Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Atlas Comics Part Two

(a recorded transcript)

Bee-Man: (draws on cigarette) Is it ... I don't know where to start.

GAF: Wherever you feel comfortable. This is your story.

Bee-Man: (Pause) I don't even know what to think. I just thank the good Lord for freedom this day. (Pause) That's all. (Pause) It would be wrong of me to blame Bill. (Pause)

GAF: Take your time.

Bee-Man: (cigarette) I guess ... It's ... We're in Mexico, and Alan,
Bill's flying super high, and I know he's spiked the heroin, only what do you spike heroin with, you know? (laughs, Pause) So, I remember he was pointing the gun at me, and I was laughing and crying all at once, and he told me he ... uh ... he said, well, he said he had a hard-on ... (Pause) I wanted to be back in Ohio (Pause) so bad ...

GAF: How did you get to the army base?

Bee-Man: Uh (Pause) I don't remember. All I know is, that afternoon I'm in New Mexico in my bee costume, and I've picked up a gigantic swarm of mutant bugs, and I'm hovering over the Army base laughing and I'm ... um, I'm yelling over and over "We double-dare you to resist the attacking bees!"

GAF: (Pause) And how many years did you...

Bee-Man: Thirty-five years in Federal prison. I don't even know what they did with my mutant bee horde.

If you were to line up Atlas's array of talent, you'd have the start of one great comic book company. And yet, when all was said, done, and thrown into the ten cent bins, one is left with the inescapable conclusion that something went horribly wrong.

Most likely, it was the editor. More often than not, we here at G&F tend to rake the artists and writers over the coals when the editor is at least AS culpable for a crummy book - if not, sometimes, moreso…(likewise, an editor can often be the saving grace of a sub-par book, but that's more for a webzine dedicated to GOOD comics … and we haven't seen one of
those here in a lo-o-o-o-ong time)

Atlas editor Larry Lieber obviously lacked the innovative spark of his brother Stan Lee, whose guiding hand shines like a divine light on those early Marvel super-heroes. Larry's mitt clumsily tumbles like a balloon full of mud. Whatever lessons Larry learned in his many years in the comics industry, it's apparent that the prime three directives were "Pander, Thieve, and Hasten."

Does that seem mean? It might just be that I recognize Lieber as the first editor-in-chief/comic book bigwig in my lifetime to actually run a company on so shady a principle. Nowadays, of course, it's standard practice, and you can't throw a rock at Previews without hitting a half-dozen like-minded young publishers.

I'm sure he's a nice man. He's a decent writer. It's just that he was a terrible editor.

Oh, but speaking of the words "terrible" and "writer" in the same sentence, I bring you three of Atlas' more legendary titles, all from the pen of Michael (Hex, Haywire) Fleisher:

IronJaw was apparently Atlas' flagship character, and the predominant hero of their Barbarian vein (which adroitly tapped into America's growing fascination with half-naked, unwashed longhair illiterates).

IronJaw was set in a distant, post-apocalyptic future where man had reverted to barbarism and where the few, remaining machines were regarded as spooky, ooky, mystical god creatures. In the beginning of his dynamic-as-hell origin story (actually the fourth issue, which was written not by Fleisher but Gary Friedrich), IronJaw is a young, handsome, steroid-popping musician who pals around with the local barbarian horde. The horde's CEO, upset that all of the horde's chicks keep hanging around the musician (isn't that always the way?) mugs him, crucifies him to a tree and cuts his jaw off (Isn't that
always the way, too?)

IronJaw - or, at this point, AbsentJaw - is found by a hideous old witch who binds his traumatic wounds and, by way of healing him, GRAFTS A HIDEOUS KNIFE-TOOTHED JAW to his HEAD! Thanks ma'am!

So IronJaw responds the only way he could be expected to: He dies from shock.

No no, not really. Actually, he becomes a wandering cutthroat and warrior, selling his strong sword-arm for profit and demeaning all those whom he meets. Holding everyone "weaker" than he in scorn, IronJaw muses on the infirmities of age ("Your father was too old … that is why he died running as a coward dies."), royalty ("To be a king is to be a toothless old woman!")
and, of course, women.

After all, having had every kindness in his life shown to him by women, the newly christened IronJaw naturally becomes … a misogynist! Yes, because Michael Fleisher is at the writing helm, all women are stupid, pliable or evil. To wit:

"The fighter dies young who heeds the counsel of women." … "…you are a woman, and so you will tell, because women are unable to keep silent!" … "The women in this god-forsaken kingdom are the same as women everywhere!
First they offer themselves to you on a platter, and then they … what's this?" (This last one he muses upon after attempting to rape his own sister).

The final page text feature - "The World Of IronJaw" - explains it thus: "IronJaw, unlike most other comic book characters, is a real human being. What he thinks, what he says, how he reacts are all gauged by what Mike feels a real man, placed in that same situation, would do."

Which means, in a post-apocalyptic world, former musicians with crippling deformities would naturally be muscle-flexing, woman-hating, thick-headed buffoons.

In a Conan vein, IronJaw becomes King of a prosperous land, only to abandon the crown because he disdains the life of luxury and ease. After all, that's what a real individual would do living in an apocalyptic wasteland where food is scarce, enemies are plentiful and one must kill or be killed to survive. Comfort, safety, food, shelter - pfah!

Sort of loosely based on the Hulk, and also loosely based on "Frankenstein Conquers the World," and "Trog," the Brute is a 12-foot tall (or taller, or shorter, he's up and down the height charts faster than a whore's drawers), cerulean blue neanderthal
monster unearthed from a glacier in some part of the world where primitive man was 12 foot tall and cerulean blue.

In the Joan Crawford role was a bleeding heart anthropologist Dr. Ann Foster, whose ceaseless pursuit of scientific advancement results in the Brute running rampage and killing people by the carloads. Way to go, science! In the role of "Who the hell
cares" was Ann's supposed love interest, a sheriff who violates jurisdiction in darn near each and every panel of the book.

Like IronJaw, The Brute's first couple issues were drawn by Justice League great Mike Sekowsky - much to the distaste of Atlas' obviously discerning fanbase. In a change heralded by a lettercol full of negative reviews for Sekowsky's work, Pablo Marcos takes over the art chores - just as he did in IronJaw, much to the same refrain.

And also as in IronJaw, Gary Friedrich takes over the writing chores for the final issue of the Brute, an issue which introduces a supervillainous foil for the simple, savage, lumbering, murderous manchild that we've come to know and love as - the Brute.

Finally, there's the Grim Ghost. In a plot which ought to seem naggingly familiar to Spawn fans, Colonial highwayman Matthew Dunisane is recruited by Satan his-own-bad-self to be a recruiter of souls for Hell's Army. With Beelzebub no longer willing to wait the extended lifespan of late-Twentieth Century man for the delivery of corrupt souls, the Grim Ghost's job is to find criminals, ne'er-do-wells and --- I dunno, hobos - and send them to a fiery demise.

The book boasted art by Ernie Colon and, in its third issue, story by Tony Isabella. The third issue also tried to introduce a little sex appeal in the character of Lady Sarah Braddock, assigned by Satan to be Dunisane's accomplice and - by hellish irony, Buh-WA-HAHAHAHAHA - the very woman whose betrayal in life led Dunisane to the gallows.

The Grim Ghost does win some points for me in being one of the more innovative concepts from Atlas, although it grew tiresome quickly as Dunisane endured as a back alley vigilante whose only unique quality was his moralizing brutality. Besides, Fleisher was writing an essentially identical story over in The Tarantula. I would've liked to see this character developed, the landscape of hell expanded upon and the moral implications of a murderer murdering murderers employed more expansively but, as the Grim Ghost himself says in the final moments of his last issue "It must be terrible to want one thing so very much…"