Saturday 4 September 2010

Atlas Comics' The Brute #1. Having friends for dinner.

Atlas Comics The Brute #1The good news for all lovers of failed 1970s comic book companies is I’ve recently acquired a whole bunch of Atlas Comics.

The bad news for me is that to review them I’m going to have to read them.

If I’m honest, like the glutton I am I’ve already taken a peek at all of them, and the thing that strikes me is that, even though they’re written and drawn by different people, there seems to be some sort of house style going on. I’m not saying it’s a good house style but it’s there and I’ll no doubt be touching on it as I do the other reviews.

But let’s kick off with the mag that featured probably my favourite cover of any Atlas Comic, The Brute. Lovers of the old movie Trog’ll need no introduction to the concept, as a group of boys find an ape man living in a cave. Being the hero of the book, he then befriends them before setting off to fight crime and defend the weak, picking up a colourful costume and a sidekick along the way.

Well. No. Being an ape man he kills two of them and, as far as I can make out, eats them. It’s certainly a new approach to the concept of the American comic book, the super-hero cannibal.

The local townsfolk, having no liking for such fancy innovation, aren’t going to stand for that sort of behaviour and so, after murdering a reporter, the Brute’s put into captivity whereupon he murders someone else and goes on the run.

This is the only issue of The Brute I ever had as a kid, so I don’t have a clue what happened with future instalments but, on the strength of this, it’s madness. They have a central character who doesn’t think, doesn’t speak, has no motivation, has no super-powers, no gadgets, no gimmicks and murders anything that moves. Spider-Man he ain’t.

Atlas Comics The Brute #1 caged
The Brute tackles his first super-villain.

But then maybe that’s the problem with Atlas characters in general. You don’t get the feeling an awful lot of thought was put into them and just what was going to be done with them after the first issue. The thing’s written by Mike Fleisher who wrote the noticeably blood-thirsty Spectre stories for DC and clearly brought that sensibility with him to Atlas. Sadly, what he didn’t bring was any of that strip’s style, or any interest in human beings. Was this a reflection on the mind-set of Mike Fleisher or was it a reflection on the fact that he seemed to be seen by Atlas Comics as their answer to Stan Lee, writing a bewildering number of titles at once and possibly stretching himself far too thin in the process?

Sadly, as Atlas demonstrated, not everyone can be Stan Lee.

And not every brainless hero can be the Hulk.

9 comments:

Andrew Wahl said...

Hey, Steve. I just reviewed this one on my site a couple months ago. I think I liked it even less than you did; it was one of the few Bronze Age books ever to earn a D+ from me! There are some good Atlas books in the mix, so it shouldn't be all painful!

Cheers,
Andrew
ComicsBronzeAge.com

Steve said...

Hi, Andrew. I knew I'd seen a review of The Brute around somewhere in relatively recent times. I have a feeling I've managed to buy all the bad Atlas books but time will tell.

Actually, although it was a totally misconceived comic, I quite enjoyed The Brute, mostly because I found his tendency to murder everyone he meets unintentionally funny.

Kid A said...

I'm not that well acquainted with Atlas, but I have all 4 issues of The Destructor and it's silly fun like many Marvel titles of the time. And at least he had Steve Ditko to make it all go down easier. I'm not so familiar with Mike Sekowsky's art, but he seemed to have been around for quite awhile by the time this book hit.

Wooly Rupert said...

Did Atlas every explicitly say they were doing superHERO comics? You've got two cannibals, and two guys working for the Devil/Demonic cults. At least if they ever did a crossover, there'd be a reason for the two characters to fight.

Anonymous said...

It's a good job you made this featured post drawing it to my attention, Steve, as I have actually read the Brute #2, and can let you know what happens next.

So basically the Brute kills both pilots in the plane he stowed away on at the end of #2, and it crashes throwing his unconscious body clear, which is found by mad scientist Dr Speer - a sort of cut-price Anton Arcane - and his hunchback assistant Eric who take it back to a secret laboratory, which is full of water tanks with weird reptile fish-people in them.

It seems Speer has long dreamed of turning humanity into an aquatic race to save us from world war three - which doesn't really seem like an obvious solution to nuclear proliferation to me (but then I am not a misunderstood scientific genius) - and decides the best way forward is to put a computer chip in the Brute's brain who can then become the new assistant.

So Speer then kills the hunchback (not sure why... to save on redundancy pay?) and proceeds to use the Brute to get revenge against the scientific community who have rejected him because they think he's mad and don't approve of experimenting on humans and turning them into fish people. By the end everyone gets killed except the Brute, and the lady doctor from the first issue (who tracked him down to the lab btw).

Hope that helps.
I'm afraid I am not familiar with #3, but #2 ends with the promise that 'Next: The Brute Speaks!' so I suspect a third issue Atlas reboot. Maybe I'll look for it online, and give it a read.
If so, I'll get back to you.

-sean

Anonymous said...

*stowed away on at the end of #1
Apologies for the poor edit there. Duh.

-sean

Steve W. said...

Thanks, Sean. That is a very thorough summary and an education to me. Now I'm hoping issue #3 saw him get a costume and super-powers and change his name. It would destroy my levels of faith in Atlas' editorial team if he didn't.

Anonymous said...

Sorry if I went on a bit there, Steve, but #2 is just such a bizarre story...
Anyway, I have now read The Brute #3, which quite frankly was a bit of a chore but as you regularly put in the effort on posts every week I thought it was the least I could do in return.

So: its a different creative team from the first two issues, but Gary Friedrich was nearly as mental as Michael Fleischer so its not like things get sensible or anything.
The cover is a bit super-heroey, but essentially #3 is not unlike the first issue. Only now the sheriff seems to have the hots for the lady doctor, who in turn appears drawn to the Brute while she studies him, basically setting up a sort of er, romantic triangle.

Then in the last couple of pages the generic super-hero featured on the cover turns up to stop the Brute (who escaped again). 'Next Issue: Call Him - Doomstalker!'
But no-one called him anything of course, because #4 didn't come out.
Fwiw, my theory is that Doomstalker would have been revealed as a robot. Thats assuming the next issue would have been consistent with this one though, and it is Atlas, so who knows?

-sean

Steve W. said...

Thanks, Sean. From what I've seen of other later issues of Atlas Comics, I'm going to assume that, next issue, Doomstalker would have killed the Brute and then taken over as the star of the comic. That would have been such an Atlas thing to do.