Agent Tha is the alter ego of super spy Kobra Olympus, a young Iranian woman who receives her mission briefings in the form of messages from the future. Fighting against vampiric enemies, Kobra tries to balance her duty to protect the future with trying to live the normal life of a young woman in the modern world.

Though I initially found the dialogue and caption-based exposition a little clunky in this issue, it seems that this was entirely intentional; creator Bijhan Agha informed me that the style of the comic was very much intended as a tribute to 1930s and 1940s  Golden Age comics, which it definitely achieves. The art style, though not devoid of a few more modern touches, also captures the simplicity and charming clunkiness of those old school comics too, with focus on the characters, rather than the minimally detailed, often mono-coloured backdrops.

Though it does fall prey to that (admittedly deliberate) clunkiness, there’s a genuinely admirable level of attention on the diverse nature of the main character in this comic too, with Kobra’s cultural and gender identity being important to the sweet, romantic story that’s a focus alongside the more fantastical elements.

It’s really refreshing to see a lead character with such an underrepresented identity being treated as a capable and even relatable person. Though comics as a medium have come a very long way since the Golden Age tales that The Adventures of Kobra Olympus cleverly homages, there’s still a very long way to go, and creator Bijhan Agha, along with publisher Jamsheed Studios, deserve some credit for pushing the envelope here.

Many thanks to Bijhan Ajha for providing me with a digital copy of Time Wars: The Adventures of Kobra Olympus #1 for review purposes. You can help support the push for diversity and representation in media by following Jamsheed Studios on Patreon.