TNT (comics)

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TNT is a DC Comics superhero from the 1940s.

TNT and Dan The Dyna-Mite were created by Mort Weisinger and Hal Sharp for DC Comics, made their debut in World's Finest Comics #5, and starred in Star-Spangled Comics # 7-23.

The "human hand grenades" had a short lived career during the Golden Age of Comics, reappearing occasionally in reprint form during the seventies, returning in Super Friends # 12, and appearing from time to time in All-Star Squadron , it's Post-Crisis sequel, Young All-Stars.

1 Character Origins

[edit] Character Origins

[edit] Pre Crisis

TNT and Dan The Dyna-Mite were the secret identities of chemistry teacher and track coach Thomas N. "Tex" Thomas and Daniel Dunbar. While working together with some "radioactive salts", they discovered they were charged with atomic energy. Thomas was charged with positive energy, while Dunbar was charged with negative energy. Thomas made a pair of rings which kept the energy dormant until they were touched together, at which point the pair gained strength, speed, and the ability to generate different forms of energy. Thomas generated heat, while Dan would generate short bursts of electricity. The pair went into action as TNT and Dan the Dynamite for just over a year. After a year, the FBI and the Manhattan Project noticed them and recruited them to help build the atomic bomb . After a few years, the resident scientists noticed that their radiation levels were going out of control, so with their consent, the government imprisoned Thomas and Dunbar in a radiation-proof bunker. Separated from each other and society, their aging processes halted. It wasn't until approximately thirty years later that Thomas and Dunbar were accidentally released from their prison by a giant creature given great power by the Flame Of Live (the same Flame Of Live which appeared in H. Rider Haggard's She ). Fearing a nuclear disaster, the pair separated. TNT headed north to the Rockies, while Dyna-Mite headed for the Gulf Of California. At this point, the government contacted the Superfriends subgrouping of the Justice League of America. The team led by Aquaman subdued Dyna-Mite, and took him to the undersea city of Poseidonis, Atlantis, while the team led by Superman found TNT, who took him to the bottle city of Kandor to find a cure for their condition. Nothing further was written about TNT and Dan the Dyna-Mite until their re-appearance in All-Star Squadron a few years later.

[edit] Post-Crisis

After TNT and Dyna-Mite had been active for a few months, they were summoned by the All-Star Squadron to participate in their first general meeting. Their participation seems to have been limited to attending meetings and little else until April of 1942, when Liberty Belle, as chairperson of the All-Stars, asked TNT and Dyna-Mite to look into Axis espionage activity in Colorado. Here, they met future All-Star member Iron Munro, but TNT was killed by Gudra the Valkyrie, a supernatural agent of Adolph Hitler. TNT was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, leaving Dyna-Mite to work with Munro and other members of the Young All-Stars. Keeping Thomas' ring, he found he could activate his powers by slamming both rings together.

An aged Dan The Dyna-Mite also turned up during the nineties in the Young Justice: Sins Of Youth special event as a part of a group of elderly former sidekicks called Old Justice.

[edit] Current Version

The latest version of the character turned up in Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers project. Calling himself Dyno-Mite Dan, Harris D. Bedletter made an online purchase of what he believed were TNT and Dan The Dyna-Mite's rings, and joined five other heroes in Seven Soldiers #0. Sadly, he was killed with the rest of his team. It should be noted that his rings were actually working fakes made by Cassandra Craft.