Friends of T.H.U.N.D.E.R.

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Wally Wood!
by John Carbonaro

Maybe I should say Wally Wood and Friends. In the sixties, Wally produced the famous pro-fanzine of Dan Adkins called Witzend. It was an outlet for Wally and company to produce things that belonged to them. It was a beginning. Then came the siren call of a company (Tower) that allowed Wally to be an editor-de facto on a new Comic book, and along with him came his friends.

They produced on such a grand scale that each issue would be double sized. The science fiction base of their EC Comics work continued over into this “superhero” book…a density belt, scientist and the android, invisibility cape, mind powered helmet that included telepathy.

Wally humanized this group. Gave them powers and their limits to overcome. His most famous was Dynamo. He turned Len Brown into a virtual Superman but only for about ½ an hour (use of the thunderbelt need not be 30 minutes consecutively). An elderly scientist transfers his brain patterns into an Android body, a one-way trip. He feels so detached from his real body that he uses a code name from Greek Mythology used by Ulysses…NoMan. And the last of the initial sci-fi beings was Menthor. A double agent, John Janus (Janus being the name of the two faced Roman god) was borderline good/bad and brought over at last to good by the Menthor mind powered helmet that he wore into battle. Of course the main villain would be an alien accompanied by one of Wally’s beautiful villainess, the famous Iron Maiden.

And there was more as each writer and artist added to the Legend. Wally gave a sense of humor and irony to the Dynamo stories as he tore the love interest between the girl next door, secretary Alice, and Iron Maiden.

Reed Crandall gave a stark realism to NoMan. Steve Ditko added a flavor of mystery and morality to the android scientist.

We were even amazed when we realized where Steve Skeates was taking the new hero, Lightning, he created into a high drama of Life and Love…or was it Life vs. Love? Steve put Guy Gilbert into a position of using a speed suit that shortened its wearer’s life upon each extended use. If Guy put it aside for his love, Kitten Kane, then it would fall to the only possible users, his girl or his pals, Weed or Dynamite. We continued that line. How will it “end”? I dunno.

Manny Stallman took a Steve Skeates character and so dramatically changed the use of The Raven that I still get feedback. Fighting assassins and protecting Nazi hunters were not typical stories back then. Gil Kane had then turned Raven back into a fighting action hero. To this end, I later added laser “talons” to The Raven and made them unique by explaining the power source being alien technology discovered in the original run (which is ironic as it was the flying ability of the weapon that lead to a need for The Raven).

Undersea Agent was in a companion book and never used in the same story until Wally Wood’s Thunder Agents. In the next outing in Omni Comix, once again pulling from the original books, we used a dimensional time difference to bring out George Caragonne’s version of Undersea Agent, a young and beautiful daughter with all Dad’s powers and more.

Menthor seemed to be a work in progress. Gil Kane and George Tuska gave him instant likeability and made him an action hero.

Though he had several good stories since, it wasn’t until Dan Adkins suggested a story line for Wally that changed the face of comics. A major hero would die, really die. Steve Ditko came on board as penciller under Wally’s inks. The drama was played out in a well conceived layout and story. The new stories continued this concept that John Janus had indeed passed away. The helmet contained a mental imprint of the man that wore it which may or may not have passed into the woman who found it, Menthora. But Janus was killed in that story in 1966 and remains so.

— John Carbonaro, June 2002