Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Heroes, Vol. 2

Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Heroes #2

by Bill Everett, John Romita Sr. (Illustrator), Dick Ayers (Illustrator)

The Atlas Era Hero Revival continues with the adventures of comics' most famous trio of Communist conquering heroes: Captain America, the Human Torch, and the Sub-Mariner!

After starting with the Big Three's anthology adventures in Men's Adventures, we then dive headlong into Captain America's complete 1954 solo series. Illustrated by Bullpen legend John Romita in some of his very first super hero stories, you'll see Cap and Bucky fight Fifth Columnists, Commie spies, and even the Soviet Electro!

Next up, it's the Human Torch and Toro! Stirred from his slumber by an atomic bomb, the Torch has rejoined his young sidekick in a battle to clean up threats as amazing and entertaining as vampires, killer robots, and his 1950s nemesis, The Vulture. Their crime fighting adventures even take on a global purchase, stretching all the way to the 38th parallel and Communist Korea!

And finally, for a quick taste of what's to come in Atlas Era Heroes' next volume, there is an assortment of Bill Everett's lavishly drawn tales of the lord of the Atlantis, Namor, the Sub-Mariner. Considered by many to be the definitive take on the character, Everett's '50s Sub-Mariner is nothing less than treasure from the deep!

We'd be remiss to leave you without a bevy of historical bonuses, including a rare Human Torch tale that went unprinted for over a decade, original artwork, Atlas Era house ads, and an introduction by Hero Revival scholar extraordinaire, Roy Thomas.

Collecting MEN'S ADVENTURES #27-28, CAPTAIN AMERICA #76-78 and HUMAN TORCH #36-38.

Genres: Comics, Superheroes

240 pages, Hardcover

First published February 27, 2008

About the author

William Blake Everett, aka Bill Everett, was a comic book writer-artist best known for creating Namor the Sub-Mariner as well as co-creating Zombie and Daredevil with writer Stan Lee for Marvel Comics. He was a descendant of the poet William Blake and of Richard Everett, founder of Dedham, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Duncan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up because I'm reading the 1960's Spider-Man omnibus featuring John Romita's classic art from that era and thought it would be neat to check out his earlier 1950's work which as it turns out is decidedly not as terrific as his 60's stuff, in fact it's pretty bad. Most of the art and story-telling is slap-dash and elemental but is still charming in it's vehement anti-communism, fast plotting and sometimes outlandishly creative twists and turns despite the sometimes un-PC characterizations (or maybe because of it, yknow, forbidden ideas and all that). The funny thing is that I found myself enjoying the Human Torch (and boy wunderkind sidekick Toro, who walks around town in nothing but a skimpy speedo) stories more than I thought I would and that's mostly due to Dick Ayers' very cool blocky artwork. The writing seems to be of a bit higher quality on the Human Torch stories too, there is some inventiveness to some of the plots (space vampire bats for instance), and the general quality of the writing is higher. What is a real mystery to the whole affair is that Roy Thomas in his introduction avers that no-one knows who the writer or writers were to any of these stories. Really? That can't be true. There must be some Marvel historians who can make a pretty good guess as to the writers of these stories. I think Roy is being a bit cagey here, I don't know why because some of them are pretty good considering the limitations of the time. Anyone else know?

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, after a what it seemed thousands of issues with commie-hating Cap, who was all for propaganda fighting the propaganda inside a propaganda, this is the end. You will most likely not going to enjoy this one, unless you're reading for the nostalgia and the artwork.

[Adam Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

By 1954, a few short years after Superhero books flourished during World War II, only three major heroes were left standing, DC Comics' Big 3: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. This book continues to look at the revival of Marvel's Golden Age Big Three during the mid-1950s for Captain America, the original Human Torch, and Sub-mariner.

This book collects stories from Men's Adventure #27 and #28, an anthology book featuring all three heroes and then Captain America #76-78 and Human Torch #36-#38 (with Atlas opting to continuing from golden age numbering.)

Here's a look at how each hero played out:

1) "Captain America, Commie Smasher" it's a beautifully politically incorrect cover that Marvel does its best to explain away through retcons mainly because it contradicts their continuity of Cap being in suspended animation after World War II until awakened by the Avengers.

At any rate, the concept is great but Cap fares the worst in this book. The seven page anthology stories in "Men's Adventures" were both pretty good, but Cap's tales in his own magazine were far weaker.

The problem is that while Sub-Mariner and Human Torch could just do what they'd been doing during the War, but the Captain America/Secret identity as a private identity wasn't something they could go back to. In 18-20 page Golden Age stories, you could goof around with that, but in a six page story, this element just distracted.

As a result of this unnecessary padding, the Captain America stories ended up rushed with even good concepts not being given decent space to develop. Ideas like the Chinese Communists blackmailing Chinese Americans, the Communists bringing to kill their own POWs for propoganda purposes, Cap fighting a green monsters with a hammer and sickle on its chest, or a plot to subvert through a sleeper agent could have been good stories if developed.

As it is, the Cap stories feature early art by John Romita who would distinguish himself with so many characters including the Amazing Spider-man.

The Submariner stories are good for the most part, although his role in the book is limited to the Men's Adventure comics and back-up features in the Human Torch books, Namor is pretty much the same as during the golden age: He's prince of Atlantis and mostly gets involved in human affairs with reluctance, but does when he has to. The most insane story in the book features the Sub-mariner trying to stop Half Man/Half Octopi from blowing up Europe. There's also an attempt at a ghost tale which is a bit weird. The introduction promised more Sub-mariner in Volume 3.

The Human Torch stories are probably the best in the book and make up the plurality of the book. The Torch tales really run a gamut of genres: There's crime, cold war spy dramas, and classic 1950s era Sci Fi tales about the dangers of prejudice. There's even a story where (in the style of the Golden Age Superman), the Torch helps a young pilot that lacks confidence through his power of invisibility (which he never had before this book and would never have again.) Really, everything is a lot of fun throughout.

The one flaw in the book is that writers did seem to keep forgetting that the original Human Torch wasn't actually human, but an android. The worst example is an unpublished Human Torch tale that was reprinted in this collection and features the Human Torch giving his actually human buddy Toro a blood transfusion. I'd like to think that someone had the strip withdrawn due to its glaring inaccuracy, and not that if Captain America had had an issue 79, this story would have gone in it.

There's a great introduction by Roy Thomas which always make a collection more enjoyable. In addition, I also have to say that this is one reprint volume where the two page text stories (required to be in comics to meet postal regulation requirements of the day) are actually quite good, with some good storytelling and clever twists across a variety of genres but mostly these are adventure tales.

Overall, this is a very enjoyable volume and it's too bad their weren't more of these stories made. Despite the limitations of length, they were fun reading. Alas, though, the Marvel age was still seven years away.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 1950s Superhero revival from Marvel Comics continues in this volume. This revival of Marvel's big three from the 1940s: Captain America, the Human Torch and the Submariner only lasted a year before they were all canceled again. Comicdom would have to wait till the early 1960s for the legendary team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby to create all new superheroes to capture the publics interest. These hard to find issues are an interesting read as the communist threat has replaced the Axis powers as the evil that all the heroes battle against. Recommended