Last year at Comic-Con, DC announced that they had acquired the rights to the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, a covert team of international super-heroes operating under the authority of the United Nations. The characters were originally published in the late 1960s by Tower Comics, and have been revived several times over the last few decades.
Among the classic members of the team is Lightning: former Special Forces agent Guy Gilbert wears a suit that gives him super-speed…but every time he uses that speed, it ages him.
Today at The Source, DC announced that the new series will launch in November, featuring lead stories by writer Nick Spencer and artist CAFU and backup stories by a team still to be announced. The series will focus on a new team of recruits. Editor will Moss describes it this way:
The new series casts the team as a covert special ops force dealing with global threats the rest of the DCU don’t even know exist — all the while struggling with their own choices to become agents and the tortured pasts they’re running from. With character-first storytelling and threats exploding from real-world headlines, this relaunch of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS will offer something new, different, and daring for both today’s broader comics audience and fans of the original team.
How can they call today’s comics audience broader than that of the 60s through 80s?
I mean, they are honestly selling a tenth of the comics they used to back then. And the comics themselves are barely available outside of direct market or subscription, whereas they used to be available just about anywhere.
I don’t think that’s what he’s saying. I think he’s referring to the general comics audience in contrast to the narrow part of that audience that are fans of the original series.
I think it was just a little hyperbole to get excitement going.
Why do all of these revived characters have to be folded into the primary DCU? There’s already so much happening, adding more characters to the mix just waters them down and crowds them out. Giving them their own unique space would allow them to breathe a bit….but I suppose this gives them the option of bringing in Batman (or whoever) to goose sales when (not if) the numbers tank.
I don’t think the DCU need yet another super-speedster, especially one that doesn’t tie into Speed Force physics (which may end up being Lightning’s salvation, come to think of it…Barry “looping” him under his benevolent umbrella of speed power).
So that fans who only read books that are “important” to continuity might consider giving them a try.
I’m not sure how many of those kinds of people exist. In a DCU that already has a Checkmate, Suicide Squad, the Freedom Fighters, and the Crusaders, I don’t think yet another super-secret team of operators is going to make much of an impact.
Unencumbered from the continuity-heavy DCU might have given them a chance to build their own unique world…but I supposed alternate realities are off limits until Grant Morrison’s (as yet unnamed) Multiverse project comes and goes.
Let me put it another way, then. From what I’ve seen online, and what I’ve gathered from sales figures, most superhero comics fans today don’t seem to be interested in a book that isn’t at least somewhat familiar, whether that’s a character that they already know, or a setting that they already know — like the DCU.
They want Batman (or Wolverine, or Deadpool) to be able to show up, even if he doesn’t. They want the book to be able to tie into the next big event (though they’ll complain when it does, or when it doesn’t).
Give a new team its own separate universe but a DC label, and I guarantee it’ll be pulling indie-level numbers. That’s fine for an indie publisher, or for WildStorm (which actually might have made more sense), but it would be a failure at DC. On the other hand, if you set the book in the DCU, there’s at least a chance for it to be a third-tier team book. Not a sure thing, of course — witness Magog, Great Ten, and all the Final Crisis Aftermath books — but a chance.