Two-Fisted Tales

One of the more gratifying aspects of the 21st century comic-book reprint renaissance is the long-overdue attention paid to the man Jack Kirby once called the real “King of Comics,” Bill Everett.

Comics historian Blake Bell has written an excellent biography of Everett and compiled a nifty collection of the creator’s pre-Timely/Atlas/Marvel work. A host of scan blogs, including the excellent Comic Book Attic, have also posted vintage Everett classics accompanied by insightful analysis.

Although this blog has displayed its share of Everett super-hero epics, I haven’t really delved into his work in such genres as horror, romance and war. Today’s post begins to address this imbalance, as we pick a ’50s classic from Atlas’ Men’s Adventures that criticizes media war propaganda.

(Which, ironically, included most of Atlas’ war comics of the period.)

Doubling as a humble tribute to Veterans Day, here’s “The Education Of Thomas Dillon” from Men’s Adventures #10 (Atlas Comics, Oct. 1951). The art is by Everett.

The Joker

Like such veterans as Don Heck and George Tuska, Werner Roth is an underrated comic-book artist who owes his relative obscurity to the fact that most didn’t see his work until long after the creator had passed his prime.

Many fans point to Roth’s unspectacular work on the Superman Family titles of the 70s and  groan, but fail to note he did solid work for years on Roy Thomas’ X-Men and truly shined on non-superheroic comics published by Marvel’s predecessor, Atlas Comics, in the 1950s.

The Time Bullet’s Four-Star Fright Fest continues with a good example of Roth’s Pre-Code output, “Poor Mister Watkins” from Menace #1 (Atlas, March 1953).

The story was written by none other than Stan “The Man” Lee himself.

Mano A Maneely

Before his tragic death at the age of 32, Joe Maneely was indisputably one of the stars of Atlas Comics’ diverse and ever evolving line of titles.

(Name a comic book genre and you can bet Atlas had it covered back then. Some titles, such as Venus, were practically genres unto themselves …)

Maneely’s ability to adapt his distinctive style to just about anything Atlas published – along with his legendary, Jack Kirby-like speed at pumping out quality pages – reportedly earned the artist the nickname “Joe Money” around the Atlas bullpen.

He was also Stan Lee’s favorite artist. In fact, Marvel’s Excelsior-In-Chief once said Maneely would have been “another Jack Kirby had he lived. He would have been the best you could imagine.”

The following story is a fine example of how Maneely could convey both grit and grace. From Men’s Adventures #24 (Atlas Comics, November 1953), here’s “No Guts.”

Paper Doll

From Venus #15 (Atlas Comics, August 1951), here’s “The Day That Venus Vanished” by the great Bill Everett.

Don’t mess with Bill Everett’s Venus. She may be the goddess of beauty and love, but the lady also has some serious ‘tude!

All The King’s Men

Still more Gene Colan!

This story was published eight years after the artist’s “Clipper Kirk” strip, yet it seems as if a lifetime had passed.

By this point, Colan had moved beyond crude imitations of Milton Caniff and forged a distinctive identity of his own. The noir elements readers would later associate with Tomb Of Dracula, Daredevil and Doctor Strange is present in this short horror tale by Stan Lee, a then-obscure writer-editor who would move on to bigger things himself.

From Menace #6, Atlas Comics (August 1953), here’s “Checkmate!” The story is by Lee and Colan.

Bungle In The Jungle

Of all the jungle girls who patrolled the Golden Age of Comics, Atlas Comics’ Lorna was undeniably saddled with the most annoying and useless sidekick.

Greg Knight, a would-be explorer, spent nearly every moment of his fictional existence disparaging Lorna’s efforts to keep peace in the jungle. Insisting such tasks were best left to men, he would invariably pursue dead-end leads or find himself captured until the Jungle Girl restored everything to his rightful place.

Naturally, Lorna was madly in love with the idiot even though he rarely responded in kind.

*Sigh* No accounting for taste, right?

The following tale (an admittedly fun take on the evil twin trope) is a typical example of Greg Knight’s winning combination of ineptness and ill temper.

Fortunately, this rather unpleasant character is more than offset by the gorgeous good-girl art of Werner Roth. There may have been jungle queens less dependent on the affections of crummy boyfriends – such as Rulah and Tiger Girl, to name two – but few enjoyed better illustrated adventures.

From Lorna The Jungle Girl #6 (Atlas, 1954), here’s “Double Danger” by Roth and writer Don Rico.

Dancing Queen

Menace was Stan Lee’s attempt to replicate the success of William Gaines and Al Feldstein’s phenomenally popular horror titles by tailoring the duo’s darkly humorous tales of vengeance to his own particular style and recruiting such top-notch freelancers as Bill Everett, Joe Maneely, Gene Colan and John Romita.

Although Lee would later dismiss his efforts as pale imitations of the EC formula, history has judged Menace much more kindly and many Pre-Code enthusiasts regard the title as one of the better horror comics of the early 1950s.

The following tale, entitled “On With The Dance,” is a good example of just how well Lee and his collaborators understood the factors that made the EC titles so memorable: namely sharp artwork, high-concept villainy and a strong punchline that didn’t stint on the gore.

The story originally appeared in Menace #2 (Atlas, 1953). It was written by Lee and drawn by a young artist named Russ Heath. Wonder whatever happened to the kid?

Hmmmm …. well I guess a dancing skeleton would make an interesting conversation piece at the next cocktail party.

Patsy’s No Patsy

Patsy Walker is a survivor.

The character better known today as Marvel Comics heroine Hellcat made her comic-book debut in 1944 as a typical, All-American girl who spent most of her time ensuring her boyfriend wouldn’t fall into the clutches of a Veronica Lodge-esque frenemy, Hedy Wolfe.

Patsy was one of many Archie knock-offs published by the then-Timely Comics. Unlike most of her compatriots – barring, of course, the ubiquitous Millie The Model – Ms. Walker had staying power.

In fact, Patsy’s gentle adventures were continuously published by Timely/Atlas/Marvel from the Golden Age of Comics to 1967. The only other characters from the House Of Ideas to exceed that feat were our girl Millie and Kid Colt, Outlaw.

As Marvel concentrated more and more on super-hero titles, you’d think a character like Patsy Walker would have faded into oblivion. Our girl, however, was made of sterner stuff and during her comic-book heyday had made a fan by the name of Steve Englehart.

Recalling that Stan Lee & Jack Kirby integrated Patsy into the “proper” Marvel universe in the historic Fantastic Four Annual #3, Englehart – who was writing the solo adventures of Hank “The Beast” McCoy at the time – “thought it would be cool to bring her in as a real character, with things to do. Part of my ‘training’ as a Marvel writer was writing romance stories and Westerns, but Patsy (Walker) was defunct as a comic by the time I got there…. Still, as a fan, I had collected everything Marvel, including Patsy Walker and Patsy and Hedy … so I knew them as characters….”

Although The Beast’s solo series didn’t last long, Englehart added Patsy and Hank to the pages of another comic he scribed, The Mighty Avengers, where she adopted the heroic identity of Hellcat.

The rest of course is history, which unfortunately includes an ill-advised wedding to the Son Of Satan, a descent into insanity, suicide and a stint in Hell itself.

Sheeesh … bet Patsy looked back fondly on her rivalry with Hedy at that point!

Once again, however, the plucky Patsy managed to outwit death and soon returned as an active member of the Marvel Universe. Much to the delight of this reader, Kathryn Immonen wrote a short four-part tale and a breezy mini-series that incorporated Hellcat’s paper-doll past into Patsy’s character.

More surprisingly, Ms. Walker even co-starred in a recent mini-series with a modern version of Millie The Model, proving that just about any character can pop up in a comic-book these days with a tweak or two.

The following story takes place during a simpler time in Patsy’s history, when super-teams took a backseat to raising enough money to buy a fall outfit. The art, interestingly enough, is provided by a talent who has demonstrated more staying power than many of today’s professionals could even imagine: Al Jaffe.

Jaffe, better known as the mastermind between Mad Magazine’s long-running Fold-Ins feature and the immortal Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions series, is the humor publication’s longest-running contributor. Amazingly, only one issue of Mad since 1964 hasn’t contained any new material from the cartoonist.

During his earlier years in the comics industry, Jaffe enjoyed a fairly long run on Patsy Walker comics. Given the demonstrated tendency of both character and creator to stick it out for the long haul, it’s no wonder the two joined forces.

From Miss America #43, published in 1952 by Atlas Comics – or whatever name Marvel was using at that moment – here’s Patsy Walker in her small-town girl prime as delineated by the legendary Al Jaffe.

The Hammer Horror

Before Stan Lee and Jack Kirby turned Thor into a comic-book icon, the Norse thunder god spent many years as a bit player for various publishers.

There was Fox Publication’s Thor, a Clark Kent-type who used the God of Thunder’s powers to combat evil and get a little emotional pay-back from an excessively shallow girlfriend.

(The same company also produced a hero called Dynamite Thor, who propelled himself through the sky by sitting on, then igniting, explosives. For some reason, that character didn’t last all that long … )

Yet another incarnation of Thor fought Batman and Robin while a self-styled “son” of the mythological figure racked up a pretty impressive body count in a sort-of-true-crime mag published by Atlas Comics, the fly-by-night predecessor to Marvel.

That particular tale, which appeared in Justice # 19 (January, 1951), recounted a notorious murder spree that was ultimately halted by the same detective who cracked the “Black Daisy” case of 1947.

(“Black Daisy” was a thinly disguised reference to the infamous – and unsolved – Black Dahlia murder, which was still undoubtedly fresh in the minds of many. It’s important to note the comic’s disclaimer that the “names and persons in these true-to-life stories are fictitious.” “True-to-life” is a lot different than “true,” when you think about it a bit.)

At any rate, it’s interesting to see an earlier treatment of Thor – well, more or less – from the same company that later made the mythological hero a star of page and screen.

The story is entitled “Hammer Horror.” Creator credits are, sadly, unknown.