Is the MCU about to face a threat in the form of the rise of the Bronze Age stable of Atlas heroes? The latest news about the movie-comic connection is that Paramount, under the aegis of Steven Paul’s SP media group (see here), has bought a majority stake in the Atlas comics library. Paul, the producer of ‘Ghost Rider’ has been put in charge of the deal that will see Paramount acquire the rights to use the Atlas heroes. What does this mean for comic book speculation? I’ll break it down for you in this post.
The first thing most people unfamiliar with Bronze Age comics might be thinking is: what the heck is Atlas? The Atlas story begins after Martin Goodman, one of the founders and long term managers at Marvel Comics, left Marvel in 1972. Goodman had already started a publishing company called 'Seaboard Periodicals'. He hired Stan Lee’s brother Larry Leiber and Jeff Rovin to manage the new company and revived a part of Golden Age history by reusing the old original ‘Atlas’ title, and by 1974, the Atlas comics brand began with 23 titles to its name. None of these lasted beyond three or four issues when the whole thing collapsed in late 1975.
The irony here is that, throughout its brief active period in the mid-1970s, Atlas was – to put it bluntly - a Marvel wannabe clone. Okay, that’s harsh. Especially since, and to be fair here, Atlas was also in many ways (especially as regards creator’s rights and compensation of their talent) actually ahead of the times. During its brief existence, comic talent's on the order of Steve Ditko, Wally Wood, Neal Adams, Russ Heath, Rich Buckler and Howard Chaykin, all worked and contributed to the Atlas’ output.
Still, objectively speaking, the Atlas stable of heroes were very noticeably modeled on Bronze Age Marvel comic characters.
In the Bronze Age, Marvel was having phenomenal success with their revival of the Sword and Sorcery genre by way of publishing their Conan the Barbarian comics. Atlas, therefore, introduced Iron Jaw, a Barbarian. The horror revival of the seventies led to Marvel putting its critically acclaimed Tomb of Dracula series out. Atlas, in turn, introduced their Son of Dracula. If Marvel had a swamp creature called Man-Thing, leave it to Atlas to come up with its own version of a swamp monster and presto we have Morlock 2001 (although to be fair, DC had also come up with their version of Man-Thing known as Swamp Thing, so maybe Atlas copied DC on that one).
Why is the buying of Atlas characters going to be viewed as a challenge to Disney’s Marvel Studios? According to the article in Variety, linked above:
“The companies intend to produce and release at least one superhero project each year thereafter. The films will be produced by Paul, Goldsman and Atlas’ president of production, Spike Seldin (“The A-Team”). Development for Atlas will be supervised by Seldin. Greg Lessans will supervise for Weed Road.”
It sounds like, according to the reports, Paramount wants to use the Atlas properties to construct an interwoven film universe. Ideally, and very likely, Paramount will want this universe to more resemble the phenomenally economically and creatively successful MCU than the DCEU. So- from a comic book speculator perspective- which Atlas books should you dig up from your long boxes to resurrect?
Morlock 2001 #1 (January 1975) – First Issue of Atlas’s Man-Thing like hero
I would start with the characters that could appear before their Marvel counter-parts hit the big screen. Of soon to appear Marvel characters, Man-Thing hasn’t really been spoken of. For that reason Paramount might beat the MCU to a Swamp creature feature film using Morlock 2001. Sales on this comic have been scarce. 46 copies on the CGC census and the highest known sale was a 9.8 on eBay on 03/30/2018 for $129.00.
Iron Jaw #1 (December 1974) – Atlas Conan like Barbarian warrior
We know that Marvel is produced Conan again in comic form. But there’s been little news of anything like an MCU Conan feature. Paramount might beat Disney to the chase and release an Iron Jaw movie. One of the more popular Atlas books, Iron Jaw #1 has a current FMV of $150.00 and 68 copies on the CGC census to date. The last three sales on eBay went for $169.99 (on 12/09/2017), $116.49 (on 02/04/2018), and $149.95 (on 05/11/2019). Its spin off title, Barbarians #1 (May 1975), has actually been one of the more valuable titles in the Atlas stable and has sold for as much as $275.00 (eBay sale on 03/19/2014).
Fright #1 (May 1975) – Atlas comic featuring the Son of Dracula
Marvel’s critically acclaimed Tomb of Dracula may have inspired this Bronze Age horror book. Instead of Dracula by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colon, we get Dracula’s son by the just as formidable talent team of Gary Friedrich on scripts and Frank Thorne on pencils. Not enough graded copies for this to even show up on the CGC census, but that hasn’t stopped the few copies that have been graded from selling for respectable prices. The highest known sale of a 9.8, for example, was sold on eBay on 06/26/2017 for $175.00.
Hands of the Dragon #1 (June 1975) – Atlas Shang-Chi clone
This probably won’t see production before Marvel’s Shang-Chi, but in the case that Shang-Chi is a phenomenal hit, Paramount would have the fire-power to retaliate by rushing a ‘Hands of the Dragon’ movie to cinemas. This comic has all of 19 copies on the CGC census as of my writing this, the highest known sale was an eBay deal on 03/28/2015 that went for exactly $99.99.
