Tamers of Nonhuman Threats

Tamers of Nonhuman Threats (TNT for short) is a continuing storyline in Walt Disney's Donald Duck comic books.

The storyline began when Fethry Duck was enlisted in the secret international organization, whose purpose it is to find and counter paranormal threats to humanity before the public finds out about them and panics. Because of Fethry's general eagerness to involve Donald in his every interest, Donald involuntarily learned of the organisation and was enlisted too.[1]

Characters

  • The Head: A large dark-skinned man who leads the organisation with an effective leadership style.[2]
  • Katrina Kolik: A rough and tough female agent who functions as Donald's and Fethry's frequent supervisor. She believes in serious-minded, traditional secret agent behavior, and Donald's and Fethry's unorthodox methods often get on her nerves.[3]
  • Snort: A small, blue space alien with a long snout. He is the organisation's alien expert and also participates in training new agents. He speaks only in a strange grunting language which some other characters understand, but Donald and Fethry do not.[4]
  • Jackson and Finch: Two moderately experienced agents who enlisted Donald and Fethry and later became somewhat jealous of them.[3]
  • Boysenberry: A female mechanic, at least once enlisted as a saboteur.[5]

Enemies Donald and Fethry have faced on their TNT missions include a strange blue jelly-like organism that grew everywhere (Blue Rain),[2] a shapeshifting alien pirate (Gilor Borax),[4] a horde of ghost rats killed by the Pied Piper,[6] and a kingdom of demon-like monsters, led by monster king Molok Mak, who were about to break loose from their underground habitat.[7]

The TNT pays their agents well for each mission but demands that the organisation be kept in total secrecy.[2] When Donald groused that he was not paid by a German town for eliminating their ghosts, the Head reminds Donald that he was under cover and that any payment would have gone to TNT. TNT also does nonconfrontational work, such as cleaning up a gigantic mess of skunk oil that Donald created in Duckburg, while he was on a mission.

Publication history

The TNT series was created by Lars Jensen (writer), Flemming Andersen (artist), and David Gerstein (editor/co-writer) for Egmont Creative A/S (Denmark),[8] and Egmont's European affiliate publishers have generally published the full TNT series in local editions. Non-Egmont European publishers have thus far generally published most, but not all, of the stories. North America's Gemstone Publishing published the first five, with IDW Publishing more recently publishing the second five.[9]

In 2014, Lars Jensen ceased to be the series' main writer. The series was largely taken over by writers Byron Erickson (six TNT stories) and Maya Åstrup (three TNT stories), though Jensen would later return to write more chapters (2021 onward).

References

  1. ^ "Walt Disney's Donald Duck Adventures #4". The Report Card. Sequential Tart. Retrieved 22 August 2009.
  2. ^ a b c Jensen, Lars (2004). Walt Disney's Donald Duck Adventures: Uncle Scrooge in Another Day, Another Dolor/Mickey Mouse in Road to Hoola-Hoopa/Donald Duck in Blue Rain. Gemstone Publishing. ISBN 1-4352-5745-6.
  3. ^ a b "Making New Donald Duck Adventures: Tamers of Nonhuman Threats! (Part One)". Ramapith: David Gerstein's Prehistoric Pop Culture Blog. Retrieved 22 August 2009.
  4. ^ a b Jensen, Lars (2004). Donald Duck Adventures Volume 5. Gemstone Publishing. ISBN 0-911903-46-1.
  5. ^ Jensen, Lars (2006). Donald Duck Adventures Volume 18. Gemstone Publishing. ISBN 1-888472-30-8.
  6. ^ Jensen, Lars (2004). Donald Duck Adventures Volume 6. Gemstone Publishing. ISBN 0-911903-27-5.
  7. ^ Jensen, Lars (2005). Donald Duck Adventures Volume 15. Gemstone Publishing. ISBN 0-911903-99-2.
  8. ^ "Interview mit Flemming Andersen" [Interview with Flemming Andersen] (in German). LTB-Online. Retrieved 22 August 2009.
  9. ^ Tamers of Nonhuman Threats at Inducks