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the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS
This one is interesting on several levels, actually.
The long-defunct "Tower Comics" company was a mid- to late-60's attempt
to put out a line of comics product able to compete -- both artistically
and economically -- with the more entrenched and established "Big
Two" of DC Comics, Inc. (then still "National Periodical Publications")
and the Marvel Comics Group.
Said company boasted, among its chiefest creative dynamos: veteran sci-fi
comics artistic legend Wally Wood [see covers, at the top of this
page and accompanying, for a sampling of his work], who created nearly
the entire line of published characters; master comics anatomist Gil
Kane; longtime JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA veteran
Mike Sekowsky; and the iconoclastic Ogden Whitney, of HERBIE
fame, among other notables. So: even before the first issue of their
initial title had made it to the stands, nation-wide... they were
in pretty durned reasonable shape, creatively-speaking. 
Character-wise, Tower sought to establish its "beachhead" within
the comics market of the day with a collective of heroes known as "the
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents." (The acronym, by the by, standing
for: "The Higher United Nations Defense
Enforcement Reserves." So: now you know.)
There were five principal "agents" within the bulk of the published canon: Dynamo; NoMan; Lightning; Menthor; and Raven. The first two in that listing were the company's "standard bearers," by and large, however; thus, we'll focus primarily upon them.
"Dynamo" was -- in actuality -- a rather incongruously meek-ish paper-pusher, somewhere deep within the lower echelons of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R machine, by the name of "Leonard Brown." One fateful day, he was summoned, post haste, to appear before the organization's shadowy "Inner Council," and flat-out ordered to become a "special agent."
As one of the council members so adroitly phrased it: "Because of your physical stamina, you've been selcted to use the Thunderbelt! It will change your body's atomic structure! Put it on!"
As this was (from all indications) well before the era of certain much- needed OSHA "workplace harassment" regulations, Lenny kept his chin from quivering long enough to do precisely that, and -- before you could even say: "... it'll change my body's what...?!?" -- was, quick-like- a-bunny, transformed into the almost obscenely powerful Dynamo [see picture, above].
Dynamo quickly found himself on the receiving end of the (somewhat)
unwanted attentions of the fetishistic "Iron Maiden [see pictures, below]:
an international terrorist who -- from every indication -- had her body
armor painted onto her.
Think of the classic "Batman/Catwoman" relationship, here -- i.e., "Kiss me! I want to kill you!" -- and you won't be too far off.
While Momma Brown's Boy, Lenny, was the putative "star" of the Tower Comics firmament... the most fascinating of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, in all actuality, was the one playing "Spock" to his (semi-)reluctant "Kirk": the immortal android known simply as "NoMan."
Scope this for cool: you have this slightly wild-eyed Mad Scientist-type -- "Doctor Dunn," to his friends in the White Lab Coat community -- who is wasting away, from a disease (unspecified) which smites and withers slowly, slowly. "Publish or perish," as it were... except that, see, he ain't never gonna get the chance to try his hand at the former, no mo', no mo'.
Fortunately, the Doc has planned ahead for just such an eventuality: he just happens to be sitting on his greatest invention yet (figuratively speaking, I mean): an entire corps of identical, blue-skinned androids with (as he refers to them, with pardonable paternal pride) "blank brains." Right before kicking the bunsen burner, he transfers his "entire mental makeup to electronic impulses... and into the brains of the androids." [See pictures, above.]
Now immortal, for all practical intents and purposes (he can transfer
his consciousness instantaneously, you see, from one body to the
next... so, if [say] the body he's currently galavanting about in is suddenly
riddled with bullet holes; or pulped beneath an unexpected rockslide;
or what-have-you... why, he just "wills" himself into a brand new body,
miles away. That is just so danged cool...!), Doctor Dunn
-- now re-christened "NoMan" -- is the one T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent who never,
ever needs a "back-up" while operating out in the field.
I'm only sayin', is all.
Slightly less interesting was the team's generic super-speedster, "Lightning" [see pictures, below]: an amiable enough sort, who gained his accelerative abilities by dint of a special costume.
(Interestingly enough: an all-too-brief "revival" of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
AGENTS, a few years ago, toyed with the notion that said tech-enhanced
"jump-starting" of his metabolic rate was causing Lightning to age
at a terrifying rate: days instead of minutes, weeks for mere hours.
Now, there's a "wrinkle" for you.)
The only other T.H.U.N.D.E.R. operative of any especial interest, really, was the agent known as "Menthor"... but: his was a tale that merits a little space, all its own.
"John Janus" -- an apparent physical and mental marvel, and all-around cleft-chinned, card-carrying Good Guy -- was given a special, one-of-a-kind "cybernetic helmet" by T.H.U.N.D.E.R., which allowed him to exercise tres formidable telepathic and telekinetic abilities.
However: Our Man Janus was, it seems, as two-faced as his mythological
namesake. He was (in actuality) a "double agent," secretly working
for chief T.H.U.N.D.E.R. nemesis, "The Warlord." (Don't you just
hate it when that happens to you, at the office...?)
... and, now, for the really cool plot twist: it seems that --whenever donning his requsitie super-chapeau -- the true "Janus" personality would kinda sorta "black out"... and the helmet's own "will" would promptly assume the heroic persona of the non-existent "Menthor" (!!)
Which, I guess, made him something of a triple agent, when you
stop to think about it.
This schizophrenic turn of events, sadly, ended in abrupt tragedy when said no-goodnik The Warlord finally tumbled on to precisely why every single "master plan" involving Menthor kept doing a one-eighty, and -- in the spirit of cheery acceptance and bonhomie that was his trademark -- rewarded his (semi-)faithful employee with a series of sucking chest wounds, courtesy of fifteen or twenty well-placed bullets fired from several feet away (T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS #7). John Janus, then, became the first agent to "fall," in the field... and the poor, luckless S.O.B. never even knew why it was happening to him.
(The helmet's "last words," on the other hand -- oh, I have my
sources; I get around -- were a shrill, panicky: "No head shots!
No HEAD SHOTS, dammiiiiEEEEEEEEAAAAAA -- !!")
The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS series -- which, at the height of its popularity, spawned several "spin-off" titles for the "A"-list likes of DYNAMO and NOMAN -- lasted for exactly four years: from November of 1965, to November, 1969. Several factors contributed to the (relative) brevity of its high-caliber run: the inability of Tower Comics to break the virtual stranglehold held by Marvel and DC, at the time, of the nation's shipping and distribution system for comics, overall; and a "flattening" for comics sales, in general, anent the end of the BATMAN television-show spawned "Comics As Pop Art" mania.
The books themselves, however, were not only (frequently) as well-crafted and entertaining as their 60's Marvel/DC counterparts, on the racks... but have (in recent years) developed a hardcore and increasingly fanatical "fan following," in the form of still reasonably-priced back issues, re: the collector's market. They are -- in all sincerity; all joshin' aside -- well worth your efforts and energies in the tracking down of same.
The time is ripe for some canny entrepreneur to secure the publishing
rights to these characters. Given the proper assemblage of talents,
and even half-decent promotion: they could be "stars," again.
The Silver Age CAPTAIN AMERICA
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