Owning The Woe: 31 Days Of Atlas #24

In which the blogger attempts to define the appeal of the earliest Marvel Comics, so as to nail down why Atlas’ attempts to clone that method were so unsuccessful, continued from here: It wasn’t that the Marvel Comics of the key period 1961-8 were consciously designed to identify the universe as meaningless and human beings, […]

Back To The Origins Of Superman & Batman: 31 Days Of Atlas #23

continued from here and its discussion of what was revolutionary about the Marvel Revolution, and why it was that Atlas Comics never seemed to grasp how to productively appropriate the new approach that Lee, Kirby, Ditko et al’s developed during the 60s; This was not how the superhero genre was held to work. Most especially […]

What Actually Was The Marvel Method Then?: 31 Days Of Atlas Comics # 22

continued from here: In an earlier post about Atlas Comics’ Phoenix: The Man Of Tomorrow, I argued – beginning here – that the book’s stories didn’t appear to reflect an informed grasp of the history of the superhero comic on the part of its creators. In particular, I suggested that the narrative traditions used in […]

Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Green Lantern, Warlock & E-Man – The SF-Superhero Competition: 31 Days Of Atlas #21

continued from here, although today’s post is, I assure you, largely self-contained: Perhaps I might pause at this point in proceedings to cast a glance at the competition faced by Phoenix: The Man Of Tomorrow #1 on the newsstands of November 1974. Given that the title was Atlas Comics’ opening gambit in its attempt to […]

Or We Might Choose To Study Jim Starlin’s Captain Marvel Instead: 31 Days Of Atlas #20

continued from here: To suggest the creators of Phoenix: The Man Of Tomorrow #1 would have benefitted from the example of DC Comic’s pioneering Silver Age superhero reboots isn’t to say that that alone would have made a bestseller out of Rovin and Amendola’s book. By 1974, DC Comics was itself struggling in the marketplace, […]

Bring On The (Interesting) Bad Guys: 31 Days Of Atlas #19

continued from here: As I’ve been discussing in the past few blog posts, the Phoenix was a profoundly unimpressive comicbook, and the shortfalls in craft that caused that underachievement appear rooted in a lack of control when it came to the narrative traditions of the superhero genre. Yet none of that means that Phoenix couldn’t […]

Phoenix: Neither Marvel Nor DC: 31 Days Of Atlas #18

continued from here, where the problematical relationship of The Phoenix with the storytelling tradition established by DC Silver-Age superbooks was discussed; Despite being in so many way an archetypal, if poorly executed, DC Silver-Age Sci-Fi superhero series, Phoenix came complete with what appears to have been a facile Marvelesque makeover. And so, where the likes […]