DC has posted artist CAFU’s designs for the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents relaunch coming in November, including the team’s speedster, Lightning.
Lightning’s past is one readers of the sports page will be familiar with. It’s one of failure, self-doubt and, ultimately, redemption – if he can manage to outrace death long enough, that is.
CAFU came up with a number of designs for Lightning’s suit, but we ultimately settled on this one as it seemed both the most stylish and the most practical. Zipping around that fast, you’re going to need some protection!
As described in previous articles, the premise is that the suits that give the agents their super-powers will also kill them within a year. The agency recruits covert operatives willing to trade their lives for one last shot at redemption.
The article at The Source has four designs, including Dynamo, NoMan, and Menthor in addition to Lightning.
Also worth a look: Newsarama’s article on the history of the team, back to their 1965 debut at Tower Comics.
From this moment on, I demand that everyone spell my name in all upper-case letters, like CAFU. Seriously, how does one go about arranging that? Do you need a permit?
Seriously, as admirable as the THUNDER upgrade is, I don’t see it get any traction whatsoever in the mainstream DCU. It’s a somewhat cool concept, but set against all of the other covert, black-ops style teams within the DCU, which themselves are eclipsed by the blizzard of standard superhero teams, I don’t give the book longer than a year.
Still…it would be fun to see Barry interact with Lightning in some capacity…perhaps in an effort to save him from his suit killing him.
To answer you for your first no and yes to the permit. This may not last half a year what with The Shield and The Web only getting 10 issues, and The new batman and superboy series.
I would rather he interact with Max Mercury in an effort to save him. That would be a nice little nod, although Barry would probably be better for sales as a tie-in. Maybe they could both team up to help or something.
Loving the new designs for these characters especially, Lightning. Also liking the fact that he is an African American speedster. I just wish it weren’t another character randomly rebooted into being black instead of an original character.
The only reason I picked up Supreme Power initially was because of The Blur, an African American speedster (who also is an alternate version of The Whizzer from Squadron Supreme which the series was based off of) and that ended up being one of the best series I’d read in a long time. So I’m definitely willing and on board to give this a shot.
I like the UN/political premise of THUNDER Agents, but I agree I can’t see this lasting any better than DC’s other licensed properties. I guess Captain Marvel and Blue Beetle are also licensed properties, but in that case DC — rather than start these titles independent like Shield and THUNDER Agents — needs to begin with these characters as important supporting characters somewhere like Justice League.
Second the Flash/Lightning meeting; that’ll give this some relevance, and also I think DC owes it to the readers, with the new Flash launch, to explain where Lightning fits in with the Speed Force.
As I’ve said before, I think today’s audience looks at that DC logo and expects some sort of connection to the DC Universe…and if they don’t find it, chances are they’ll be even less inclined to pick it up. (I suspect this is a big part of the reason that Batman is in the First Wave universe along with Doc Savage and the Spirit.)
Now it may well be that THUNDER Agents would do better as a completely stand-alone book at Dynamite or Image (or even DC’s own WildStorm imprint) than as a DCU import, but I think once they decided to put that DC logo on it — which was probably a decision for the sake of visibility — their best bet was to fold them into the universe that readers expect to see.