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Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era
Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Menace, Vol. 1
In 1953 horror comics were king and Atlas editor-in-chief, Stan Lee, launched a new title to make a bid for the throne—and that title was MENACE! Backed by the best of the best in his art stable—Bill Everett, Russ Heath, Joe Maneely, Gene Colan, John Romita, Joe Sinnott, George Tuska—Stan’s new title became a high-water mark for pre-Code horror. Chock full of page after page of werewolves, vampires, zombies, ghosts, ghouls, double-dealing women and stone-cold killers with a sense of morality as dark as the ink on the page, MENACE lived up to its name—and how! It also showed hints of the Mighty Marvel future to come with running editorial commentary by Stan, reader contests, and characters like the infamous Zombie by Stan and Bill Everett, who would become the Marvel Age’s own killer zombie, Simon Garth. MENACE is a must-have for all aficionados of comics’ rollicking pre-Code days and the perfect entry point for readers looking to take their first adventure into the Atlas.
Collecting MENACE #1-11
Collecting MENACE #1-11
290 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
60 people want to read
About the author
Stan Lee
7,563 books2,348 followersStan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber) was an American writer, editor, creator of comic book superheroes, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics.
With several artist co-creators, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Thor as a superhero, the X-Men, Iron Man, the Hulk, Daredevil, the Silver Surfer, Dr. Strange, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Scarlet Witch, The Inhumans, and many other characters, introducing complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. He subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.
With several artist co-creators, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Thor as a superhero, the X-Men, Iron Man, the Hulk, Daredevil, the Silver Surfer, Dr. Strange, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Scarlet Witch, The Inhumans, and many other characters, introducing complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. He subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.
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September 24, 2017This comic was started by editor Stan Lee in direct competition to the horror titles from EC and Lee was the sole author on the first 7 issues. In his introduction to the collection, Dr. Michael J. Vassallo suggests that Lee distanced himself from the comic, and horror comics in general, as public opinion grew against the perceived excesses of the genre. To give EC a run for its money, Lee chose the best artists working for Atlas to draw the stories: Bill Everett, Russ Heath, Joe Maneely, Gene Colan, John Romita, and George Tuska. Given that this collection reprints all the stories from all the issues, the quality is impressively high, though probably not quite at the level of EC. To find a better collection of non-EC pre-code horror, one would need to cherry pick from the huge numbers of horror comics of the time, as Greg Sadowsky did with last year’s Four-Color Fear.
The plots don’t especially stand out from other horror comics of the time, inevitably relying on some twist at the end to surprise or shock the reader; a number were to be re-used post-code in Marvel’s monster comics, which I described in an earlier post, sometimes with more upbeat endings. Lee’s presence is felt mainly in the sardonic but chummy commentary he places at the beginning of each story, including such self promotional lines as “You are now about to read a tale which is simply, merely the GREATEST!”
This sort of hype will be familiar to fans of the silver age Marvel superhero comics. Another characteristic of Lee’s which was also present in some of his superhero work is anti-Communism, a strain I haven’t seen in other contemporary horror comics. Some of the stories, such as “The Man in Black” (issue 2), are straight espionage tales, others, following or perhaps anticipating Hollywood practice, disguise the Reds as science fictional threats as with the robot takeover in ”Fresh Out of Flesh” (issue 7). Rarely is the anti-Red message so closely combined with horror elements as in “A Vampire is Born” (issue 4). Here is the last page of the story, where the identity of the vampire is revealed. The cover date is June 1953, but the actual date of publication would have been at least two months before that, so it’s probable that Lee, responding to current events, intended this as an ironic in memoriam.
Another response to current affairs is in the story “The Witch in the Woods”, a defense of comic books against the growing tide looking to censor or even ban them. Here Lee suggests that comic book horrors are relatively mild compared to traditionally acceptable children’s fare such as Hansel and Gretel in Grimm’s fairy tales. In a nod to the competition, the witch in the story closely resembles EC’s “Old Witch” character, who introduced many of their horror stories, who, in turn, has much in common with the witch in Disney’s Snow White, taking the image from Grimm adaptation to horror comics and back to Grimm.
Only one story presents a female protagonist, the thoroughly despicable showgirl who gets her comeuppance at the end of “On with the Dance!” The women here, as in most horror comics of the time, are almost all either harpies driving men to desperate acts, or objects of unattainable desire driving men to, er, desperate acts. They are on the whole quite a bit sexier than most of the women of the post-code comics, at least until the code was relaxed in the 1970s.
The plots don’t especially stand out from other horror comics of the time, inevitably relying on some twist at the end to surprise or shock the reader; a number were to be re-used post-code in Marvel’s monster comics, which I described in an earlier post, sometimes with more upbeat endings. Lee’s presence is felt mainly in the sardonic but chummy commentary he places at the beginning of each story, including such self promotional lines as “You are now about to read a tale which is simply, merely the GREATEST!”
This sort of hype will be familiar to fans of the silver age Marvel superhero comics. Another characteristic of Lee’s which was also present in some of his superhero work is anti-Communism, a strain I haven’t seen in other contemporary horror comics. Some of the stories, such as “The Man in Black” (issue 2), are straight espionage tales, others, following or perhaps anticipating Hollywood practice, disguise the Reds as science fictional threats as with the robot takeover in ”Fresh Out of Flesh” (issue 7). Rarely is the anti-Red message so closely combined with horror elements as in “A Vampire is Born” (issue 4). Here is the last page of the story, where the identity of the vampire is revealed. The cover date is June 1953, but the actual date of publication would have been at least two months before that, so it’s probable that Lee, responding to current events, intended this as an ironic in memoriam.
Another response to current affairs is in the story “The Witch in the Woods”, a defense of comic books against the growing tide looking to censor or even ban them. Here Lee suggests that comic book horrors are relatively mild compared to traditionally acceptable children’s fare such as Hansel and Gretel in Grimm’s fairy tales. In a nod to the competition, the witch in the story closely resembles EC’s “Old Witch” character, who introduced many of their horror stories, who, in turn, has much in common with the witch in Disney’s Snow White, taking the image from Grimm adaptation to horror comics and back to Grimm.
Only one story presents a female protagonist, the thoroughly despicable showgirl who gets her comeuppance at the end of “On with the Dance!” The women here, as in most horror comics of the time, are almost all either harpies driving men to desperate acts, or objects of unattainable desire driving men to, er, desperate acts. They are on the whole quite a bit sexier than most of the women of the post-code comics, at least until the code was relaxed in the 1970s.
July 12, 2018
Sometimes I just like to go back to the early days between the Golden age heroes and the rise of the Silver age Heroes. This was the time of monster comics, funny weird and unlikely monsters that menaced the human race. Nice entertaining read. Recommended
April 24, 2024
Pre-Marvel horror and sci-fi tales, many scripted by Stan Lee and illustrated by a host of legendary artists including Bill Everett, Russ Heath, Joe Maneely, Gene Colan, and John Romita.
Heavily influenced by EC titles, I love these goofy stories, no matter how predictable the "twists".
And this hardcover edition is pretty freakin sweet. ☺
Heavily influenced by EC titles, I love these goofy stories, no matter how predictable the "twists".
And this hardcover edition is pretty freakin sweet. ☺
March 3, 2012
A pricey but lavish edition of pulpy, pre-Code 50s horror from the predecessor to Marvel Comics.
From the time the company was founded to the present day, Marvel Comics (and, in this case, its 50s predecessor Atlas) flooded the marketplace with material, jumping on every passing trendy genre and abandoning it just as quickly for the next one. Putting out so much material (over 30 comics a month) meant leaving quality behind and just filling pages. As such, competitors like EC Comics grabbed attention by allowing a few top-notch writers and artists to do their best work on a few select titles.
With "Menace", editor Stan Lee fought back, pulling together his best contributors and penning the stories himself, resulting in a gritty, violent, little morality tales that are a delight decades later. The artists in this volume form a murderer's row of talent: John Romita, Russ Heath, Joe Sinnott, and Bill Everett all contribute multiple stories that show off their prodigious talent. Some, like George Tuska and Werner Roth, were at the peak of their careers, doing atmospheric and suspenseful work that their later superhero work couldn't touch. Also wonderful is the presence of Joe Maneely, an underappreciated Atlas powerhouse whose untimely death in the late 50s kept him from being a name uttered alongside Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.
As the series continued, though, Lee's attention wandered. The back of this volume is much more uneven than the front, filled out anonymously penned tales illustrated by Atlas also-rans. But a few stories still make the book worthwhile.
On the whole, a satisfying jewel from the archives.
From the time the company was founded to the present day, Marvel Comics (and, in this case, its 50s predecessor Atlas) flooded the marketplace with material, jumping on every passing trendy genre and abandoning it just as quickly for the next one. Putting out so much material (over 30 comics a month) meant leaving quality behind and just filling pages. As such, competitors like EC Comics grabbed attention by allowing a few top-notch writers and artists to do their best work on a few select titles.
With "Menace", editor Stan Lee fought back, pulling together his best contributors and penning the stories himself, resulting in a gritty, violent, little morality tales that are a delight decades later. The artists in this volume form a murderer's row of talent: John Romita, Russ Heath, Joe Sinnott, and Bill Everett all contribute multiple stories that show off their prodigious talent. Some, like George Tuska and Werner Roth, were at the peak of their careers, doing atmospheric and suspenseful work that their later superhero work couldn't touch. Also wonderful is the presence of Joe Maneely, an underappreciated Atlas powerhouse whose untimely death in the late 50s kept him from being a name uttered alongside Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.
As the series continued, though, Lee's attention wandered. The back of this volume is much more uneven than the front, filled out anonymously penned tales illustrated by Atlas also-rans. But a few stories still make the book worthwhile.
On the whole, a satisfying jewel from the archives.
November 2, 2020
Early stories by Stan Lee and fantastic artwork. Recommend for people who like old horror comics. Excelsior!
October 2, 2025
I bought this for my Kindle a couple years back when they were running a big sale on Marvel Masterworks. The early 50s horror comic books are not my specialty, but artwork by the likes of Bill Everett, Russ Heath, Joe Maneely, Gene Colan, John Romita, Joe Sinnott, George Tuska, and Werner Roth is a delight in any circumstance. The book collects all 11 issues of Menace.
Lee wrote most of these stories, and they range from predictable to mildly intriguing twist tales. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, witches, aliens, monsters, and just plain murderers populate the four to seven-page vignettes. The artwork is something special, even in a few stories by artists I had never encountered before. Atlas (which later turned into Marvel) was competing with EC and a whole host of horror & sci-fi comics at the time. This was before the Comics Code Authority came in to play, so there are some graphic drawings of death in particular, but nothing as gruesome as some of their competitors.
One other interesting tidbit - the 70s black and white comic book Tales of the Zombie started out by reprinting the Bill Everett-drawn piece from the middle of the Menace run, "Zombie." I remember enjoying that book back in my teens, and it was nice to see the original story in color for the first time.
Lee wrote most of these stories, and they range from predictable to mildly intriguing twist tales. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, witches, aliens, monsters, and just plain murderers populate the four to seven-page vignettes. The artwork is something special, even in a few stories by artists I had never encountered before. Atlas (which later turned into Marvel) was competing with EC and a whole host of horror & sci-fi comics at the time. This was before the Comics Code Authority came in to play, so there are some graphic drawings of death in particular, but nothing as gruesome as some of their competitors.
One other interesting tidbit - the 70s black and white comic book Tales of the Zombie started out by reprinting the Bill Everett-drawn piece from the middle of the Menace run, "Zombie." I remember enjoying that book back in my teens, and it was nice to see the original story in color for the first time.
March 30, 2020
Midcentury horror comics are a strange passion of mine, which probably began when I saw a gallery of "Menace" covers in my cousin's book of Marvel history during my elementary years. I was obsessed, imagining what kind of sordid tales would have gone with those blurbs, and wondering how depraved and horrifying they could be to get an entire genre banned.
Naturally, seventy years later, these stories don't live up to that high, naive bar. But when compared to the EC Comics of the same period, Stan Lee's "Menace" series looks like a masterwork indeed. There's a better-developed sense of drama and of comedy, the art is worlds better, and even the house style, with its constant use of second-person, feels like worlds apart from the slapdash "Crypt" comics. Plus, there's an artistic sensibility here: this may be pure pulp trash, but it's obviously a love letter to Ray Bradbury, the master of this genre. You don't get that kind of specificity and cleverness in EC. Though some of "Tales from the Crypt's" stories are more iconic, if you only want to read one volume of midcentury horror pulp, make it this one.
Naturally, seventy years later, these stories don't live up to that high, naive bar. But when compared to the EC Comics of the same period, Stan Lee's "Menace" series looks like a masterwork indeed. There's a better-developed sense of drama and of comedy, the art is worlds better, and even the house style, with its constant use of second-person, feels like worlds apart from the slapdash "Crypt" comics. Plus, there's an artistic sensibility here: this may be pure pulp trash, but it's obviously a love letter to Ray Bradbury, the master of this genre. You don't get that kind of specificity and cleverness in EC. Though some of "Tales from the Crypt's" stories are more iconic, if you only want to read one volume of midcentury horror pulp, make it this one.
October 12, 2023
So far, this is the best 50's pre-Marvel horror collection that I have found. Have read other series from the same time period, and they are just boring in comparison. Some amazing art that, I feel, was ahead of it's time. My favorite artists featured are Bill Everett, George Tuska, and Joe Maneely. All three forgo any attempts at dramatic realism, but instead go for a more cartoony look with big eyes and hands. It's a nice look, probably influenced because many of these artists were working on Mad Comics at the time.
Where this collection falls short is some of the writing. The twist endings usually fall flat. Let's not even compare the writing to the EC comics. Some stories are comparable, but many are not.
Where this collection falls short is some of the writing. The twist endings usually fall flat. Let's not even compare the writing to the EC comics. Some stories are comparable, but many are not.
February 18, 2017
This volume shows off some of the best pre-Code Horror comics that came from one of the most underrated team of comicbook artists and Stan Lee, who wrote each story in every issue until #7. One of the best things about Menace Comics is Lee's use of 2nd person in his storytelling. Each story demands that YOU imagine yourself as the zombie, alien, etc. This is a great pick for anyone who likes Stan Lee, horror comics, or just cool art. With entries from the legendary Bill Everett, John Romita, Carl Burgos, Joe Sinnott, Russ Heath, Joe Maneely, and George Tuska, you'll be surprised at what these artists rendered in the days before the Code!
July 5, 2024
This was Atlas' (what Marvel was called back then) answer to EC's horror titles. Stan Lee wrote most of these tales, and was assisted in the artwork department by a number of greats: Russ Heath, Joe Maneely, John Romita, Sr., etc. These are all terrific reads about zombies, werewolves, vampires, etc. Fun for the whole family...if you happen to be the Addams Family, that is.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews