By Joe Maneely, Gene Colan, Russ Heath
Edited by Dr. Michael J. Vassallo
Published by Fantagraphics
Atlas Comics Library # 4 is out and this time we get the entire contents of the first eight issues of Timely/Atlas/Marvel’s War Comics, originally published from the end of 1950 right up to the beginning of 1952.
Harvey Kurtzman’s Two-Fisted Tales at EC Comics had already started and Frontline Combat followed during this same time period.
These issues of War Comics, however, unlike a number of the later Atlas war comics, did not in any way resemble the great, influential anti-war comics being published across town.
No, the contents of these eight issues, and thus of this volume, are all flat-out gung-ho tales of the US Armed Forces on land, sea, and air, largely in dealing with the Korean police action that had just begun.
Throughout the 1950s, the company would, in fact, publish a great mixture of war comics—some that read like pure propaganda and others that show more realistic depictions of the horrors of war. There’s a little of the latter here, but more often than not, the soldiers killed were proud to give their lives in the fight against Communism, or Nazism.
World War II was less than a decade in the past and many of the young readers of these comics were likely early Baby Boomers, born during the latter days of the conflict and just learning to read. They had heard their fathers talk about Nazis so there were a number of stories about Nazis.
It’s possible the writers of the stories in the book—most of whom remain identified—were also veterans, as there was a huge influx of creative types who entered the industry after studying writing and/or art on the GI Bill.
If the writers are mostly anonymous, the artists are a big draw here. War Comics feature very early work from a number of folks who went on to become cornerstones of the industry during the later Silver Age of Comics. These include Gene Colan (Daredevil, Dr. Strange, Tomb of Dracula), Jay Scott Pike (one of THE best Good Girl Artists ever), Mike Sekowsky (original artist on DC’s Justice League of America as well as the “New” Wonder Woman), Pete Morisi (Peter Cannon-Thunderbolt), and Atlas stalwarts like Allen Bellman, Joe Maneely, and Sol Brodsky.
Best of all, we get several stories by Russ Heath. If not for Joe Kubert, Heath would undoubtedly be remembered as the greatest war comics artist of them all. Even today, Heath’s role in comics history seems under-appreciated. He worked on everything from Mad to Little Annie Fanny to Sgt. Rock to those full-page historical soldiers ads that dominated early ‘60s comic books.
No single story in this collection really stands out for me as being particularly well-written or drawn. Historically, though, they are all interesting in terms of their content as well as their art and, as is always the case in this series, Dr. Michael Vassallo contributes a heavily illustrated and unquestionably factual 16-page treatise putting things into context of the times in the world as well as context of the industry itself.
The covers are still in that busy style that Atlas had in its early days and not as attractive as later ones, even of War Comics. Personally, I could do without the reprints of long-invalid Charles Atlas ads or the government-mandated two-page text stories (required for second-class postage privileges) that I gather most kids skipped over back in the day (as I always did when picking up pre-letters page Marvels at the junk shops a decade later).
I do however, greatly appreciate that Fantagraphics is presented the pages in the Atlas Comics Library series more as scans than as restored, recolored versions as they do in some other books. In fact, I greatly appreciate that Doc Vassallo and Fantagraphics are doing these collections at all and really hope they keep doing them until they get around to the much better stories and art that came along just a few years later.
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