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.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Atlas Comics Part Three

"sfptzl glbsh."
"shlmp gtzl?"
"glx brzl."
"glxll brum bzgll
foogum wa wa bdangum spa
fon wokka wokka?"
"word."

---

Part Three: Also...A Werewolf!

For the completists among you, may I present what is (to the best of my knowledge) a complete listing of the entire Atlas comics line of mockery fodder:

The Barbarians, Blazing Battle Tales, The Brute, The Cougar, Demon Hunter, The Destructor, Devilina, Grim Ghost, Fright, (Featuring Son Of Dracula), Hands Of The Dragon, IronJaw, Midnight Madness, Morlock 2001, Phoenix (...The Protector), Planet of the Vampires, Police Action, Savage Combat Tales, The Scorpion, Tales of Evil, Targitt, Thrilling Adventure Stories, Tigerman, Vicki, Weird Suspense, Weird Tales of the Macabre, Western Adventures and
Wulf the Barbarian.

Many of these titles featured werewolves...

Tales of Evil

Atlas' premiere horrible ... er, "horror" book ran a whopping three issues. It started out its first issue as a sort of generic anthology title and then changed format slightly to become an anthology book which attempted to launch new characters. To wit:

Issue one starts off with a story about a possessed doll that forces a little girl to kill ... so you know Stephen King probably wrote it. ( I say, that's what you get for letting your child play with a little, velveteen man-goat). One of my personal faves from the Silver Age, Mike Sekowsky, then illustrates a story about a werewolf who must fight the evil forces of the Hair Club For Men (kinda, I ain't much kidding there) and ends up with a story about vampires that tries REALLY HARD to imitate an EC flavor.

Second issue introduces THE BOG BEAST, whose sobriquet kind of confuses the fact that he emerged from a tar pit. Although he's spotlighted on the cover messing up a bunch of Carnies, the only action he sees inside is watching two hippie revolutionaries get offed. That issue is followed up by ANOTHER EC-type story - this time, I swear artist Jerry Grandenetti is tracing Kriegstein panels - and ends with a story about ... a werewolf.

Third issue stars MAN-MONSTER, who is actually former Olympic swimming champion Paul Sanders (and who is, when we first meet him, "entertaining two beautifully-bikinied Women's Lib Magazine reporters! --- Unaware that he has a date with destiny --"). Paul swims through some gigantic "bacterial force" that comes outta nowhere, turns him red and scaly, and puts him on the kabuki-KISS frontman HELL-BLAZER's shit list. The end.

Bog Beast reappears in that issue as well. He meets a werewolf.

The Cougar
Here's a story I KNOW you've heard before: Handsome Hollywood stuntman lands a major role in a big-budget action movie, the movie bombs, stuntman keeps his costume and deicdes to fight vampires - oh, and the occasional Cajun werewolf - on the locations of major films worldwide.

The cover to this comic's first issue promotes it as "Hollywood stuntman turned Night Stalker," which is Atlas' way of saying "We combined Hooper with Kolchak!"

The premise of the book is pretty underdone: never parting with the costume he was meant to wear in his failed big budget debut (A choice which, in the real world, would mark you as a sad, out-of-touch loser suffering from pathetic delusions. In Atlas, that makes him a super-hero), the "Cougar" stumbles across supernatural menaces on the sets of the very films where he works as a stuntman.

Usually, studio insurance doesn't cover that.

Naturally, he encounters a ... say it with me ... WEREWOLF! Specifically, the werewolf is his long-lost, rebellious brother suffering from a bayou witch's curse. But still, a werewolf, Atlas did not let me down ...

Vicki

This was Atlas' shot at the Archie crowd, starring a gaggle of clueless, comical, girl-crazy teenagers and werewolves. Unfortunately, the comic lost much of its appeal when the characters from Fast Willie Jackson were bussed in as part of the school distrcit's anti-segregation policy.

Okay, as we did with Fast Willie, so shall we do with Vicki. Arch was replaced by Tommy Trippit, who I'm sure was quite a hit at his mid-70's high school for wearing sweater vests and slacks. Vicki is a little bit Betty, and a little bit Veronica, but not so much as the very Veronica-esque Peg (who sports two distinctly different hairstyles in the first issue). Midge is Go-Go and gets more air time, her Moose is the wisely renamed Animal, and Reggie got an even dorkier name as Ashley.

The werewolf's name is DogFace, and boy does he love chompin' down those triple-cheeseburgers at Doc's Ice Cream Parlor.

And I'm serious about those out-of-date fashions! Even the bikins were straight from 1958. They had these pin-up fashion pages with Vicki wearing Twiggy's hand-me-downs, a lot of polo shirts and v-neck sweaters, and the women wore bows in their hair. It's amazing to look at ... like the most unlikely time machine of all.

Devilina

No werewolves, but at least you get a mummy, a mermaid and a demoness. Oh, and titty.

One of Atlas' black-and-white magazines, and the hardest-to-find of all their books. I have little to say besides mentioning that the cover promises "Illustrated Stories Of Female-Filled Fantasies," which is what I thought Pay-Per-View was for.

*PS - I was kidding about DogFace. Honestly, people.

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…"

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Atlas Comics Part One

"This is Gone and Forgotten. I'm KillJoy. I'm your host for
this edition, and I got words for those of you who think Steve Ditko is an
unmitigated genius..."

"Yeah, I was the lead in a Steve Ditko-created backup to Charlton Comics'
E-Man#2, eight pages that seemed to go on for months. The only real consolation
is that I'm not as purely terrible as Liberty Belle."

"This is the first time I've ever actually spoken in print; not that I didn't have any lines in the story, I just couldn't bring myself to read 'em. It was always 'Society has laws,' or 'Crumbs like you think that society owes you..." and then fifteen pages of dialogue from The Fountainhead. I just clammed up and let the poor saps in my Rogue's Gallery take the brunt."

"Oh, those sad dopes: Jungle Jake, Robber Hood, the Flame ... none of 'em ever worked again. Last I heard, Jungle Jake was posing for 'wrestling magazines,' if you know what I mean."

"The gimmick of the book was that the bad guys'd just sit there and cry and weep that society owed them the right to rob people, and I'd buck wild on 'em, and then they'd go to jail. Kinda like Christian Slater, I suppose. Also, there was this idiotic subplot about my secret identity, coz I was supposed to be one of three men: Jud Lah, lawyer, Al Ace, counter intelligence, and the other guy. Like I'd admit to answering to ANY of those names. Gah. Steve Ditko."

"Ah well, who's gonna tell Steve Ditko that we don't NEED another objectivist super-hero, huh? Not me, I got a lucrative second-career selling custom-fitted theatre lighting. It's a hell of a business opportunity. Anyway, let's get on with this month's feature..."

Part One: My Brother, My Enemy

Atlas Comics, ah Atlas - famed predecessor to Marvel, home of Steve Ditko, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, bringer of such wonderful horror, fantasy and monster comics --- oh, wait, we're not talking about THAT Atlas Comics! We're talking about the crummy, derivative comics produced in the mid-1970's by none other than Stan Lee's brother, Larry Lieber.

And BOY, did Larry not us forget it. In his scant few editorials - the entire Atlas line, of course, barely ran four months in 1975 - Larry mentions his admittedly significant contributions to Marvel's history and his connection to his famous brother .... well, we'll say "more than once."

Larry's long history with Marvel (he was a scripter on the first Thor, Iron Man and Ant-Man stories, among others, as well as long-time artist on the daily Spider-Man newspaper strip) gave him some important connections in the mid-70's comic book world . Besides a passel of top-flight artists and writers (Berni Wrightson, Howard Chaykin, Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, Larry Hama and more more more), Larry established a professional relationship with Martin Goodman, original publisher and principal financial support for Marvel Comics, back in the day. Martin's son Chip continued their relationship by setting up Larry in the editor's chair for Atlas' ambitious 24-title launch in 1975.

So the brother of a great editor, financed by the son of a great publisher, proceeded to work with the illegitimate children of famous artists and writers to create a bastardized legacy of comics ... well, no, I made that last bit up. But they DID try to launch a line of comics intended to challenge Marvel and DC's dominance (mostly Marvel) in the comic publishing world, and hopefully strike lightning twice by creating a second wave of the great "Marvel Age of Comics."

And more about how they did later ... hey folks, I'm gonna get at least a half dozen articles out of the wonders of Atlas before I'm through! I have to spread the wealth of information out over multiple entries! But if you'd like something to chew on, consider this - by the time I've covered all of Atlas's 24 books, the combined articles about Atlas will have outlasted the company itself by threefold.

Sad.

JOHN TARGITT - MANSTALKER

Atlas was largely unabashed about admitting to its ... I was going to try and find a polite euphemism for it, but the word I'd be looking for is "aping" ... aping of other sources for it's material. In fact, in Targitt's own letter column, Lieber says "...comics and cinema are closely related art forms. For years, comics have borrowed cinematic film techniques, and vice versa. Now ATLAS has carried the relationship a step further, by employing cinematic ideas for the comic medium."

What he means to say is "We crammed BULLITT and DEATH WISH into one comic!"

Targitt is John Targitt, a New York police detective whose wife and kids are brutally killed at the hands of the mob. Targitt decides to take the law into his own hands and visits bloody justice on his family's killers. And thus, a superhero is born, right? Well --- NO!

John Targitt started off as a cop-thriller (Atlas covered all its bases by having at least one comic for every popular genre of the day) and despite what you see in these pictures, Targitt didn't don a super-hero costume until his second issue (featured here on the cover to his third issue), when the previous concept was trashed and the book was turned into a super-hero drama -- now called John Targitt ... Man-Stalker!

This was the "Third Issue Switch," a metamorphosis that affected fully half of Atlas' books (either around issue two or three). Lacking the strong editorial guidance his brother had provided to Marvel, Lieber met flagging Atlas sales with a sudden decision to effect sweeping cosmetic and thematic changes to all existing characters. Targitt was luckier than most, as many character were wholly unrecognizable after the wait between second and third issues -- at least some of the plot strings continued after the genre was abandoned.

Overall, the book was a tragic mishmosh of vigilante cliches, started by writer Ric Ayers and then taken over by Gerry Conway in a story that poorly represented his talents. Art was provided by the very capable Nostrand, reaching for a style that was strangely cartoony considering the subject matter.

All that said, though, I have to admit a shred of affection for a hero who will - without skipping a beat - empty eleven shots from a .357 magnum at point blank range --- into a stubborn doorknob.

I like chicks, boss.

Weird Suspense featuring The Tarantula

Michael Fleischer rears his ugly head over and over again in the credit boxes over at Atlas, not least of which for this book.

The Tarantula, a morbid, grim, stiff story featuring the Count Eugene Lycosa (who looks not a little like Eugene LEVY), a European blue-blood whose family line has been cursed by the evil witch ... um ... Rak-Kosa, I think ... it failed to make an impression ... and now, under the full moon, become some kind of man-tarantula creature.

To feed his inhuman tastes, the Count wanders the seedy streets of America (he's abandoned his native where-ever-the-heck-he's-from) , cornering thieves and murderers and ex-sanguinating them in scenes which possess all the drama of a Berenstein Bears book.

If you're not familiar with Michael Fleischer, he's most famous for being engaged in a high-profile lawsuit with Harlan Ellison, and for not much else. He DID write The Great Superman Book, a compendium of the Superman mythos (a dry, technical tome which holds interests to only the most die-hard of fans ... such as myself, for instance), and assorted comics here and there.

Fleischer was assisted on this book by the underrated Pat Boyette, whose very competent compositions sadly lent little to the book. In fact, I have to wonder who was behind this decision: When Lycosa transforms into the Tarantula, his head and hands are visibly affected, but he continues to wear his fashionable sky-blue Nehru jacket and brown loafers. "What kind of Man-Tarantula reads Playboy?"

On a side-note, what exactly constitutes "Weird Suspense?" "One of these fish is responsible for teaching the hats to sing! But whi-i-i-ich one ... ?" Weird, indeed.

Yep, agile as a cat ...

The DESTRUCTOR

Aaargh, Steve Ditko!

Yes, yes, I know he's responsible for Shade, Dr.Strange, Spider-Man, Creeper, Hawk and Dove, Blue Beetle and the Question ... and I just don't care. For every brilliant character he's created, he's got fifteen of these hyperactive, double-jointed fashion victims bounding around.

I think it was Archie Goodwin who scripted these stories, and - like others working for Atlas - he was working well below his capabilities. Jay Hunter - the former street thug and son of a famous scientist who eventually becomes the Destructor by drinking a super-scientific serum *whew* - actually starts his career with the a terrible line which begins something like "(I'll be) a smasher, a destroyer ... SOME KIND OF DESTRUCTOR."

Destructor? He didn't like "Destroyer?" I don't know about you, but outside of talking about this comic I've never actually used the word "destructor" in any fashion, nor would I want to.

Destructor is largely cut from the Daredevil mold of heroes - besides his tremendous strength and agility, he has heightened senses and heals remarkably quickly from even fatal wounds. In his fourth issue, possibly due to a near-miss with a "third-issue switch," he gets exposed to some kind of radiation that gives him the power to shoot destructive beams from his hands.

This ranks the Destructor in with a very select group of super-heroes who have had TWO origins. Not that it made him any better.

One of the last things that sticks with me about the Destructor is a pair of villains he fought in his third issue; a man-hating animal trainer named The Huntress, and a bare-chested beast-man named Lobo ... who had amorous intentions towards Huntress. Destructor offs the pair of them at the end of that issue, so it never gets developed or resolved, but I thought it was a charming dynamic to add to the story.