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Atlas Comics (1950s)

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Atlas Comics is the 1950s and early 1960s comic book publishing company that would evolve into Marvel Comics. Pulp magazine publisher Martin Goodman, whose business strategy involved having a multitude of corporate entities, used Atlas as the umbrella name for his comic-book division during this time. Atlas was located on the 14th floor of the Empire State Building.

File:Atlaslog.jpeg

This company is distinct from the 1970s comic-book company, also founded by Goodman, that is generally known as Atlas/Seaboard Comics.

Many legendary artists of the 1960s Silver Age of Comic Books honed their craft at Atlas, such as future Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko; his successor Spider-Man artist, John Romita, Sr.; initial Iron Man artist Don Heck; and signature Daredevil and Tomb of Dracula artist Gene Colan. As well, such Golden Age stars as Jack Kirby and Bill Everett produced some of their finest or most fondly remembered work.

After the Golden Age

Atlas' roots were in Timely Comics, the company Goodman founded in 1939 and whose star characters were writer-artist Carl Burgos' android superhero, the Human Torch; Everett's mutant anti-heroNamor the Sub-Mariner; and Kirby and Joe Simon's seminal patriotic hero, Captain America.

Yet with the end of the wartime boom years — when superheroes were new and inspirational, and comics provided cheap entertainment for millions of children, soldiers and others — the post-war era found superheroes falling out of fashion. Television and mass market paperback books now also competed for readers and leisure time. Goodman began turning to a wider variety of genres than ever, emphasizing horror, Westerns, teen humor, crime, war comics, and even Bible stories.

The line marking the end of the Golden Age is vague, as contrasted with the start of the Silver Age, generally placed as the successful superhero revival beginning with The Flash in DC Comics' Showcase #4 (Sept. 1956). For Timely, at least, it appears to have ended with the cancelation of Captain America Comics at issue #75 (Feb. 1950), by which time it had already been titled Captain America's Weird Tales for two issues, the finale featuring merelyy featured anthological horror-suspense stories and no superheroes story. And by this time the company's flagship title, Marvel Mystery Comics, starring the Human Torch, had already ended its run (with #92, June 1949), as had Sub-Mariner Comics (with #32, the same month).

Whatever the demarcation point, Goodman began using the globe logo of his newsstand-distribution company Atlas (above) on comics cover-dated Nov. 1951.

More to come

Atlas or Marvel?

The exact point at which "Atlas" became "Marvel" has never been definitively established. Goodman — whose comic books in the 1950s were published by at least 59 shadow companies, fron Animirth Comics to Zenith Publications — used the globe logo of his self-distributorship, Atlas, both before and after he began self-distibuting.

Goodman had begun moving away from newsstand distributor Kable News by branding his comics with the Atlas globe on issues cover-dated Nov. 1951, even though Kable's "K" logo and North American map symbol remained through the Aug. 1952 issues. Goodman shut down his self-distributorship on Nov. 1, 1956, and began newsstand distrbution through American News Service. The Atlas globe remained, however, through the Oct. 1957 issues, when American News went out of business. Goodman switched to the distributor Independent News, and for unspecified reasons dropped the Atlas globe at that time. Had American News continued, Goodman might have continued to brand the company Atlas.

References

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