Tag Archives: Atlas Comics

October 24, 2018 · 8:44 pm

THE GRIM GHOST (1975)

Halloween Month at Balladeer’s Blog continues with this look at the Grim Ghost, a Pre-Spawn horror figure from the VERY short-lived Atlas/ Seaboard Comics. FOR MANY MORE ATLAS/SEABOARD HEROES CLICK HERE 

Grim Ghost 1THE GRIM GHOST

Secret Identity: Matthew Dunsinane, Highwayman

Origin: In 1740s America, Matthew Dunsinane was the masked Highway Robber known only as the Grim Ghost. He successfully preyed upon the Carriage Trade for years. In 1743 the Grim Ghost robbed Lord and Lady Braddock in their coach.

Lady Sarah Braddock, beautiful but evil, pretended to be interested in a tumble with the daring outlaw who had committed the robbery. Our red-blooded hero fell into her trap, was unmasked, tried and hanged.

In Hell, Satan informed the Grim Ghost that in the 20th Century he was facing a rebellious demon called Brimstone, who wanted to overthrow him and rule Hell in his place. That diabolical figure was endowing various evil-doers with powers to survive their ordained deaths, depriving Satan of their souls, thus weakening him in power and prestige.

Grim Ghost 2Satan offered to release the Grim Ghost from Hell periodically to subdue those renegade evil-doers and send them to Hell for damnation.

God would not interfere with Dunsinane’s mission since Brimstone was defying Fate. Satan endowed the Grim Ghost with powers of his own to battle Brimstone’s legions on Earth.

First Appearance: The Grim Ghost #1 (January, 1975). His final appearance came in July of that same year.

Powers: The Grim Ghost was given a flying, coal-black horse by Satan as well as ghostly powers of intangibility plus a brace of supernatural pistols. Those pistols fired shots that could burn and blast their way through solid objects plus dispatch Brimstone’s minions to their rightful place in Hell.

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January 9, 2018 · 8:17 pm

MAN-MONSTER: ATLAS COMICS HERO

Balladeer’s Blog’s recent look at the short-lived comic book company Atlas-Seaboard was a big hit. As a follow-up here’s a look at an Atlas figure I did not cover in the main article, which can be found HERE

Tales of Evil 3MAN-MONSTER

Secret Identity: Paul Sanders, Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist

Origin: Hedonistic Paul Sanders lives the life of a playboy from his endorsement deals and his resented oil baron father’s vast fortune. After a flirty/ bickering battle of the sexes-style interview with two female reporters from Women’s Lib Magazine Paul boards a motorboat for one of his father’s offshore oil wells.

To show off for the still-watching ladies Paul leaps overboard to swim the rest of the way to the oil drilling platform. As fate would have it, the oil drilling had just churned up some rare, mutated bacteria from the ocean floor. Sanders winds up covered by the bacteria, which causes changes to his body.  

Man Monster 1Paul barely escapes the bacteria and makes it back to shore, where he transforms into a red-scaled amphibious monster. After a brief rampage he becomes human again and the female reporters take him home.

From then on in times of danger the transformation comes over Paul again and he finds himself battling various forces of evil.

First Appearance: Tales of Evil #3 (July, 1975). His final appearance came in September of that same year.

Powers:    Continue reading →

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December 21, 2017 · 3:00 am

ATLAS (SEABOARD) SUPERHERO PANTHEON

Atlas figuresBalladeer’s Blog marks the shortest day of the year with the shortest-lived comic book company since Pelican Publishing!

It’s Atlas-Seaboard, to distinguish this publisher from Marvel Comics, which went by Atlas Comics in the 1950s. There IS a Marvel connection, however, in that Martin Goodman, Stan Lee’s old colleague, launched Atlas Comics through Seaboard Periodicals for one brief shining moment several months in 1975. 

Calling themselves “The NEW House of Ideas” clearly threw down the gauntlet at Marvel Comics’ feet. As it turned out, however, even Alan Thicke was a bigger danger to Johnny Carson than Atlas was to Marvel.

PhoenixPHOENIX

Secret Identity: Ed Tyler, Astronaut

Origin: Astronaut Ed Tyler was part of a three-man crew on the orbiting space station Threshold I. A leak in the main portion of the station forces the trio of astronauts to abandon their mission early and they evacuate in a shuttlecraft.

Complications cause the vessel to crash-land in the Arctic ice with Ed Tyler as the sole survivor. Tyler found himself in the hands of an alien race called the Deiei, who have been observing humanity from their underground Arctic base for untold millennia. The Deiei guided humanity’s evolution to make us more in their image.

The haughty aliens had recently decided Earth people are a failed experiment. They planned to preserve Ed Tyler for study to see what might have gone wrong but intended to wipe out all other human life on the planet and start from scratch. Tyler escaped custody, donned one of the high-tech battle suits of the Deiei and flew off, determined to thwart the Deiei’s genocidal plans 

Phoenix 2First Appearance: Phoenix #1 (January, 1975). His final appearance came in October of that same year.  

Powers: The Deiei space suit worn by Phoenix enabled him to fly at thousands of miles per hour, to shoot atomic energy blasts from his gloves and to withstand high levels of energy and large projectiles virtually unharmed. The suit also granted him a modicum of greater than human strength.  

The media named this hero Phoenix when they saw him emerge from the smoldering ruins of part of Reykjavik, where he drove off the first assault by Deiei spaceships.  

Comment: After fighting the Deiei for awhile Phoenix encountered another alien race called the Protectors of the Universe. Magus, the leader of the race, disagreed with the Deiei’s desire to wipe out humanity and granted Phoenix an opportunity to prove the people of Earth deserving of a second chance.

Phoenix’s adventures combined elements of the Silver and Bronze Age Green Lantern with Adam Warlock’s “philosophy for pre-teens” approach during his Counter-Earth period. Personally I found Ed Tyler’s gloomy “Humanity is so awful maybe we don’t deserve to be saved” musings to be ridiculous. Compared to the genocidal and callous Deiei, the human race seems like the definite lesser of two evils.  

All that aside, Phoenix had a certain charm. In fact he was one of the few Atlas characters popular enough to be given a second chance with 2010’s attempted re-launch of the title.  

Destructor 1DESTRUCTOR

Secret Identity: Jay Hunter, teenager

Origin: When aspiring criminal Jay Hunter ticked off Max Raven, the crimelord he answered to, that gangster put out a hit on him. The attempt on Jay’s life took place at the lab of his scientist father Simon, who was working on a super-soldier formula.

Both men were mortally wounded, but Jay’s father – knowing there was enough formula to save one, but not both of them – gave it to his son to save his life. Jay pulled through, discovered he now had amazing super-powers and took to wearing a costume to fight crime. He called himself Destructor and was determined to atone for his criminal past.   Continue reading →

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