Atlas-Seaboard Comics - January 1975!

(Neal Adams)
Atlas-Seaboard Comics appeared all of a sudden on comic bookshelves on the middle of the 70's. The company was started by the Goodman clan which had been behind Marvel for decades before selling off a few years before. Now they wanted to show the world that they had the magic touch and to prove that point, they waved around a lot of money, so much that they enticed all kinds of top talent to give Atlas a try. New comics were wildly exciting to me at the time when only the Big Two really mattered much. But as we know the white-hot Atlas-Seaboard company burned out almost as quickly as they appeared. I want to take this year, fifty years gone since those halcyon days to look back at these comics. We'll do it month-by-month as 2024 rolls along. 

IRONJAW has always seemed to me to be the flagship title of the Atlas-Seaboard line. The book gets the first specific mention on the text page and that Neal Adams cover is almost hypnotic. Talk about making a good first impression. Ironjaw is clearly intended to take advantage of the barbarian bubble that was ongoing in the Bronze Age. Marvel's success with Conan was indisputable, and DC was likewise trying out all sorts of ideas to find one that succeeded. In fact Ironjaw was first proposed as a DC project, but was rejected by Joe Orlando and Fleisher was given permission to shop it around.

(Mike Sekowsky and Jack Abel)

The first Ironjaw issue is a surprise in two ways. Ironjaw, as written by Michael Fleisher is a woman-hating, bloodthirsty thug, in other words a barbarian in more than name only. A descriptive essay on the last page of the comic says that Fleisher is trying to write a "real man" in barbarian setting. Mike Sekowsky does an admirable job under better than average Jack Abel inks. I distinctly remember not liking it so much at the time, but my maturing tastes have given me a fresh appreciation for Sekowsky's storytelling skills.

(Getting the word out.)

All in all, Ironjaw is a pretty good comic. The story of his origin gets underway, as we learn he is the son of the local King and those in power are threatened by inexplicable return; Ironjaw doesn't seem aware of his potentially royal roots. After the usual barbarian battles, and a somewhat disquieting incestuous scene (Ironjaw's sister frees him, but of course he doesn't know who she is...don't worry it remains Code worthy) the story ends midway, with Ironjaw dangling from a prison tower and the promise the story will conclude next issue.

(Sal Amendola and Dick Giordano)
PHOENIX is identified in the text pages as the "Greatest Story Ever Told", a clear reference to Jesus and the Biblical saga of his life, death, and resurrection. Ed Tyler is an astronaut in 1977 (remember the book came out in 1975), and the Skylab is damaged and he's the lone survivor of a crash landing in the Arctic. He's found by the Deiei, a race of tall big-headed somewhat pruny-looking aliens who claim that after God created the Earth and the early creatures that preceded man, they took genetic control and manufactured modern man from those raw elements. The problem is they want to end the experiment totally and start over. After some discussion and histrionics, Tyler gets his hands on some of the alien equipment and becomes super-powered.

Tyler escapes, but the aliens attack Reykjavik, Iceland with a subterranean volcanic assault and Phoenix (not technically called that yet) does what he can to fend them off. Using his vaguely described radiation powers he sends the offending beam back at the aliens destroying their Arctic base in a mushroom cloud. But we find out there are more aliens, and that Ed has a lot more to do before he has saved the Earth from these "demons". The parallels with Christ will continue in the next issue. The story is written by Jeff Rovin (the editor of A-S's color line) and drawn by Sal Amendola, a member of Continuity Associates. With a Neal Adams cover on Ironjaw, a Dick Giordano cover on Phoenix, and Amendola's work, CA seems to have had a big hand in early Atlas-Seaboard.

(Ernie Colon)
GRIM GHOST is a wonderfully wicked book. If The Phoenix is the sci-fi retelling of the Christ story, then Matthew Dunsinane, an 18th Century highwayman turned 20th Century spectral avenger for Satan is something else again. This book is lusciously drawn by Ernie Colon, who also does the gorgeous cover. The script is again by Michael Fleisher. Borrowing from the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh (I love this TV-movie by the by) and the Spectre, along with perhaps the old Gay Ghost from Sensation Comics, Fleisher creates a wicked anti-hero who attacks murderous robbers and sends them to hell.

The Grim Ghost is fully established as a character after this one issue. The story briefly is that a notorious highwayman, Dunsinane, a murderer many times over, is eventually captured by falling for a beautiful woman (ain't it always the way) and then is hanged. He goes literally to Hell, where the Devil makes him his agent on Earth to gather souls, but not in the 18th Century, but forward to the then-modern 1975 setting where things have apparently gone from bad to worse. Armed with an array of powers, this Grim Ghost (more than a name at this point) rides his black steed into trouble and gathers up evildoers.

Like Ironjaw tried to hop on the barbarian craze, this book seems to want to take advantage of the Bronze Age interest in horror, but with a twist. Fleisher had been the writer for DC's Spectre, and he brings that violent bent to this book as well. The story is extremely tight, and unlike the other two January dated books, has something of a satisfying ending.

More Atlas-Seaboard to come next month. 

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