What makes the best comic book covers? It’s a great topic for debate. For us as individuals there is no wrong answer, of course. It’s purely subjective. But with a little thought it is frequently possible to explain what it is about a particular image that grabs you. The best ones are the ones that make you stop and check out something you weren’t previously going to purchase – and in some cases, you even end up picking up a title you’ve never even heard of before.

Two weeks ago this column focused on George Pérez and Terry Austin’s cover for Avengers #185, and last week the spotlight fell on Mike Zeck’s cover for Master of Kung-Fu #83. Among the many reasons to recommend those two pieces were their stopping power; they made you stop wherever you were when you first saw them and demanded that you check out the contents of the comics on which they appeared.

My personal experience in the case of Pérez’s cover wasn’t one that made me purchase something new – Jim Shooter’s “Korvac Saga” and other stories had put the Avengers on my “must read” list long before that – but it may well have been the first cover that I just kept going back to, just kept staring at.

Zeck’s Master of Kung-Fu #83 was the one that made me “get” Shang Chi and his world and definitely caused me to add the title to my pull list.

Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 combines both of those attributes.

Another Pérez gem, the characters exuded power and a beckoning mystery. Who the heck were the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents? And who the heck was Wally Wood? How could there be a whole other super team I’d never even heard of?

Long before I knew about EC Comics or before I learned that Wood – not Kirby or Ditko – had been the first artist Stan Lee touted on a Marvel cover, this ill-fated (and probably ill-conceived) series from Deluxe Comics, Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 was my gateway to discovering some amazing stuff.

Wrapped in the cover were a number of stories by A-list creators including Pat Broderick, Dave Cockrum, Steve Ditko, Stan Drake, Steve Englehart, Keith Giffen, Jerry Ordway, Greg Theakston, Roy and Dann Thomas, and John Workman.

Their work revealed complex characters like Dynamo, NoMan, Lightning, Raven, Menthor, and Iron Maiden, as well as the whole concept of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, which was that their superpowers came with very real costs.

This in turn led me to the original Tower Comics series and to discovering more and more about the talented, troubled Wally Wood, including his work at EC, which in turn opened up EC to me as well.

All because a guy who wasn’t smart enough to actually have the rights to publish the characters was smart enough to have George Pérez do his first cover. You almost never know where this stuff will lead you.

– J.C. Vaughn

Editor’s note: For a great look at the history of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and the legal nightmare that was Deluxe Comics, we heartily recommend Jon B. Cooke’s The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Companion from Twomorrows Publishing.