The Defenders first appeared in the debut issue of Marvel Feature published in the third full week of July 1971. The title’s initial quarterly schedule meant that the second Defenders tale wouldn’t appear until mid-October of the same year, with the non-team’s final tryout appearance arriving in January 1972. The sales must have shown some […]

On The Defenders: A Titan Walks Among Us in 1972’s Marvel Feature #3, by Roy Thomas, Ross Andru, Bill Everett et al. At the end of A Titan Walks Among Us, the Sub-Mariner quits his admittedly informal alliance with Doctor Strange because human beings are ungrateful, suspicious and violent. Why should he continue to respond […]

The great myth of Doctor Strange’s first origin, by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, is that a previously “proud, haughty” surgeon who “cared but little for (his) fellow men” was transformed through sacrifice, study, and, eventually, enlightenment into a fully realised human being. There’s absolutely no doubt that Strange’s experiences with the Ancient One in […]

It isn’t true that every new comic book needs a distinct identity to set it apart from its many fellows. Through the decades, success has, of course, frequently arrived from the cloning of the appeal of existing titles. A little copyright-outflanking here to avoid the lawsuits, a slight change in detail and emphasis there to […]

continued from here; Atlas Comics never seemed to me to have been a well-run venture. Even as a twelve year boy, its titles seemed doomed to failure. Some of them were, briefly enough, captivating, as with The Scorpion’s first issue. Others were faintly alluring in their sheer strangeness, as with the potpouri of exploitation cliches […]

An unexpected and unavoidable family responsibility has arrived on my doorstep this morning. Which is absolutely fine, because it’s a privilege to have a family that I’m glad to feel a responsibility towards. As a consequence, I’ll delay finishing my piece about Wulf The Barbarian until tomorrow, on what will also be the last of […]

It would be wrong to suggest that Atlas Comics was the only company in its day to struggle to come to terms with America’s speedily changing comics marketplace. Yes, Atlas went about its business with such hubris and such incompetence that it had in effect euthanised itself within a year of the announcement of its […]

continued from here: Vicki was in many ways the most traditional form of comicbook that Atlas ever published.  For wasn’t that how the form itself began in America, with thick collections of cheaply acquired pre-existing material sold to young readers with new eye-catching covers? Without access to Seaboard/Atlas’ sales figures – which I would dearly […]