New: Day 31: In the final post of Them Darned Superpeople’s ’31 Days Of Atlas Comics’ series, there’s a look at Wulf The Barbarian, a sword’n’sorcery comic which, although thankfully free of the excesses of Iron Jaw, settled for the formulaic when novelty was more called for. (here)
Please do scroll down for links to all the other posts in this series.
When I started writing these 31 blog posts about Atlas Comics, it was in an effort to make sure that I always had something intriguing to do in what promised to be, for a variety of reasons, a trying month. That was as far as my plans had developed: get up, take an hour or two, write a post about a failed comics company from long ago, and then re-enter the real world of challenges great and small. To my surprise, the project has actually worked. The reading has been enjoyable, the writing has proven a welcome challenge. It really has been useful, during times of some considerable anxiety and disappointment, to re-engage with comics I’ve hardly glanced at in 45 years or so, and to chin-stroke about what made them tick, and, all too frequently, what didn’t.
In a belated attempt to keep track of what I’ve written and why, what follows is a simple list of the titles and topics I’ve taken a swing at. Should you be looking for something to read for a moment or two, and I fear it sounds like hubris to even suggest it, then I hope you might possibly find it through the summaries and links below. The subject of Atlas Comics is, shall we say, a particularly niche topic of interest, but then, in the long run, there’s very little that isn’t.
New: Day 21: a look at the comic books that Phoenix was in competition with during November 1974, with special attention paid to Iron Man, Green Lantern, Warlock, E-Man and Captain Marvel.(here)
Day 1: On the brief existence of Atlas Comics as seen through the lens of 1974/75’s UK fan press. (here)
Day 2: On the first few months of titles from Atlas Comics, as well as about the company’s attempt to portray itself as a radical and reader-friendly publisher. (here)
Day 3: On the company’s first distributed title, the profoundly underwhelming Movie Monsters. (here)
Day 4: On Atlas’ attempts to portray itself as the “new” Marvel Comics in its advertising and editorial pages, first touched upon in Day 2’s post. (here)
Day 5: On the very different ways in which Atlas’ first few comics and magazines portrayed Satan. (here)
The Grim Ghost #1
Day 6: On The Grim Ghost #1, as well asthe DC Comics 1973/4 horror genre reworking of The Spectre. (here)
Day 7: On The Grim Ghost’s similiarties to the shortlived 1940 Timely superwoman The Black Widow. (here)
Day 8: More on The Grim Ghost and The (Original) Black Widow, with attention being paid to Golden Age storytelling. (here)
Day 9: On The Grim Ghost #1 and its portrayal of the Devil, Hell and the afterlife. (here)
Day 10: On The Grim Ghost as an iredeemably evil protagonist (here)
Day 11: On Ghost Rider, Son Of Satan and The Grim Ghost: 70s supernatural superheroes. (here)
Iron Jaw #1
Day 12: On Ironjaw #1 and the attempt by Atlas to elbow in on the market for barbarian titles such as Conan. (here)
Day 13: On Ironjaw #1 and its claim to be the most fundamentally misogynistic mainstream comicbook of the past 50 years. (here)
Day 14: On Ironjaw and misogyny: Part 2. (here)
Phoenix: The Man Of Tomorrow
Day 15: On Phoenix #1 and its puzzling relationship with Silver Age DC Comics titles such as Flash & Green Lantern. (here)
(Day 16: On Five Favourite Atlas Comics covers:- here.)
Day 17: On Phoenix #1 and the DC Comics Silver-Age tradition: Part 2. (here.)
Day 18: On Phoenix #1 and its puzzling relationship with the post-1960 Marvel Comics tradition of storytelling. (here.)
Day 19: On Phoenix #1 and its oddly incompetent alien invaders, with special reference to The Mighty Weaponers Of Qward! Oh yes. (here)
Day 20: A comparison of two very different SF-flavoured superheroes from 1974, Jim Starlin’s Captain Marvel and Atlas Comics’ Phoenix: The Man Of Tomorrow. (here)
Day 21: a look at the comic books that Phoenix was in competition with during November 1974, with special attention paid to Iron Man, Green Lantern, Warlock, E-Man and Captain Marvel.(here)
Day 22: a look at what The Marvel Revolution of the Sixties actually involved, so as to better grasp how Atlas Comics so frequently seemed to misunderstand the very model it was attempting to emulate.(here)
Day 23: On why Superman’s origin is ultimately more tragic than Batman’s, and what light this throws on Atlas Comics’ attempt to load up their stories with angst. (here)
Day 24: More on why it is that Atlas struggled to emulate the Marvel Method, including glances at the success of Peter Parker as a character and the failure, bless him, of Hank Pym.(here)
Day 25: A penultimate look at why it was that so many attempts to clone the appeal of 60s/70s Marvel Comics ended in bland, shouty, angsty stories. (here)
Day 26: One last look at Phoenix: The Man Of Tomorrow, whose creators were clearly trying to follow in the footsteps of Marvel’s more angstful superheroes. But had anyone involved in Phoenix ever looked closely at Fantastic Four #1, the comic which kickstarted the Marvel Revolution in 1961? (here)
Vicki
Day 27: Today’s mostly forgotten old Atlas title is 1974’s Vicki #1, a strange & doomed attempt to muscle in on Archie Comics’ dominance of the teen romance comedy comics marketplace. (here)
Day 28: On the changes in the teen comedy/romance comicbook in the mid-70s, and on the mystery of how Atlas thought Vicki might appropriate a profitable degree of Archie’s audience when Marvel’s Millie and DC’s Debbie couldn’t. (here)
Wulf
Day 29: Was Atlas the only comics company in 1974/5 to badly misjudge the marketplace, and can Wulf The Barbarian tell us anything about the ways in which such misjudgments occured? (here)
Day 30: The penultimate post in Them Darned Superpeople’s ’31 Days Of Atlas Comics’ series takes a look at the best of 1974/5’s American comics, from Kamandi to Spider-Man to Planet Of The Apes. What was Atlas up against? (here)
Day 31: In the final post of Them Darned Superpeople’s ’31 Days Of Atlas Comics’ series, there’s a look at Wulf The Barbarian, a sword’n’sorcery comic which, although thankfully free of the excesses of Iron Jaw, settled for the formulaic when novelty was more called for. (here)
31 Days Of Atlas is now over.
Them Darned Superpeople 
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