I’m gonna assume you all know about Atlas /Seaboard Comics, Martin Goodman’s short-lived comics company (October 1974-June 1975) — if not, there’s a ton of excellent, informative articles all over the Internet. It’s a fascinating story on many levels, but today I want to focus on one aspect of the company’s output that I don’t think has gotten all that much attention: how strongly they leaned into the Horror/ Monster/ Supernatural genre during their brief existence.
The common perception is that the self-appointed mission of the new Atlas Comics Company was to beat Marvel in the marketplace. House ads and editorials brazenly put forward the idea that Atlas was ‘More Marvel Than Marvel’, claiming the company was ‘The NEW House Of Ideas!’ They deliberately tried to make their covers look as much like Marvel’s covers as possible (without triggering a lawsuit) and also followed Marvel’s lead by publishing mainly Superhero comics.
It’s undeniably true that the logos, blurbs, trade dress and overall cover design aesthetic matched Marvel’s 70s cover style pretty closely. And eventually, once it became clear that the entire line was woefully under-performing, they did convert several titles (THE SCORPION, PHOENIX, and TARGITT) into conventional superhero books, shifted the dystopian sci-fi MORLOCK 2001 in a more overtly super-heroic direction and even gave THE DESTRUCTOR an unnecessary power up-grade.
But actually, the first wave of Atlas titles included as many Horror / Monster comics as Super-hero comics (more, in fact, if we count the b/w magazines DEVILINA and WEIRD TALES OF THE MACABRE too). And I have to say, the weird/ supernatural nature of many of the Atlas comics was one of the things I liked best about the upstart company.
I’ll be back a bit later with more on this under-reported aspect of the Atlas oeuvre…..
The common perception is that the self-appointed mission of the new Atlas Comics Company was to beat Marvel in the marketplace. House ads and editorials brazenly put forward the idea that Atlas was ‘More Marvel Than Marvel’, claiming the company was ‘The NEW House Of Ideas!’ They deliberately tried to make their covers look as much like Marvel’s covers as possible (without triggering a lawsuit) and also followed Marvel’s lead by publishing mainly Superhero comics.
It’s undeniably true that the logos, blurbs, trade dress and overall cover design aesthetic matched Marvel’s 70s cover style pretty closely. And eventually, once it became clear that the entire line was woefully under-performing, they did convert several titles (THE SCORPION, PHOENIX, and TARGITT) into conventional superhero books, shifted the dystopian sci-fi MORLOCK 2001 in a more overtly super-heroic direction and even gave THE DESTRUCTOR an unnecessary power up-grade.
But actually, the first wave of Atlas titles included as many Horror / Monster comics as Super-hero comics (more, in fact, if we count the b/w magazines DEVILINA and WEIRD TALES OF THE MACABRE too). And I have to say, the weird/ supernatural nature of many of the Atlas comics was one of the things I liked best about the upstart company.
I’ll be back a bit later with more on this under-reported aspect of the Atlas oeuvre…..
statistics: Posted by ByronOrlok — 1:20 AM - Today — Replies 0 — Views 160