At the end of his run at DC back in the 70's, Jack Kirby was attempting to fulfill the terms of his contract and get out from under what had become a rather disappointing time in his career. He'd come to DC with such promise and vigor and had his dreams of a multiple formats and sweeping epics killed by short-sighted editorial controls. So it's very surprising that something as vigorous as Atlas really came from his hand at this time. Atlas appeared exactly one time, in this debut issue of First Issue Special and then was heard from no more...for a very long time.
Frankly I've always wondered if John Mileus and the folks who made Conan the Barbarian movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger had seen this comic as Atlas and his epic world always put me in mind of that classic flick, which came several years later. You have a young man with enormous powers who sees his family and entire tribe killed or stolen in front of his young eyes by a villain with a dominant snake motif. The boy grows up to be a dynamo in and out of the gladiatorial arena and eventually confronts the villain who destroyed his family and his home. That's all the story we have from Kirby, but it sure sounds familiar doesn't it.
James Robinson got hold of the Atlas idea many years later and made the mighty figure an opponent for Superman of all people. I have to confess being tempted by these comics at the time, but my dread of modern comics in general forestalled me, and I'm glad now that I waited to pick up the trade collection of that four-issue storyline. I have to say it's a lackluster outing. Atlas is stolen from his own mystical land and transported to the modern DCU to become a magical force against the Man of Steel. Who does this and why is obscure in this four-issue run that focuses on the battle between Atlas and Kal-El and as it turns out Krypto the Superdog too.
It must've been murder to wait for these issues to dribble out as this is what amounts one long battle sequence stretched over four installments, which in real comics time was nearly a quarter of a year. I read the whole thing in about fifteen minutes total. This is why I've given up on modern comics many years ago.
But it was nice to at least see Kirby's Atlas up and kicking, even if they've taken the somber giant and transformed him into a somewhat befuddled and bitter monster of a man.
I'd only recommend these issues to Kirby purists, who like me want every gram of the King's work they can afford. Otherwise it's a curiosity you likely can let go of.
Above is a wonderful bit of Kirby art featuring Atlas. Below is the house ad made from it.
And here is the TJKC cover from it.
But while Atlas fell into minor oblivion, 1st Issue Special lingered on a bit longer in 1975 and 1976.
More coming on the second issue featuring The Green Team soon.
Rip Off
That Atlas-Superman mini sounds like something to avoid!
ReplyDeleteI did enjoy seeing Atlas, along with several other Kirby works for DC (OMAC, Sandman, the Losers, etc.) in the Bug! mini, which was a fun, warm-hearted appreciation of those works. It also brought Forager back from the dead & delved into the New Gods more interestingly than most have done. (I can't tell you how much I disliked Tom King's Mister Miracle, for all the acclaim it's gotten.)
I found the King Mister Miracle a curiosity but truth told little of it stuck with me. I did not pick up the Bug mini and you've gotten me interested.
DeleteYes, Tom King's story may have been a good Tom King story (though his work isn't to my taste), but it was a bad New Gods story.
DeleteSimilarly, though I love Jim Starlin's work for the most part, he just could not tell a good New Gods story. I really think that many creators miss or ignore the deeply autobiographical aspect of even Kirby's most cosmic work, preferring to "improve" on his original & very personal vision. And of course they don't improve on it at all.
I'm not convinced that Kirby's disappointing time at DC was down to short-sighted editorial controls, RJ. More to do with his mags just not setting the readers alight in the way his collaborations with Stan Lee over at Marvel did. Even when he returned to Marvel his work failed to strike a chord. At one time Kirby had been King, but comics had evolved since then and Jack's stuff seemed old-fashioned and out-of-sync. A shame, but there it is.
ReplyDeleteThere is plenty of evidence that despite Infantino's bountiful promises to Kirby that when he finally landed at DC there was some mix of old time animus and stone deaf indifference. I readily admit the Fourth World has a different tone than the more user friendly Marvel Universe built largely by Kirby and Lee, but I consider it different and not lesser. I've read that the sales on the Fourth World were better than was reported to Kirby at the time and were on the upswing. If DC had given them the care that Marvel lavished on Conan we might have had a different story to tell completely.
DeleteAdditional evidence that the Fourth World did better than DC told Kirby is that the very month he was out their door, they re-launched both New Gods and Mister Miracle. More on that later this month.
DeleteI think it's obvious that DC lured Jack away from Marvel in the belief that Marvel would come crashing down without him, so they probably made many promises to JK in order to secure his defection. Marvel had been outselling DC for a while by then, and word is that Kirby was being paid a bit more then other DC contributors, so sales of his mags had higher expectations. Infantino was later asked about Jack's sales being not as bad as reported, and he dismissed the idea, saying that no one cancels a mag that sells. I'd also consider it a strong possibility that DC relaunched New Gods and Mister Miracle because they thought others could do it better, not necessarily that they'd been better sellers than they told Kirby. Look forward to later this month.
DeleteAlso shares a bit with the back story of Blackmark, which makes me think it must've been inspired from some old sword and sandal movie.
ReplyDeleteThey've both got some Sparticus in them for sure and I'd love to discover that some offbeat Italian sword and sandal flick had brought the secret sauce to both Kane and Kirby.
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