Or – “James Bond With Wings…”
These days, it seems every super-team has a little bit of formula to its makeup. A leader, a tech guy, an airhead, a quipster, a loner, and fill in with your favorite other guys. Back in the day, though, there weren’t any such things as “the loner character” (mostly because there wasn’t a whole lot of character to be found in many superteams.) The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents set a number of precedents with their team, foreshadowing the modern tendency for heroes with feet of clay, the fascination with spycraft and intelligence work, and even the use of gadgetry rather than exotic radiation (The Marvel method), alien intervention (The DC method), or magic (The “We Had An Idea” method.) to empower their heroes. Today’s entrant is unique, even among his peers, as having been a top-notch secret agent BEFORE he became a super-agent. Sure, Guy Gilbert spent his time in the field, but he wasn’t knee-deep in lasers and all that. Len Brown was an accountant, John Janus was a two-fisted manly man, and even Professor Anthony Dunn (a story we’ll get to sooner or later) was a thinking man first. Our subject today lives in a world of fog and shadows, where shades of grey are the norm and honor is hard to find. With the help of another tricksy gadget, though, he gets to do what most of us only dream of… But can you fly away from a life lived in ambiguity? This, then, is your Major Spoilers Hero History of Craig Lawson of The Higher United Nations Defense Enlistment Reserves… T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent Raven!
