Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Atlas Comics Part Four

’Allo everybody, I am Fuzz-ee, the comical French Floating Space Head! Oui Oui! Sincèrement, I actually do not HAVE a name! I merely appeared in une single issue of Mystery In Space. But I am tres freaky-loooking, non? What evolutionary advantage do you suppose my big dewey eyes and comical handlebar mustache grant me, ohn ohn ohn?* Now, s’il vous plaît, enjoy the most recent installment of Gone & Forgotten. I must partez rapidement, as I am late for my Madballs audition. Ohn ohn ohnnnnn!"

_{*Say that like Maurice Chevalier. "ohn ohn ohnnnn"}

By Ironjaw, I’ve had it! This is the last Atlas article! Reading these
things is like sucking down a balloon full of sulfur and lemon juice! Let’s
get it done!

Wulf the Barbarian, the second of Atlas’ barbarian line, was - more or less - spared the Third-Issue Switch largely by dint of it never having had the same creative team twice. And if you think that may have really hurt the book’s continuity and focus ... man, are you ever right.

Rather than IronJaw’s post-apocalyptic barbarian future, Wulf took place in Earth’s distant, shrouded past. There were liberal mixings of J.R.R.Tolkein and Conan both in this book, with perhaps a pinch of Beowulf, all hindered by the constant mix of creative teams and how none of the issues were really all that good anyway.

I’m not even sure if there were any continuing characters or storylines from one issue to the next. Larry Lieber scripted one that was pure Tolkein, complete with fakey made-up names
for all the people and places. "Lord Tyrkna the Enlightened of the Plains of Hufgth has the Sword of Farrth, and he’s bringing it to the Temple of Rwwtah which is guarded by the Priests of Huybnom who possess the mighty powerful Disc of GtrhhbojfpnnakptangyakPOWwoop!"

Larry Hama gets his foot in there, too, with a more Conan-esque story and Klaus Janson puts pencil to paper for a lushly illustrated story, all of which would have come as a surprise to anyone who judged the book by the cover (which, not unlike many Atlas comics, was wholly unrelated in terms of design
and content to the story inside).

I do not own a copy of Midnight Madness or Thrilling Adventure Stories, and I suspect that they actually never came out, though Mike Kaluta assures me that he did finish and send in the story they commissioned from him. He never got it back. In any case, like Devilina, these were black-and-white magazine sized books. And like Devilina, they only existed so the stories could include more titty.

Tigerman was apparently intended to be another one of Atlas’ big central books, as he was pretty focal in the print advertising. You can almost say he had one hellabad costume going on, but the fact remains that it made him look like a brunette tiger in legwarmers. Cause, man, nothing goes with tiger striping better than BLUE PIPING! That just SCREAMS "tiger!"

Philanthropist doctor Lancaster Hill journeys to deepest darkest Africa to get high on native serums and wrestle with tigers. And
as I think about it, I’m not actually sure they have tigers in Africa.
In fact, let me engage one of the hoariest old chestnuts in comedic writing and have you wait a moment while I go check this out ...

Okay, the answer is "no." There are no tigers in Africa. All the Tigers are
closer to China where, ironically, there are no polar bears. That’ll
make sense as you read further on.

Anyway, so there are no tigers in Africa except for one in a bamboo cage in the aboriginal village where Dr.Lancaster Hill is making some damn serum or another out of tiger juice because he thinks a tiger’s natural instincts may be the product of some natural curative in their genetic structure.

I, too, have deep-bred instincts, and those instincts tell me that tiger juice isn’t gonna cure any damn disease. Where’d this jackass go to medical school? "You know what would cure cancer? A keen sense of smell!"

I know that comic book science is often spurious at best, but when did it become full-fledged dyed-in-the-wool ON CRACK? even author Gerry Conway causes his lead character to pause for a moment in reflection and admit to himself that it was only "for some reason," he thought his plan would work.

Anyway, T-Man was cut very liberally from the Peter Parker cloth, a comparison only helped by the omnipresent Steve Ditko doing his art thang. Besides an animalistic set of powers, Doctor Hill was, like Spidey, torn between his super-hero career and personal life, often wondered if something was mentally wrong with himself and used his crime-fighting as a good way to ’work out the cobwebs.’

Only other thing worth mentioning is that his big enemy was a similarly powered villain, a native of the village where Dr.Hill gained his powers, by name of the Blue Leopard. Now, on the cover of the book, he sure was blue, alla blue, very blue. Inside? He had blue Y-fronts and a leopard-print costume. Man, Atlas.

Police Action had two features, starting with Lomax (Or, I should say "Lomax, N.Y.P.D.!"), an effort drawn by the usually-better-than-this Mike Sekowsky, and which is otherwise intolerable. Lomax bites down grimly on his ridiculous cigar and beats the hell out of suspects, witnesses and passers-by alike. Luckily, he’s a New York cop so one imagines the legal
ramifications will be minimal.

Luke Malone is done by the improbable team of Mike Ploog and Frank Springer, two fellas who, when working singly, I can’t stand. Nonetheless, there’s something appealing about this feature ... probably it’s obvious and persistent Eisner/Spirit influences. The murder victim around whom the story revolves even gets a Spirit-esque name, as he’s a boxer named Randy McNally ... nicknamed "Atlas" in the ring.

Yeah, his name was Atlas and he was shot dead in the first month of Atlas’ publication. Ha ha.

I have to kind of point out that I got a ... vibe ... from the Luke Malone story. I’m actually talking to a crowd of comic readers somewhat older than myself, but do you remember the first time you saw Northstar (of Marvel’s Alpha Flight) in a book? Remember how you got a ... hunch ...
about the guy? You kind of suspected ... you know ...and then fifteen years later, in a story which could earn a G&F by itself, he comes speeding out of the closet. So, I got this same feeling about Luke Malone, though I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why. It may have something to do with him turning down his willing and sexy young stripper neighbor in this
bitchy final panel to the story.

Anyway, I’m gonna go suggest that to the
Gay League of America website.

Oh, but, by GOD this series wouldn’t be complete without a kung fu book!

Yes, as the cover of The Hands of the Dragon tells us, "From the holocaust of an ATOMIC EXPLOSION comes the TOUGHEST KUNG FU fighter of them all!" I don’t know about tough, but he’s sure the most lurid of all time. Right on the splash panel, the Dragon’s "lightening" feet kick out in flying vengeance at the loinclothed, tattooed Dr.Nhu ("the patron saint of all things sinister") while a crowd of hippies scatter wildly before the Doc’s blazing machine gun and the lifeless body of the Prime Minister of Japan hangs from the rafters of the stage behind them.

Yeah, this comes from the pen of Ed Fedory (who?) and Jim Craig (who?), and it starts just after World War 2 as a Japanese man carries his two twin grandsons to a monastery in China, where he hopes they’ll be raised away from the horror of war. But, whoops, the old fucker hadn’t anticipated this: there’s an undetonated American atom bomb resting in the hollow of the
crest of Mt.Fuji, which he must scale (!!) before reaching the sea to get his ass to China.

Likewise, he didn’t count on it being sensitive to the presence of twins. BOOM! Inexplicably, it goes off in his face and, at the recommended safety distance of twelve feet, he gets quite a start. Also, one of the twins is HORRIBLY SCARRED! Yes, I cannot stress this enough, he is HORRIBLY SCARRED!

Oh, but the old man’s travails aren’t near over yet, for as he gets to China, he sets up camp for that night, and he’s attacked by A POLAR BEAR! In China! Not long after an atom bomb went off
when he was comfortably hiking up Mt.Fuji. Jeezus.

Anyway, the kids get raised by monks, only the HORRIBLY SCARRED brother is evil and vicious. So they leave the monastery, and the unscarred one goes
to fight crime, while the HORRIBLY SCARRED one goes on to be a master criminal.

Then there’s an assassination attempt, a ghostly figure gives a cheap-ass disco medallion to our dizzy, hospitalized hero and the series ends.

I only hope the HORRIBLY SCARRED brother got some kind of help for his HORRIBLE
SCARRING.

The efforts of our brave men and psychotic vermin at war was represented by the dual offerings of Blazing Battles Tales (featuring Sgt. Hawk) and, of course, Sgt.Stryker’s Death Squad, the latter of which you may know from their annual Christmastime toy drives.

First, let’s bring on the Blazing Battle Tales, all one issue of it! Ostensibly an anthology book (bound under a very Joe Kubert-esque cover courtesy of Frank Thorne), the lead feature is Sgt.Hawk, which they may as well have called it Sgt.Rawk cause, man, that’s precisely what they were aiming for.

Who are Sgt.Hawk and the men of the Killer Platoon? Why, they’re a "confident bunch of sore-footed dogfaces, spoiling for a fight, any time and any place." By no means were they "combat happy joes." Oh no. Heavens forfend.

The Sarge is backed by a multi-ethnic platoon of two men. There’s Goldberg ... WHO’S NEXT?!?! And then there’s White Cloud, and they’re not gonna let you forget it. "Come with me, White Cloud. Stay here, White Cloud. What’s the situation here, White Cloud?" Jeezus Sarge, you’ve only got two men in the platoon, must you always address them by name?

The Killer Platoon’s mission is to rescue
a captured and eroti-sadistically tortured French Resistance fighter named Yvette, cause MAN is she ever French. She’s also a "doll," and I know this, because that’s all Sarge ever calls her. "We got the doll, and since we had the doll we knew the Nazis would be after the doll, so we had to get the doll to safety so the doll could go back to France. White Cloud, go get the doll!"

Backup stories included a swell John Severin/Alan Kupperburg two-pager about some guy who really really hated the Germans a whole lot, and then a sort of forgettable EC-inspired ace fighter story called "Sky Demon," and the only reason I mention it is because the hero’s name was "Vip Gunner," and I can’t believe someone named their kid "Vip."

Sgt Stryker’s Death Squad was the lead feature in Savage Combat Tales, and I hate to say this about any Atlas book (though I did say it for Scorpion), it kinda isn’t that bad. Oh, it’s not GOOD! No no no. Of course not. Silly reader. I mean, at the end of the series I was
still left longing for more competent war stories, such as ... oh, I dunno, that one DC comic where a trained gorilla became a Marine sergeant, or the Creature Commandos ... nonetheless, it was readable.

Sgt.Stryker starts off as the gentle son of a life-loving country doctor, stationed in the same unit as his girlfriend’s little brother. He’s uncomfortable with the idea of killing, but like a lot of other guys in wartime, learns that he prefers it to dying. Anyway, Stryker gets to watch his entire battalion absolutely
demolished by the Nazis - including his girlfriend’s little brother - but yet manages to save four men, the four worst, most savage men in the entire army. Who were all stationed together. By luck.

Okay, truth time? It’s Dirty Dozen, only with four people. See, the Sarge and his boys discover that they’re absolutely the best killers the army ever had, so the top brass arranges to send them on special missions where ... um ... they kill people. Savagely. In combat. And then we hear tales of it. Savage Combat Tales.

Courtesy the usual type of idiosyncratic characters who end up in war stories like this, the Death Squad is composed of: Ice, a former gangster. Not a lot of those guys went to war, so his squad should feel blessed. Turk, a big, bald professional wrestler whose handlebar mustache, I’m certain, must break some army regulations. Then there’s Duke, some jerk they
picked up along the way, and finally, Shigeta, who doesn’t get a peppy, butch nickname cause he’s a DIRTY JAP! No, sorry, wait, he’s a Nisei, which they never let us forget. And because he’s Nisei, he knows ... say it with me ... all the martial arts!

So, Shigeta’s supposedly there for the ironic-twist/lesson-in-humanity role. You know, "We’re fighting the Japs, but look, we’re also fighting ALONGSIDE a Jap! And he’s a regular joe, just like us!" kind of mentality.

Of course, even as we were supposed to feel the deep humanity of this character, he WAS colored a pale candlewax yellow. Jesus A. Sammich, as I am inclined to say. Why not just give him a cleaver and buck teeth?

The back-up stories in Savage Combat Tales were usually these EC-inspired and oft-Archie Goodwin-scripted war tales with ironic twist endings. They’re pretty standard fare, and you could find yourself a handful of ones done better in Our Army At War or Combat! or your drunk great-grandfather
going on and on and the Nazzees.

And here comes some Western Adventures! And the art in the lead story is by ... Doug Wildey! Wow! Cool! And the writing is by ... Larry Lieber! Shit! No!

This is Kid Cody, sort of a hollow experience for all involved. Eastern family comes west to start a farm, evil cattleman kills the hero’s family, hero hooks up with a drunkard ex-gunslinger who teaches him the works and then the hero goes out for vengeance.

What I wonder is what does the fella do NOW? He killed the bad guy, he’s
a badass with the gun, he’s got all that land his dad bought ... does he go farm? No, not according to the end of the story ... he wanders off to fight more evil land barons. I suppose. I don’t really care.

Backup feature stars the Comanche Kid, which is brought to us by Steve Skeates and Jack Abel and features the inking props of Al "Lay ’Em Down Thick" Milgrom himself. I can summarize this one faster than Kid Cody. Ready? "Abducted white boy raised by comanches becomes a wandering force of justice, like hundreds of others." Boom. The end.

So, on the cover of Western Adventures, there’s a little panel that declares that this issue is "introducing ... the Renegade." But actually, it isn’t. The guy they picture is the Comanche Kid, and there’s no story about a renegade anywhere in the
book.

They probably SHOULD have called Comanche Kid "The Renegade" so that you didn’t have a title with two "Kid"s in it. "Kid Cody and the Comanche Kid." Terrible.
Still, I’d like to see a story where their descendants team up. "Kid Cody’s Kid and the Kid of the Comanche Kid in ’The Kid Gloves Are Off’."

Speaking of which, envision if you will a world where Atlas survived its first year of existence. You KNOW they would have eventually had a team book. Tiger-Man, Cougar, the Brute and Phoenix the Protector are ... um ... The Avenginators!! And a team-up book, too. Ironjaw meets the Tarantula. Sgt.Stryker meets the Bog Beast. The Dragon meets Morlock 2001.

By far the greatest of the third-issue switch victims, Morlock 2001 starts off not only borrowing its title from two popular science fiction movies (Morlocks from "The Time Machine" and "2001:A Space Odyssey"), but borrows its premise from Orwell’s 1984, Fahrenheit 451, the Incredible Hulk and SWAMP THING! ... Once again I’m amazed at how close to dadaistic divinity these books
came ...

Anyway, the plot here comes to us courtesy Michael Fleischer, and goes something like this: Reclusive scientist is killed by government thugs to repress his free-thinking ways (and it works, too). In his labs, the police find a weird plant-man whom they discover can kill people with a touch. So they make him a government assassin, only he suffers a plague of conscience. To keep an eye on his rebellious nature, the secret police assign a female cover agent to keep an eye on him, and cause you KNOW that Fleischer just LOVES AND RESPECTS women like nobody’s business, she gets to die hideously. Cause, you
know, she betrayed Morlock’s trust. So she dies.

Anyway, blah blah on the run from the government blah blah futuristic world blah blah "Ahhh, I’m a plant guy" blah blah. Third issue comes around, and doing his filling-in thing, Gary Friedrich pens the THIRD ISSUE SWITCH with Steve Ditko along for the art chores ... and I do mean "chores."

Now called "Morlock 2001 and the Midnight Men," the book centers more around an intellectual revolutionary named Whitlock who was burned over his whole body during an attack by the secret police. But he
survives. Of course ... he’s .... HORRIBLY SCARRED! Whitlock assembles a rebel army, hides Morlock away as a secret weapon, and then breaks it down old school style to give us some ’man is born to be free’ speeches
while Friedrich recaps.

Oh, but the secret police attacks and, as the issue ends Whitlock fatally
shoots the suffering Morlock RIGHT IN THE GADDAMN FACE, killing him right out. Yay! Then he whips out a detonator and tells us he’s gonna blow up his secret headquarters, killing everyone including himself. Yay! More!

I’m only slightly sad to say that I don’t have a copy of Fright (featuring the Son of Dracula) to which I can refer for this article, but be assured, it stinks like baboon ass stuffed with burning tires. It comes close on the heels of Marvel’s "Son Of Frankenstein," which makes me wonder if Larry and Stan used to sit around their house back in the twenties or eighteen-nineties or seventeenth century of whatever and make up imaginary friends together.

And then if ANY Atlas book deserves to go on the rosters of THE MOST unforgettable hunks of steamy dog poop ever printed, it must be Planet of the Vampires! Here’s a Larry Hama effort with art by a somewhat stiff but still presentable Pat Broderick.

There’s a heck of a misnomer in the title, by the way. It’s not exactly a planet of vampires. In fact, it’s pretty much just one apartment building. I mean, sure, it’s the Empire State Building, and it’s BIG and all, but still.

Alright, the plot borrows a little from Planet of the Apes (no! you say in shock and amazement) and Omega Man, the adolescent last-man-alive fantasy film by Chuck Heston. Basically four American astronauts (well, two married couples, actually, and another guy ... and an invisible guy, and I’ll get to that in a second) return from a lengthy mission in space to find that
not only has Earth been ravaged by nuclear war, but it’s largely reverted to barbarianism!

Yes, the streets of New York are flooded with thick-armed thugs who constantly fight and rumble in the streets and ambush strangers and steal anything worth taking. Um. Wait, I know there was something different about this ... oh, yeah, since it’s in the future, the cars can FLY!

Anyway, the startled - and ’hip,’ boy are they ever ’hip’ - astronauts manage to escape a terrible experience with the local freaks and ruffians and make their way to what appears to be the only remaining bastion of civilization in America - the Empire State Building. Hm. Okay. Anyway...

Turns out all the greatest scientists of America flooded to the building, rather than hole up somewhere near all the scientific equipment. Go figure. They build a force shield around the place, set up a well-armed militia and power elite and ... and this is the important part ... they capture the uncivilized grubs down on the street below and harvest them ... FOR BLOOD! They hook em up to big, fakey looking machines and drain the blood from them for nourishment. So, repulsed, the astronauts break out of the building, get split up, hook up with the barbarians to form a rebel army. Blah blah blah.

Two of my favorite parts of this story: First off, although they ARE trained astronauts, the women are totally useless. They just cry and wail and worry and let the men make the decisions. I’m gonna make a guess and say that their designation on the mission was "Official Military Mattressback Advisors." Also, late in the book, the black couple gets separated and disappears in the city. And the big, dumb, white hero of the book proposes that his black male counterpart will be all right because he has an abundance of "street smarts." Not because he’s a military-trained USAF Colonel, or a NASA-trained astronaut. No. Because he has street-smarts.

Anyway, according to the cover of the book, it’s six astronauts who return to Earth to find blah blah blah, however, inside the book, there’s actually only five (the odd man out, a balding old man, gets offed by a barbarian spear after the crew lands). To rectify this discrepency, I consider the Colonel’s amazingly large afro to be an official crew member all by itself.

Oh, it’s over. My long, sequential nightmare is over. I’ll never have to read this crap again. At least, not until some Gen-Y jackoff buys the rights and publishes a grim-n-gritty rewrite of it all. Heavens Forfend.