Atari Force (mini-comic) #1 (1982)



Created and written by: Gerry Conway & Roy Thomas
Visual concepts and art: Ross Andru, Dick Giordano, and Mike DeCarlo
Design: Neal Pozner
lettering: John Costanza
colors: Adrienne Roy
editor: Dick Giordano

Synopsis: It's 2005, and after a devastating world war, the world has been effectively saved by the Atari Corporation, which seems to be in charge of all technological innovation for the human race. A mysterious villain is infiltrating the headquarters while Commander Martin Champion, Assistant Director Lydia Perez, and Dr. Lucas Orion, all employees of Atari, are summoned to the HQ in response to their being an emergency at the top secret Multiverse project there. On the way, Champion flashes back to an escape mission years earlier where he first met Perez, and Orion flashes back to his memories of the devastation during the war and his desire to work with Atari for peace as a result.

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What an exciting time for comics. Once their own stand-alone medium, we'd seen an increasing amount of cross-merchandising between comic books and toys in the second half of the 1970s, and, only a year prior to this, DC had taken this approach to the next level by producing high quality mini-comics that were actually packaged with Masters of the Universe action figures as a means of helping children get further drawn into that world so that they would buy more toys.

The idea of doing the same for video games may seem strange to some, but it actually makes even more sense. Consider that video games of this era had four bit graphics: essentially colored blocks on a screen that required a lot of imagination on the players' part:


("Defender", 1981. The first Atari game to be sold with an Atari Force mini-comic)

Including a mini-comic along with the game, which would show the player how the game was really supposed to look and provide a rich backstory as well, seems almost essential to me now, living in an age of games with sophisticated 3D rendered graphics, movie cut-scenes, and elaborate story-lines.

And that's really what Atari Force was initially supposed to be -- a team of likable heroes who somehow end up in situations each issue that mirror the events of the Atari video game with which the issue is packaged. You can even see how, from this standpoint, the idea of a multiverse project could be utilized as a vehicle for getting our heroes from one game to the next each issue.

And yet, that's not where the comic ended up going. Instead of providing solid, stand-alone stories that lent backstory and visuals to the game being promoted, Conway and Thomas went a bit rogue with the whole thing, providing an ongoing continuity and little to no acknowledgment of the game itself. You could bring "Berzerk" home from the store, open up the mini-comic inside, and find yourself dropped into the middle of a story you know nothing about, featuring characters you know nothing about, and a conflict that has absolutely no correlation to what happens in the game.

That being said, approaching this whole thing in hindsight, and judging the comic on its merits as a story alone, Conway and Thomas end up producing a surprisingly impressive work that deserves more attention than it has received.

To begin with, the first issue is so thoroughly visually engaging. It's partly the pencils and coloring, and partly just the visual concepts of this futuristic world that are total eye-candy to a sci-fi geek like myself:





There's an elaborate backstory to this world -- a Five Day War that began with an attack on the moon colony, a degrading of society, and the Atari Corporation helping the world to rise out of the ashes and rebuild again. It borrows from some of the great dystopian future films of the time period, even if it misses a key element in the process. Alien, Blade Runner, Terminator, Robocop -- in each case, the corporation that had essentially raised society out of its own ashes and towards a new tomorrow was ALWAYS the villain by the end. Thus, it's a little creepy to see the shameless promoting of Atari as humanity's savior throughout this series.

And there are other problems with the story, to be sure. The main characters of the first issue have no personality to speak of. Martin Champion is every bit as generic as his name suggests, Lydia Perez is the barbed female companion in need of a thaw that feels like a bad throwback to the 1940s, and Lucas Orion is the jaded cynic who is tired of war. They bring nothing else to the table.

The issue, packaged along with Defender, has so many opportunities to use the game's premise (a spaceship blasting aliens), especially as a third of the issue is spent on Champion recalling a rescue mission he and Perez conducted during the great Five Day War. But it almost seems like Conway and Thomas go out of their way to avoid doing that, as the main action scene of this issue is just Champion and Perez speeding towards the moon and then attempting to land with too little fuel.

And yet, that portion of the story still ends up being surprisingly powerful, as their quest is more desperate than just fighting bad guys -- they're racing to save colonists who are running out of air, and the creative team really manages to pour on the tension with moments like this:



So it's an incredibly weird, poorly conceived, brilliantly done first issue to an awkward but memorable limited series. I'm not sure why the only real action in this issue occurred in a flashback that ends before we even arrive at the climax, why the two threats we're shown in this story (the intruder and the emergency at the Multiverse Project) both end up being severely misleading red herrings that aren't even resolved until next issue, why this comic had nothing to do with Defender, nor why the characters had to be so damn generic, but I somehow managed to love this first outing all the same.


Minor Details: ATARI stands for The Atari Technology And Research Institute? No no no, you can't use the acronym as the first word in its own acronym...





Grade: B+

Atari Force (mini-comic) #2 (1982)



Created and written by: Gerry Conway & Roy Thomas
Visual concepts and art: Ross Andru, Dick Giordano, and Mike DeCarlo
Design: Neal Pozner
lettering: John Costanza
colors: Adrienne Roy
editor: Dick Giordano

Synopsis: What "emergency"? The panicked distress call last issue is now suddenly a laid back but imperative request for five key Atari personnel to travel through the multiverse in search of a more favorable Earth on which to resettle, now that this war-ravaged Earth is dying. There is no emergency; no clock ticking. No one seems to be speeding anymore. Meanwhile, the intruder from last issue is revealed to be Atari's lead security officer, simply testing their defenses. Both threats from last issue were false alarms, it would appear. Between these non-events, we get flashbacks explaining the origins of new characters Mohandas Singh and Li San O'Rourke.

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The cast is rounded out as of this issue, and while Martin Champion, Lydia Perez, and Lucus Orion may have come off as generic in the first story, Mohandas Singh and Li san O'Rourke prove to be anything but. Singh's origin story, in particular, really touches me, as we see him as a poor Indian child, falsely accused of theft, and hunted (along with his best friend) by police until the chase results in the friend's death:



The wealthy industrialist who mistakenly accused them of stealing his wallet attempts to make things right by providing Singh with a first rate education, and the point is made in no unsubtle fashion that the greatest genius of the 21st Century is a child of the present day who could die in the streets as a beggar if not afforded the appropriate resources. Truly powerful message.

Li Sang O'Rourke provides a similarly tragic backstory, as a cocky, tough as nails soldier



who learns humility amidst the horrors of war when she is not able to save her squad:



But beyond even that, I love what Conway and Thomas do with her enthnicity. It would have made for acceptable, status quo 1980s diversity to put a Chinese woman on the team, and perhaps bold to make that Chinese woman tougher and more capable than anyone else on the team, but to also make her the product of a mixed race marriage -- Chinese and Irish -- that was certainly different; an added touch that gives the character and series a little more authenticity.


As usual, the visuals are brilliant:





and, as usual, there is no serious attempt made to connect the comic to the game with which it was packaged (in this case, "Berzerk"). Sure, the first part of the story is called "Berzerk" (even though that in no way describes the events of that chapter), and, when security discovers they have an intruder, instead of calling a "Code Red," they call a "Berserk Situation" (seriously? That's far too many syllables to be efficient). And yet, whereas the only conflict in this story is O'Rourke (still disguised as an intruder) taking on run-of-the-mill Atari security personnel:



the action in Berzerk is supposed to involve fighting giant robots, not random security officers, as shown both on the game cartridge art



and in the game itself -- even with that clumsy 4 bit art, you can see those aren't humans:



How hard would it have been to have called the damned thing a "Red Alert" and had O'Rourke fight robot security forces? I mean, isn't Atari supposed to be the technological center of the 21st Century human race anyway? Dudes in ballcaps really come off as embarrassing in contrast.




This aside, the art remains breathtaking, the premise (now revealed) about searching the multiverse for an inhabitable Earth is intriguing, the attempts at diversity are admirable, and the characterization is unforgettable. GREAT issue.


Minor Details: Man, I'd hate to be one of the last people to arrive at the meeting. Those seats at the table look damn awkward:





Grade: A

Atari Force (mini-comic) #3 (1982)



Created and written by: Gerry Conway & Roy Thomas
Art: Gil Kane, Dick Giordano, and Mike DeCarlo
Design: Neal Pozner
lettering: John Costanza
colors: Adrienne Roy
editor: Dick Giordano

Synopsis: The team arrives at their first stop in their exploration of the multi-verse, first encountering a space monster known as The Dark Destroyer, and then discovering a desolated planet that was wiped out long ago by The Zylons (the villains of the Star Raiders video game with which this comic was packaged). They discover a spaceship with which they can fight the Zylons back, and they then learn that the true nemesis controlling the Zylons is The Dark Destroyer they'd already encountered, which they must fight and defeat, causing an angry space eye to awaken far away...

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Thus far, the closest the book has come in attempting to actually capture the conflict and flavor of the video game with which it's packaged, this issue has the team fighting the evil race of aliens clearly named in the video game manual and even gives us a few brief visuals that closely resemble the spirit (if not the visual perspective) of the game itself:






But the story doesn't spend all that much time on space combat, and the ultimate boss they must defeat certainly didn't come from the video game either:



so while there's some Star Raiders to be found in this issue, it doesn't make up all that much of the story.

The artwork in this story continues to be powerful and, in this case, haunting



but whereas the artwork implores us to explore these old abandoned structures, Conway and Thomas never do, instead spending time on an obnoxious new cutesy sidekick:



and a plot that makes absolutely no sense and gets more nonsensical the more you think about it. Don't even try.

Probably the strangest part, though, is when the team gets weirdly passionate about a race of beings that were wiped out 15 billion years ago and decides, without hesitation, that the most appropriate thing to do is to swiftly vow vengeance upon their killers, who are somehow still around and using the exact same ships and technology 15 billion years later.



Am I the only one who finds this creepy??


It's not worth getting into how little sense this story makes, and I'm really not happy about the cute new sidekick that George Lucas might as well have thrown into Return of the Jedi, but I at least respect the half-hearted attempt to align this issue with the game itself, and the artwork remains stunning throughout.

Important Details:

- 1st Appearance of The Dark Destroyer


Minor Details: After belaboring the point at the end of the last issue that, since they are travelling through dimensions and not space, they can blast off from an enclosed room instead of a space hangar, we begin this issue with the team travelling through space before arriving on an alien planet, presumably many light years from Earth.




Grade: C

I don't think read any of these as an adult, and always heard them sorta mocked more than anything before hearing all the good things people here say... i do think I did actually own the Defender mini comic, and probably the Star Raiders one (which was well worn and got tossed with the cartridge I'm sure. Star Raiders I remember taking notes about while playing, but that may have been the Atari 5200 version). I remember thinking at the time (ever as a young lad of 6 or 7) that they seemed like they were trying to fit the story for more than one game, and it would have been better for each game to have their own.

Looking at your screen shots, the art sure is great! Hopefully once the actual series starts the story will match

According to Andy Helfer, Andru was providing something closer to breakdowns than finished art, with Giordano doing the finishing and Decarlo inking it.

I've never read any of these early "giveaway" Atari Force comics (and judging from your reviews, I'm not missing much), but I love the main AF comic. I bought some of the regular issues off of the newsagents shelf at the time, but distribution of the title was pretty spotty in my neck of the UK. Nevertheless, I was very taken with the characters and, as a result of the unavailability of consecutive issues, I actually used to write my own stories -- what we'd call Atari Force fan fiction nowadays. I was only 13 or 14 at the time though, so it's probably a good thing that none of those stories survive.

These days I have all of the issues of the main series and still really rate them. Atari Force is some top notch, albeit fairly derivative at times, space opera. I'm looking forward to your reviews of the main series, shaxper, and I might even dig out my issues to read along with you.