It's so interesting that you could find shops doing this. To this day, I can't think of a place I could go other than the internet to get foreign comics fresh off the presses. I could tell stories of how elaborately complex it was to pull 2000 AD through my LCS when I attempted it ten years back.



I guess I meant more in terms of being a comics code approved book on general newsstands, but to your point -- that helps me a lot. I'm reading this as an adult. Might help to put myself in the mindset of an 11 year old. That being said, I've read GREAT space operas that were able to appeal to me equally at both ages (give me Robotech any day), but this series has been growing on me a lot, so I have confidence we'll get to the point where I love it even as an adult. Right now, it's a reasonably strong "like".



Ladies and gentlemen, our moderator staff...

Finally time to read this first issue.  Keep in mind I bought this off the newsstand.  And given the cover date I would have been 16 when I bought it.  I loved it the first time around and have touted it since.  But it's probably been at least 25 years since I've read it.  

Issue One comes on like gangbusters.  What I love about it is that we are learning about these characters a little at a time.  No extensive back-story setup.  No stereotypical "meeting at the inn/science directive to start the adventure" we know they're going to come together...but it's not in a hurry.  In this way it reads more like a decent novel and a hell of a lot less like a comic book from 1984.  

Dart is clearly the star of this issue.  And we have to assume that she will be the star of the book.  That said...1984 16-year old Slam LOVED Christopher Champion.  Yep.  He did.  And he was supposed too.  Bad 80s haircut and bandanna and all.  But more on that later.  Dart has a great design and it's clear that both Garcia-Lopez and Conway are very fond of her.  She just pops and stands out in this issue.  Blackjak pales by comparison...but that's maybe not his fault.  He just can't compete with Dart.  I really don't see anything inherently wrong with Blackjak in this issue...he just doesn't measure up...and that will become important later. 

I'm a bit unsure how I feel about the "aliens" in the book.  I like that there are a number of aliens who are in the core group.  And I like that they are at least suitably alien.  But they aren't maybe as alien as I'd like.  If we just had a token alien, a la, Chewbacca, I'd be very disappointed.  But I'd like something a bit more alien than what we have.  I want a sentient shade of Blue, for Pete's Sake.  But still...Babe looks to potentially be a silicoid life-form.  And Morphea is definitely alien.  

I'm a bit bothered by the interaction between Morphea, Chris and Professor Venture (hmmmm...does Rusty know?).  Dr. Morphea has been hired to the Psyche-Research...presumably meaning psychology, a better presumption since she's an empath.  But the Professor seems to assume that she won't understand the father-son dynamic because she was raised in a collective.  Seems weak for someone who will presumably have to be dealing with a lot of different species psyche profiles.  

Pakrat...well we just are scratching the surface with Pakrat.  He's visually appealing...and every party needs a thief.  

I love the pacing.  And I love the fact that we aren't spoon-fed everything all at once.  I want to learn about the characters organically.  And I'm getting it.  And Garcia-Lopez is just such an amazing artist. 

Grade  A-. 

As to other issues.  I honestly don't think that DC expected that many people would be following over from the mini comics to the series.  I only knew one person who had an Atari at the time.  Which was a whole lot less people than the ones I knew who played comics.  The other thing points to it is the rundown of the mini-comics in the letters page.  I simply see this as back-story to world building.  

As to Lydia Perez...I just don't care.  She is part of the backstory.  There are plenty of strong female characters in the book.  If she's nothing more than a plot device to cause the estrangement of Martin and Christopher Champion...then so be it. 

Ha! That's exactly the phrase I used to describe issue #1 earlier in this thread.

Great minds, great minds...




Yeah, this is kind of what I was saying to shax a few posts back about having to bring your inner 11-year-old (the age I was when these issues came out) along with you when you re-read this series. The book is actually expertly targeted by Conway and Garcia-Lopez at 10 to 16 year old boys. Back in the day, Chris Champion didn't annoying me at all. I mean, he wasn't anything like my favourite character from the series, but he was OK. It's just as an adult that I want to give him a slap.

As for your comment about not necessarily liking every fictional character in the books or comics we read, that's very true. But the big difference with Chris Champion is that we're clearly supposed to like and even identify with him...which, as you say, was much easier when you were of a similar age to him. As a 40-something, I'm finding it much harder to like him and, as a result, he is far and away the character in the series I like least. The rest of the main cast I still really like, but my two favourites as a kid -- Dart and Pakrat -- are still my favourites.

I read issue #4 last night too, but haven't had time just yet to post my thoughts.

No problem - I just appreciate the fact that you're taking the time to review this excellent series & include the great cover/interior scans.  This AF thread is currently my favorite thread on this board. I don't have the original comics anymore & there haven't been any reprints, so this is the only way I know of to have access to the series. Thanks again, and keep up the great work!!

I also wanted to whole-heartedly agree that you look at things differently as you get older.  I was a kid/pre-teen/teen throughout the '80's (when this series was first released), and I know that reading comics as a mid 40's middle-aged guy (now) is a lot different than reading them as a kid.  

However, I find I still enjoy a lot of the comics, movies, TV shows, and music that I was into as a kid - in some cases, I actually appreciate them more now than I did years ago.

OK, my thoughts on issue #4, which I read a few nights back...




This is another cracking issue. I really like Ross Andru's art anyway -- his stuff on Amazing Spider-Man in the early '70s is really underrated, I think -- and having Garcia-Lopez inking gives enough of a sense of continuity between the art in the preceding issues and this one. As a kid reading these comics, I doubt very much whether I'd have even noticed that the artist on the series had changed.




Yeah, that intro was really gripping, but also quite disappointing that it turned out to be fake out. Andru tries the same trick again on the page where Morphea comes up behind Martin Champion in the observation pod -- if you were a new reader and didn't recognise Morphea's silhouette, you would think that she's about to attack him. Fake out number two for Andru.

I agree with you, shax, that this is the moment when the various character strands that Conway has been working on really start to come together, even if I enjoyed the individual characters in the build up more than you did. We also get our first serious chunks of background information on Martin Champion and his search for an evil presence in the multiverse and also what happened to Chris's mother.

All in all, another great issue, if you ask me.

Atari Force (1984) #5



"Dark Dawn"
writer: Gerry Conway
pencils: Ross Andru
inks: Jose Garcia Lopez
letters: Bob Lappan
colors: Tom Ziuko
special thanks: Joe Orlando

Synopsis: Martin, Chris, and Dart break into a museum to utilize Scanner One again (unclear whether Martin arranged for it to remain operational or this was pure luck), Dr. Morphea has pursued them and agrees to come along and serve as medic if they pick up Babe too, and Pakrat sneaks aboard at the last second while being pursued by his brother. His brother is granted a multiverse ship by the Atari Council in order to pursue the team. Martin Champion destroys their navigational records upon approaching the mystery ship they are pursuing so that it cannot track their path back to New Earth. Their only way home will be for Chris to phase them there.

---

First off, we have to talk about The Dark Destroyer. He remains unnamed within the story itself, but the cover proudly identifies him. For the few folks reading this who had the original mini-comics, I wonder if this even would have registered with them. While the Dark Destroyer was the closest thing to an arch-nemesis the original team had (appearing in mini-comic #3 and mini-comic #5), he looked like this back then:



He didn't talk, and his sentience was debatable. But we were clearly shown that a small piece of him survived at the end of #5, and Conway and Andru appear to be keeping that ball rolling while also turning him into a completely different kind of villain.




Regarding the story itself, it's almost like Conway suddenly realized this book was taking far too long to get going and then overcompensated. After four issues of intense character exploration with little plot, we're suddenly thrown into the thick of things without Conway and Andru even bothering to show that all important moment we were waiting for that explains how Martin convinced Chris and Dart to join him in this crazy mission. It just gets...skipped, even though the tension among these three was pivotal to the previous issue.

Similarly, how Morphea and Pakrat get ensnared with this mission is rushed and artificial feeling. There's no characterization at work here and little hint of motivation. Pakrat's big issue is being cornered -- we're shown this every damn issue -- and yet, upon finding himself trapped on a ship headed on a one way mission across the multiverse, he's pretty tame about the whole thing, passing out a few times aside.

And the confusion between space and multiverse travel becomes more problematic in this issue, as Andru's art clearly shows a ship rocketing through space while we're told that Chris's phasing power (note: not transporting power) should be able to get them home. Plus, when Chris phases to his get-away dimension while the ship appears to be travelling through space, when he phases back, won't the ship have moved from that spot? And if it truly is just phasing through dimensions, how will Chris know which dimension to find it in? The whole thing is just extremely confusing.

Finally, Andru's art is hardly the game-changer it appeared to be last issue. So many panels truly bothered me this time, from this one in which Rident's head looks like it's grown enormous and become attached to his ship:



to Chris's awkward prissy march:



to Pakrat being repeatedly drawn as so obnoxiously cute that I'm going through Jar-Jar Binks syndrome every time he appears on panel:




Important Details:

- 1st appearance (in this volume) of Dr. Orion, who now sits on the Atari Council (is that what it's called?)

- Dart can project a psychic image, but only to Chris



Minor Details:

- If last issue's cover was misleading, this one is a blatant lie

- Seriously, did Martin do something in advance to ensure Scanner One was operational, or was this just extremely ridiculously conveniently good luck that it was still in working condition with full fuel cells while rotting in a museum?

- And hey, did anyone ever bother to upgrade Scanner One with multiverse shielding after it was grounded so that, maybe, Dart and Morphea won't die in childbirth the way Lydia Perez did?

- Why would the Atari Council provide Rident, a lone customs officer with no jurisdiction in their system, with a mulitverse ship and a carte blanc mission to catch the new Atari Force? Don't they have their own officers to do this?

- Dart vs. a cornered Pakrat. We were all waiting for it, and I wasn't disappointed.

- Pakrat is always in a state of panic unless cornered? Andru's art and Conway's dialogue don't reflect that in the rest of the issue.

- Lots of hints that Dart is beginning to experience confused romantic feelings for Chris.

- I assume this was intended, but Rident's presence totally screws up Martin's plan of the Dark Destroyer having no way to track their path back to New Earth. Of course, his ship can also provide the team with a means of return.



Really not impressed with this issue at all. While I enjoyed #4 quite a bit, this series still hasn't won me over yet, and, one fourth through the run at this point, I'm beginning to worry that it never will.



Grade: C-