Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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Last month, just two Atlas/Seaboard productions greeted us in this feature but Martin and Chip Goodman are in no mood to mess about. And so it is that, this time out, we find five brand new titles awaiting us when we rush into our favourite retailer of American publications.
There's also a Gary Gerani article dedicated to The Many Horrors of Dan Curtis.
Redoubtable as it may be, this title will endure for just two issues.
Possibly my favourite Atlas comic of them all is launched, as an astronaut's rescued from a crashed space lab, by aliens, only to discover they intend to destroy mankind.
With an incentive like that, it's not long before he steals a hi-tech suit from them and sets out to stop their attack on Reykjavik.
Let's be honest, if that Dick Giordano/Sal Amendola cover doesn't make you want to buy this thing, nothing will.
A legend is born when Ironjaw cleaves, threatens and axes his way into infamy.
It's the far-flung future and our hero's just hanging around, minding his own business of murdering, ravishing and maiming everyone he encounters, when a sequence of events leads him to an encounter with a princess who's secretly his sister, making him the unknowing heir to the throne.
Will he manage to be prevented from killing her and us for long enough to discover the truth about himself?
And, really, would any kingdom seriously want to be ruled by him?
Another sensational first issue hits our brains and, through it, we thrill to the origin of the Grim Ghost when an 18th Century highwayman is executed but then sent to 20th Century Earth to do Satan's bidding.
Yes, this does sound like a mashup of the Spectre and Ghost Rider but I'm sure it will prove to hit the heights of originality.
That, I cannot say, as I've never read it.
We also meet a 6-page article called Filmdom's Vampire Lovers, and I think we can guess what that's about. I suspect Hammer will be getting many a mention.
As for this mag, I can announce it will last for just two issues.
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21 comments:
On 'Weird Tales of the Macabre', that strange right arm angle is slightly reminiscent of the arm angle on Savage Sword of Conan # 32's cover
( albeit the figure's not wielding a mace! ) :
https://www.comics.org/issue/733430/cover/4/
Phillip
Steve strangely that Devilina cover was used for an issue of Vampirella ( with the image reversed) The only comic I was disappointed in here, despite the great cover was Iron Jaw #1 Sekowsky was not the right artist for sword & sorcery but Pablo Marcos would soon take over the art chores. Seaboard black and white mags were mostly pretty good and both titles here were imho better than most.
Pretty sure THE DESTRUCTOR, WULF THE BARBARIAN and PLANET OF VAMPIRES were the first Atlas titles I saw for sale anywhere. All first issues. I missed the first IRONJAW and the first TWO issues of GRIM GHOST.
I vaguely remember seeing the first PHOENIX on sale somewhere, but I think I must have passed on it. I’ve owned a copy of it for years, and I know I’ve read it several times, but I can barely remember even the gist of the storyline.
Anyhow…!
GRIM GHOST strikes me as an odd mash-up of Ghost Rider and Fleisher’s own Spectre too. I kind of like it even though it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Satan employs The Ghost to harvest the souls of Evildoers, but those sinners were almost certainly headed for hell anyway, right? Like, what’s your hurry, Satan? I was watching the 1945 movie THE WICKED LADY a few weeks ago and James Mason’s jolly highwayman reminded me somewhat of Matthew Dunsinane (Mason’s character gets betrayed by a woman and subsequently hanged too). I quite like Ernie Colon’s art on the series.
b.t.
A lot of people have commented over the years about the degree to which the Atlas Comics looked like Marvel Comics. Well, yes and no. Certainly that “ATLAS COMICS” banner at the top of the covers is evocative of the “MARVEL COMICS GROUP” banner that adorned Marvel’s covers in the early Bronze Age. Same with the dynamic Gaspar Saladino logos. I’m sure the intent was to grab the attention of Marvel fans.
Looking at these covers, I’m reminded of something that struck me back in the day — the absence of word balloons and other blurbs. Many of the Atlas first issues (IRONJAW, GRIM GHOST, PHOENIX, PLANET OF VAMPIRES, THE DESTRUCTOR, THE SCORPION, WULF THE BARBARIAN, MORLOCK 2001) had the Marvel-esque trade dress up top, but somewhat movie poster-ish images below, very different from Marvel’s usual super-kinetic approach. I thought it looked really cool and distinctive. By the second issues, someone ( probably Martin Goodman) apparently had decided the covers needed to look WAY more “Marvel-ish” — there were a lot more blurbs shouting a you from that point on.
b.t.
That’s a good point about the distinctive covers.
By the early/mid-80s, when I was buying Marvel and DC comics, the shouty captions and over-the-top cover announcements had mostly gone, leaving the covers clean. Can anyone pinpoint where the change happened - or was it a gradual thing?
Matthew:
Hardly a comprehensive answer to your query, but I remembered a string of CONAN THE BARBARIAN covers in the 1980s that were blurb-free. A quick check at the GCD reveals that issue #123 (June 1981) was the first one. The wordless streak lasted all the way through issue #206 (May 1988)!
Thinking on it some more, DC had blurb-less covers on quite a few of their “Mystery” titles (especially WEIRD WAR for some reason) in the early 70s. And Charlton too, actually.
So, it’s not that the Sans Wordage cover style was UNIQUE to Atlas, but it was definitely unlike what Marvel was doing at the time.
One last thing: several years ago, Steve posted an excellent article about the “Lady Cop” story in 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL, in which he noted (among other things) that the whole entertainingly off-beat enterprise reminded him of Atlas Comics. I concurred with the assessment and commented that even the “blurb-free” cover by Dick Giordano reinforced the idea.
b.t.
Also, I’m glad I never saw IRONJAW #1 for sale back in the day, and that it wasn’t the first Atlas comic I bought. I think Sekowsky’s utterly unappealing artwork and Fleisher’s extra-misogynistic take on barbarian ethics might have soured me on the whole line.
b.t.
Charlie had the PHOENIX issue off the spinner. And IRON JAW.
Out of all the Atlas comics, though, his favorite was the first issue of the SCORPION because it had that 1930s pulp context and art.
Over the fast few months, I have indeed pondered why martin GOODMAN did not (maybe he did?) try to have some link up OF SCORPION with DC’s SHADOW given Goodman‘s purpose in this was to bring down Marvel as I understand it.
At the time, though, I simply bought those comics which appeal to me. I wasn’t loyal to any particular company. Atlas offered additional buying choices, though I probably gave them first consideration since they were new, fresh, and exciting in various ways.
Charlie:
Supposedly, Atlas editor Jeff Rovin originally wanted to adapt the vintage pulp hero The Spider, but Goodman didn’t want to shell out for the license fee , so Rovin reached out to Chaykin and said “give me something like The Spider or The Shadow” and voila, The Scorpion.
And yes — “new, fresh and exciting” was a big part of the appeal of Atlas, for me too.
b.t.
BY - Thanks! Truly, when I hear a story like not wanting to pay the licensing rights for a pulp character from 30 or 40 years ago, who probably hadn’t been published in a few decades…How much could the royalties have cost?
Without having more details, I throw it in my folder entitled comic books were a nickel and dime business.
For comparison, when Marvel started publishing Conan, Goodman only authorized paying something like 100 bucks per issue for the license fee. Roy Thomas had (somewhat foolishly) already agreed to the deal and the fee actually cost a bit more than that, so he paid the balance out of his own pocket :D
b.t.
I also got Iron Jaw #1 at the time. And Devilina #1, although I'm pretty sure I got that later (I recall seeing it in shops here along with Thrilling Adventures #1 a while - maybe a year or so? - after Atlas comics vanished; not sure what was all about).
Its hard to say which was worse, Iron Jaw or Devilina, qualitatively speaking. But as the latter had a greater page count I'd say it has to be Devilina, because there's more of it.
The lead title feature was hilariously bad - Satan's mum is too embarrassed to live in heaven after her son's antics rebelling against the Creator, so she moves to a spooky looking old house in New England with her latest sprog, young Devilina ("what an unusual name - is it Polish?") who lives a relatively normal life until her 18th birthday. At which point she suddenly grows a pair of horns, and her mother has to explain to her that she's Satan's sister.
After going to college - where her boyfriend is burnt alive by demons - Devilina then takes to wearing a sexy boots, bikini and cape combo, and waving a magic sword swearing to take revenge on her brother. Its really hard to convey how stupid it all is.
The main problem though is that in order to work - and I'm using the term very loosely - that kind of comic really needs an artist who's good at drawing young ladies not wearing very much. Which it doesn't have.
From which, Steve, you can infer that the mag did not have the sexiness of Vampirella. At all.
-sean
PS Your guess correctly about the article in Devilina, Steve, as it is about Hammer Films starring the fragrant Ingrid Pitt and/or Yutte Stensgaard. How do you do it?
-sean
*You guessed correctly...
Duh.
Stevious, I've removed your comment, so your email address doesn't get spammed to death by any bots that visit this site. Thanks for the offer but I'm avoiding acquiring comics at the moment in a bid to reduce domestic clutter. :)
Thanks BT! Ill add that anecdote to my “comics was a nickel-and-dime industry” back in the day! Not to mention hiring 20 year olds to manage the aueen’s jewels like Thomas, Conway, Shooter…
When I read “ROY THE BOY,s ” ALTER EGO and BACK ISSUE” monthly magazines, I am continuously surprised by those being interviewed from back in the 60s and 70s at how young they were and yet having massive editorial and writing authority.
According to Wikipedia Martin Goodman and his wife planned to travel on the Hindenburg airship in 1937 but changed their minds and so avoided being killed in the disaster! How the history of comics might have been different as it was Goodman who created Marvel.
Charlie, I actually think being a 'nickel and dime' biz was a big part of the appeal of comics back in the day. For 8 or 9p you get get the latest Amazing Adventures/Killraven by Don McGregor and Craig Russell, which was completely it's own cutting edge thing, outside of mainstream culture - what's not to like about that?
And having a load of young people working on them is where the creative energy came from in the 70s (Kirby aside). Not that I'm especially keen on Conway or HouseRoy's work, but Marvel seemed to do quite well out of their contribution.
- sean
SEAN - I suppose I am a man of many opinions, many of them perhaps contradictory, lol. But I do enjoy the juxtaposition of “nickel and dime comic industry “up until perhaps the 1980s onto what it became In the 1990s, and then the billion dollar movies over the last 20 years.
I really don’t know how different the comics would have been, for example, if Marvel hadn’t started on their killing spree in the early 1970s and killing Prince Namor‘s wife and dad, Gwen, Stacey and Captain Stacey, Sunfire…
Perhaps an editor or writer with more wisdom, perhaps in their 40s, Could have intervened and prevented the slaughter. Those five characters above could have, and in my opinion should have, provided years upon years upon years of storylines that were sufficiently appealing to everyone from 10 to 90 years old.
But this is only relevant for Marvel comics. DC comics were in their own world and much more staid and consistent. I mean, I really don’t recall them killing off anybody except iron lad from the Legion of superheroes in the late 60s?
Charlie - Robin (one of them) snuffed it, in 'A Death in the Family', by Starlin et al.
Phillip
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