc Alan Fishman – Snarky Synopses #1

January 14, 2011 Marc Fishman 12 Comments

Last night I had dinner with Anne Toole a very talented writer. In the midst of our conversation I hit Anne in the eye. It was an accident, (I talk with my hands) I’m SURE it was an accident but now that I think of it  she had just given me a -‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’- look whenI told her my favorite movie was ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding.’

Anyhow, I’m to upset to write my regular column so I’m taking this time to introduce our new comics reviewer, Marc Fishman. Felix reviews everything but Marc will keep his pimp hand strong in comics.

Anne, that was NOT my pimp hand that hit you in the eye. It was an accident and again I’m sorry.

But perhaps NOW you will give  ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ another look…

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #3 Review, by Marc Alan Fishman – Snarky Synopses #1

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #3
Written by Nick Spencer
Art by Cafu and Howard Chaykin

Hello all, and welcome to the first Snarky Synopses! I am your host, Marc Alan Fishman… and I’m here to shine a snark-hued light on comic books, graphic novels, and the like. What color is snark you ask? 35% Cyan, 42% Magenta, 7% Yellow, and 2% Black. There’s a joke there… somewhere. This week, I’ve chosen to review the third installment of DC Comic’s recent new golden age revival book, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. And while I wanted to kick off my first review here on MDW full of venom, piss and vinegar… I can’t. I really enjoyed this book, and the two issues before it. But maybe…Maybe if we dive into the ‘why’ I have such fluffy happy things to say about this book… we’ll find a little vinegar in the crevices. Hopefully no piss though. That’d be hard to clean up.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, for those of you not in-the-know, is a superhero romp that’s been around since 1965. I’ll spare you the wikipedia entry
though… here’s the skinny: In the modern DCU (or perhaps an else-worlds, multiverse Earth-43.7, they haven’t quite said.) the United Nations keeps a super-powered black ops team in their back pocket to deal with problems that your standard heroes wouldn’t touch. The real hook here though is in the Agents themselves. Rather than be a collection of well established public faces, the UN employs and augments normal people. The catch? You get super powers… you get to save the world from eminent danger… and in one year’s time… you bite the dust! Suffice to say, it’s an interesting premise. Interesting enough for me to hop on board 3 months ago with the first issue. Now three issues in, I’m certainly down for the rest of this run, however long that is.

Issue 3 picks up the threads that issues 1 and 2 have started to sew. Nick Spencer’s script is divided between the present day ‘mission’, where the Agents are told to rescue a captured teammate, and flashbacks of each member’s recruitment into the current program. Issue 3 catches up with the only member of the Agents of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. to have survived all other incarnations of the team. The mysterious, immortal, and rather Doctor Manhattan-esque ‘NoMan’ is our central character this time around. We learn over the course of the issue that NoMan is a former scientist, who figured out a way to transfer his brain into a superhuman cloned body. He also owns a cape that grants him invisibly. Admittedly, this odd mash-up of Harry Potter and Dr. Manhattan reeks of the Golden Age (powers chosen at random! Blue skin, orange shirt, big cape!) but artist Cafu is able to add a real pathos to this otherwise ancient hero. A quick aside here, the art in this series is top notch. Characters are drawn with real emotion. The figure work is well rendered, without a homoerotic level of musculature that generally accompanies traditional superhero books. And the inks and colors only add to a slick final product that is not only easy to read, but has a very cinematic quality to it. The story is presented methodically, but I won’t give away everything here, mind you. Suffice to say, thanks largely in part to Spencer’s inclusion of lengthy flashbacks (this month’s installment is drawn by the legendary Howard Chaykin), the issue packs plenty of story in it’s 20 pages.

Ahhh… and there it is my friends. I can feel it in the back of my throat… It’s a little snarky aside I’d like to place before you. This little rant is called ‘Drawing the Line at 2.99!’.

DC Comics decided to forgo it’s 40 page 3.99 book (generally combining a 22 page main story, and an 8 page co-feature) to a newly formatted 32 book for a dollar less. The new book only contains 20 pages of content though… the rest will be ads, letters, and sneak-peaks of other books. Across the board this month, I’ve felt the 2 pages gone. A few months back, I was elated to break bread with MDW’s Mike Gold. He mentioned between bites of brisket the idea of ‘dense stories’… and how the current trend in comics, thanks largely in part to the high sales of Brian Michael Bendis, J. Michael Straczynski, and their ilk, is to deconstruct a story to the point of near parody. Take for example, another book in my pull list this month, DC’s “Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors”. In 20 pages, there’s literally 2 scenes. TWO. I think someone threw a punch. There were 3 or 4 constructs too. I think they showed Arisia’s boobs. Suffice to say, DC is drawing the line at 2.99, and it doesn’t surprise me that comic sales continue to plummet. Where a comic book used to represent a serialized, multi-part story, that jammed enough plot in 24 pages to keep a kids mind active for a month until the next issue hit the spinner rack… now I finish my entire pull list in 1 long dump on the toilet, and even if I’ve read 4 books, I still feel like I’ve only watched to the first commercial of a sitcom. At least with T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #3 I left the bathroom with a smile on my face.

Marc Alan Fishman is a digital artist, writer, and co-founder of Unshaven Comics. When Marc isn’t knee-deep in graphic design, he’s also a frequent contributor to ComicMix.com, an occasional stand-up comedian, as well as freelancer extraordinaire.