Good Luck with Gothic Romances.  Even my digital collection is missing that.

I collected them from college (1984-88) and while in the military (88-92) and found a fair amount of the comics.  The superhero stuff was the most plentiful, though I found the war books fairly easily.  I never saw the magazines anywhere; then again, the shops in my area were rather light on magazine product (one had a bit of Heavy Metal and Mad, and some Warren, plus the Noble Comics Justice Machines).  I had more luck finding the three Nexus magazine issues than any of the Atlas.  For a company with poor sales and distribution, the regular comics aren't that scarce, relatively speaking.  The magazines are definitely another story.  I suspect the comics fell into the hands of dealers back in the day, more often than the magazines.  Those probably ended up stripped by the few newsstands that got them, when they didn't sell.

My collection has the other magazines, including the four issues of Movie Monsters.  Gothic Romances is the Holy Grail of Atlas.

He also appeared as Bloodwing for Buckler's magazine Galaxia in 1980. I'd love to see a Demon Hunter/Devil Slayer/Bloodwing tpb but I'm sure the rights situation would be a nightmare.

Some more Atlas odds and ends.



This was Atlas' attempt at the martial arts and was pretty good. Artist Jim Craig had some experience on Master of Kung Fu, though that followed this. He was good at staging the actions, though not so great when it came to developing unique characters. However, this is early work. The story is fairly standard kung fu drama. Two brothers are brought to a monastery, by their grandfather, to escape the turmoil of WW2. One is scarred physically and emotionally and becomes more and more of a bully, until he is a twisted and evil adult. The other is strong and noble and becomes our hero. The evil brother becomes a terrorist for hire, will the noble brother becomes a journalist and masked hero. There was only one issue though, as it came later in Atlas' run.



Fright featured Son of Dracula, with script by Gary Friedrich and art by Frank Thorne. It's an interesting twist on the vampire story. Dracula saves a woman from burning at the stake, then notices a birthmark which confirms her as his last living relative (fourth cousins). He wants her to join him in living death; but, she has a counter-bargain to bear him a son (4th cousins, remember). Not quite sure how this was biologically possible; but, it happens, in a Code-approved book, and she bears a son. She double-crosses Dracula though and secrets the child away, with charms to protect him. he is aised in another house; but, Dracula tracks him. His adoptive mother shelters him. He must sleep with a cross to keep his father away and keep a vial of native soil around his neck. He grows up to become a college professor, teaching about the history of the occult. A student comes acros him sleeping and removes the cross and he awakes as a vampire and draws her blood. he then goes on a rampage. The story ends with him recovering and realizing what has happened. Unfortunately, it was the only issue. The story isn't bad, though not Tomb of Dracula. Thorne's art is a bit sketchy, compared to some of his other work.



This comic had two features; Lomax, NYPD and Luke Malone, Manhunter. Lomax is a hard-nosed cop, in the mode of Kojak, Harry Callahan and various other tough cops. Nothing spectacular about the stories; but, the art from Mike Sekowsky and Al McWilliams is excellent and they handle the more realistic action well. Luke Malone is a private eye, an ex-cop. Here we have Mike Ploog and Frank Springer on art. Ploog also wrote the first story, though Gary Friedrich did the other two issues. I suspect Ploog kept a hand in the plotting in those issues. Again, the art helps offset average writing, though it does tend towards a cartoonier look. Ploog worked with Eisner and was a fan of the Spirit. It doesn't have that tone; but, Ploog knows how to do those kinds of stories. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to really make it noir. This comic was probably Atlas' attempt at cashing in on the popularity of police and detective shows on tv, in the early-md 70s. Marvel and DC were ignoring the genre, so Atlas could have really built something, if the Goodman's were interested in something other than a fast buck.



Targitt starts out as Atlas' attempt to cash in on the Men's Adventure pulps, like the Executioner, The Destroyer, and similar series; but, turns into a costumed vigilante, in the second issue. Howard Nostrand is the artist and he has a cartoonier look; kind of like a looser Dan Spiegle, crossed with Charlton-era Joe Staton. The first issue is all over the place, with Targiit, an FBI agent, seeking revenge for the death of his wife and child, on board an aircraft bombed to get a mob boss. he defies orders and goes out for revenge. The story gets wilder and more over-the-top as it progresses. In the second issue, he is fired , for show, then turned into an undercover agent, using a costumed identity to attack the mob. It is one part Punisher, one part Dirty Harry and totally off the rails. It's not bad; but, it could have been so much more with Archie Goodwin on the script. The costume element was the inevitable revamp, to make it more like Marvel. As it is, the costume sort of brings to mind Bullseye, though more the Bullseye from Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #15, not the one who debuted in Daredevil.



The Cougar features a stuntman who becomes a sort of Kolchak, fighting a vampire in issue one and a werewolf in issue 2. The first issue has art fron Dan Adkins and Frank Springer, with just Springer on issue 2. It's different, though not enough to raise it above some average writing and art.



Morlock 2001 is probably the most gonzo of all of the Atlas series. It is a mixture of sci-fi and horror, swiping liberally from multiple sources. Michael Fleischer adds his demented mind to the mix for the first two issues, with art from Al Milgrom; then, Gary Friedrich does the third issue revamp, which adds The Midnight Man, with art by Ditko and inks by bernie Wrightson. Morelock is a man who emerges from some kind of weird plant. The setting is a dystopian future that is mostly swiped from Orwell, in issue one. There are also elements of Day of the Triffids, The Time Traveller (source of the name), The Quatermass Experiment, and Theodore Sturgeon's "It" (source of most of the plant-man horror characters, like The Heap, Swamp Thing and Man Thing). Issue two adds some thugs that bring to mind A Clockwork Orange, while issue 3 swipes from Fahrenheit 451. Fleisher makes the weirdness work, while Friedrich takes it into more mundane territory.



Planet of Vampires was another unusual one. It swipes from both Planet of the Apes and Omega Man (or I Am Legend, if you want the original source), with a group of astronauts returned from a Mars mission, to find New York is a devastated land, with "savages" roaming around, while "vampires" live in a domed area, around the Empire State Building. The Vampires are so-called, as we discover, because they capture the "savages" and extract a serum from their blood, to fend of disease. A nuclear war brought devastation and plague. The savages developed immunity, while th others survived in the sterile dome environment. It's a a decent concept, especially in larry Hama's hands, in the first issue. John Albano takes over for the second and third and it gets watered down bit. Pat Broderick does the art for the first two issues, with Russ Heath on the third. broderick also did the covers of the first two issues, with Neal Adams inking.



The Brute was Atlas' Hulk, with a transplanted caveman (frozen in the Ice Age and discovered in 1975), who is mute for the first two issues, from Michael Fleisher and Mike Sekowsky & Pablo Marcos. Fleischer handles it more in the Universal Monster tradition. Then, issue 3 brings Gary Friedrich and Alan Weiss & Jack Abel. They turn it into pure Hulk, while having him speak.

So, as you can see, when Atlas tried something different, it showed promise. When they tried to be more like Marvel, it failed or was mediocre to average. They were never original, as everything swiped from something else; but, some of the concepts had promise, if given time to develop.

Next time will end out tour of the Atlas universe, with their other bigger titles.

Just in case people don't want to scroll through the whole thread...

Wulf #1 link takes you to first Wulf review, the others follow.

-M

My take on Atlas was that Marvel was already doing a good job putting out mediochre Marvel books--the market didn't need another company to do it.