Here’s one of two things what I knew about the character Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt before I picked up the new Dynamite Comics first issue of his new book: he was the only Charlton superhero that DC Comics didn’t ever even try to give a shot in the DC Universe after they bought the Charlton rights back in the 80s. They even gave fucking Judomaster a shot in the Outsiders book a few years ago, and Judomaster is what you get when someone needs a superhero concept by noon: “He’s a master of judo. Boom! Judomaster. Now give it to some artist to slap a Japanese flag on his chest and fetch me more bourbon.”
The other thing I knew about Peter Cannon was that he was the character upon whom Alan Moore based his Watchmen character, Ozymandias. And Ozymandias was a rich dude with an Alexander The Great fetish who used his smarts to gin up a weird master plan to trick the Great Unwashed into chucking their nuclear weapons to protect themselves from some other-than-natural monster. Of course, the original Thunderbolt couldn’t possibly be like that… and having read the backup story in Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt #1, written by the character’s creator, Peter Morisi, back in the 80s, he wasn’t.
However, having read the main story, written by Steve Darnall and Alex Ross with art by Jonathan Lau, he apparently is now.