Highly intelligent, described as the “finest physical specimen I have ever examined,” John Janus easily passes the tests to become an agent for THUNDER.
Janus. That name really should have told them something,
He’s actually working for the evil Warlord, and jumps at the chance to utilize the Menthor super-helmet designed by Prof. Emil Jennings.
Wearing a costume strikingly similar to the Atom’s, Menthor discovers he can read people’s thoughts and telekinetically manipulate great weights. But the mind-boosting helmet has a side effect, making him betray Warlord and help THUNDER while he’s using it.
Though unstated, the rationale for the change is implicit. I’d say the helmet transforms John Janus into a highly advanced being, an enlightened person who sees the world more clearly and thereby gains a stronger moral sense.
It’s a promising plotline — the villain who becomes a superhero against his will. And it’s a theme that will be explored to good effect later in Marvel’s Captain Marvel, Thunderbolts and Superior Spider-Man.
Now a better person, Menthor fights his evil brother and a couple of mind-controlling enemies — and then, shockingly, he’s killed (A Matter of Life and Death, THUNDER Agents 7, Aug. 1966).
“(E)verything came together in this one,” observed noted comic historians Michael Uslan and Robert Klein. “(Steve) Ditko’s touch with mood and atmosphere — the shadows, the expressions, the poses and the coloring — all contributed to the drama.”
Trapping Janus without his helmet, Warlord agents plan to use him as bait to lure the other THUNDER super-agents into a barrage from a battery of laser guns. While trying to warn them, Janus is shot repeatedly. He hurls himself into the laser trap just as the super-agents are about to walk into it.
In fiction or in reality, things rarely go well for double agents.
Vincent Mariani said: I never warmed up to the Tower books. They seemed sterile compared to what was happening at Marvel, and even DC's conservative approach had more bounce.
ReplyDeleteBob Doncaster said: Love the original run of THUNDER agents and happily slapped down my quarter for the Tower line.
ReplyDeleteRobert Ortega wrote: Menthor's death was arguably the most game changing of the Silver age. Lightning Lad's demise was telegraphed as temporary from the start; Ferro Lad was a secondary character who'd only been around for a few storylines; but Menthor had not only been one of T.H.U.N.D.E.R.'s original big three, but the reaction of his teammates in forcing his killers back into their own death trap... No oath against killing here. Grim and gritty wasn't invented by Frank Miller, folks.
ReplyDeleteF-michael Dunne said: I could not believe it, I was sure it was a trick until the next issue., when it was apparent he was truly gone.
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