As a lot of you guys know I am sort of new at the whole comic book thing. I have never read an old Thunder Agents issue or even knew their story really. About the only things I know is that other publishing companies have attempted to do a redo on Thunder Agents and have failed.  I was excited to see where IDW would take this series and to see if it would last. I like Superhero team ups. A lot of times we get the independent guy who no one understands. Here, we get normal citizens working as secret agents. It gives more variety to the superhero imagine. Plus we get jabber between the heroes during the mission. This first issue really just set up the other issues to come. We get minimal introductions to the gang but the main characters are highlighted. The story centers around Len Brown. A hockey player, who took to a normal life after he killed someone on the ice, is known for his aggression. The Agents are looking for someone to wear this special belt that Professor Jennings developed. The Thunderbelt is a huge source of power that no agent can control. Hence why they need Len. So with barely any training Len gets to take the belt. It seemed a little too rushed just because I would think these agents need to go through psychiatric review and under rigorous training. This could end up hurting the team since Len is so messed up over killing that poor man.  The team is in an urgent situation with Iron Maiden taking over a very key place to the agents. So they don’t have time to train Len, because he is the only one who has yet to control the belt.

I like Len and think he makes a good lead. He has a back story of not only an accidental death but also working for crime lords. He is one tough reckless dude who will lead people into getting hooked on the comic.  Noman also helps with the comedic end. Not only is he a badass too but he has this robotic response about himself that makes his jokes even better. The group works well together and I could see this new Thunder Agents having a steady fan base. But building that fan base will have a rough start because there are so many other bigger better titles out there being redone.

As for me I think comics being redone have some setbacks. A whole new genre has become the forefront in comics lately. It is called “redoing a classic.” See we take comics that made some money back in the day and we revamp them in order to bring in that old audience and then bring in a new audience to enjoy the redoes and hopefully buy the old ones too. It is a win/win situation. I get it. I even buy into most of these comics and while Thunder Agents isn’t bad or shouldn’t be criticized for doing what a lot of other titles have done, it is getting old. Is anyone else sick of this? I don’t mind some title revamps and I will probably even keep reading Thunder Agents, I just want new comics, with new stories. This may end up being the fall for this new one and I can’t blame anyone for picking something else that is a more appealing classic being done over.

Score: 3/5

Writer: Phil Hester

Artist: Andrea Di Vito

Publisher: IDW Publishing

Price: $3.99

Release Date: 8/14/13