Amazing Heroes Issue # 8 Cover

Amazing Heroes Issue # 8 Cover

Periodical
Comics Strips

The background to this cover is black, while the title, “Amazing Heroes” is printed in bright blue with a thin white outline. To the left of this title is the caption, “The X-Men Sweep the British Eagle Awards!” while the right reveals the price, issue, and the date of the publication’s release, “$1.50” and “No. 8, February,” and both ancillary messages are written in yellow. Matching that color and font is a two-part message, written on the bottom-left and bottom-right corners, respectively: “This issue, we celebrate the return of the mighty T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents…with a hero history and an exclusive preview of their new comic book series!” Just below the title is an important caption, as it is printed in red and fully capitalized: “Watch out world! They’re back!” The entities in question that have returned are a pantheon of colorful heroes, the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.

These heroes are five white (or white-coded) male characters emerging confidently from a crater in the wall, implied from its fractured borders to be made of stone. From left to right, their names and descriptions are: Menthor, whose head, masked above the nose with a dark blue cowl and a red circle insignia, and hand, gloved in red, are the only visible parts of him; NoMan, a more mysterious agent with a full blue cloak and a permanent scowl over his steely blue face, along with a right leg with yellow tights stuffed into a leather black boot; Dynamo, the principal character centered on the cover whose pose suggests that he has just begun running, a muscular man with short, coiffed brown hair, a chiseled and confident smile, and a traditional superhero outfit that tightly covers his body fastened with a metallic belt, entirely blue apart from a white stripe that runs through the center; Raven, a leaping man with distinct birdlike elements to his navy blue costume, including makeshift wings that extend from his arms to his torso, and two small decorative wings attached to his helmet and goggles; and finally, Lightning, a prone man preparing to charge, wearing a full yellow bodysuit fastened with a black belt and complete with a goggled helmet with a white lightning bolt logo running vertically across the top. They are all clambering over a portion of the wall that they knocked over to allow for their entrance, and a mysterious dark green hand appears to be leading a crawl from beneath this slab of stone. Also beneath the slab is the artist’s signature, written faintly in white text, “Fujitake ’81,” referencing Dennis Fujitake, a Hawaiian-based comic illustrator known primarily for contributions to fantasy comics.

The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (short for The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves) are a team of superheroes that debuted in 1965, published by Tower Comics. The team, evidenced from the title, was commissioned by the government, and, not unlike the Fantastic Four released four years earlier, had hero work as a full-time occupation rather than a secret side venture. These characters were traded among publishers for the next five decades, and their latest issue was released by IDW Publishing in 2012.

Editor: Kim Thompson
Assistant Editor: J. Collier
Contributing Writers: Dwight R. Decker, Gail Freeman, Rich Morrissey, Gene Reed, David Singer
Consulting Editor: Dwight R. Decker
Art Director: Peppy White
Contributing Artists: Paul Abrams, Bill Anderson, Willie Blyberg, Rudi Franke, Dennis Fujitake, Mark Heike, Gary Kwapisz, Kurt Lichte, Kevin Nowlan, Mike O'Neal, Charles Treadwell

MSU Special Collection Comic Art, PN6725.A47

Redbeard, Inc.

1981-02

Colin Corcoran

Rights Restrictions Apply

8 3/8" x 10 7/8", Color

English

Periodical

1981-1992