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This is the second volume of Atlas Era Heroes, basically the dark period in Marvel superhero history. The Golden Age had come and went, Timely changed its name to Atlas and was a long way away from being Marvel, and the heroes who headlined the comics during World War II just couldn’t sell in the Cold War. As Roy Thomas wrote in the foreword, there were 23 hero books that made their way onto the stands around this time which will be collected in this and a subsequent volume. DC had their big three and Marvel had theirs: Captain America, Sub-Mariner and Human Torch. That is what you’ll get here. The stories replaced the Nazi’s with Commie’s and featured some Golden Age legends at their commie-busting best. Just a brief note, the Captain America featured in this collection would later be retconned to be someone other than Steve Rogers, who was frozen in 1945 and Bucky was someone else, too, since he died in 1945, or so we thought!
Spoilers Ahead
-Men’s Adventures #27- Like all of these titles, the issue includes three 7-9 page stories featuring the Big Three of Marvel and a prose story. There is a Human Torch story where he and Toro must help the son of a secret agent who has fallen in with the wrong crowd. It seems they have a plot to steal billions from NYC by airing a message saying an atom bomb will be dropped on NYC. Human Torch and Toro stop him from doing so. A prose story tells of a man finding the flat part of Earth and was surprisingly good. The Captain America story sees him and Bucky uncovering a Commie threat in Egypt but the villain is not who it seems to be. Sub-Mariner also deals with the Commie threat by sinking a red ship that can disappear from view. The reds kidnap Subbie’s love interest drawing his ire and finally destroying their ship. It is interesting to see Marvel play on the red threat of the time and making stories of them. They were by the numbers and relatively too short to be anything, but were enjoyable.
-Men’s Adventures #28- This was much like MA #27 where Namor, Captain America and Torch are featured in 7-9 page stories. There is a prose story which features a boxer which was pretty pedestrian. The Human Torch featured some alien descending on the planet and with it a virus of some sort. Torch realizes that they are trying to save the human race but paranoia gets the better of the humans and they kill the aliens. Once they realize they have the cure they have some regret. The Cap story sees Cap in some Red country saving troops and they think one is a Commie. They end up getting captured since the Reds have put all their plans on hold to kill Cap. One of the commies captures Cap and Bucky but instead of killing him on the spot, they bring him to their base to kill him on TV. Bucky and Cap manage to escape with the help of the person they thought they was a turncoat. Decent enough story. Namor and Namora find a pack of killer whales that are wreaking havoc on America. They investigate and see that the lead killer whale is actually a submarine in disguise filled with commies! He stops them and delivers the villains but the commie says Subbie was in on it! Namor has to flee. I liked the twist to the end of that one, and it really shows Namor’s relation to the land world.
-Captain America #76- There are three Cap stories and one Human Torch story, with a prose story thrown in for good measure. The Human Torch story was much too short to be worth anything. He and Toro fight robots and a villain called the Vulture who kidnapped Betty. Torch saves her but the other scientist he kidnapped is dead. Oh well. The prose story dealt with Americans getting the best of some sneaky Japs. Finally Captain America deals with Communists in all three of his stories. In the first he frees a reporter who is accused of spying when it is her boss and cameraman doing it. The second one deals with Steve falling into the commie hands and luring out their secret plot and finally Cap heads behind the Iron Curtain to save brainwashed Americans.
-Captain America #77- The first story is kind of silly. A blind boy wishes for Cap and he’s there, of course. His father is in trouble thanks to some commie bastards, Cap saves him, a gun shot goes off near the boy and he can see again! The second story sees Cap helping out a Chinese American named Wing from a commie plot where reds are holding hostages Chinese-Americans in China and making them swear support to the commies. The US enforcer is the enigmatic Man Without A Face. Cap ends up battling him and it turns out to be Wing’s brother! Wing’s twin dies and Cap says that Wing doesn’t have to worry about his brother anymore. Nice not to tell him, Cap. Torch and Toro battle a one-eyed monster but the one-eyed monster is actually a benevolent alien! He wants to help us but we crazy humans overreact to things that are different and he has to flee. Torch tells us the human race needs to grow up and accept others. There’s a short story about a secret agent that really didn’t go anywhere and wasn’t terribly interesting. Finally, Cap and Bucky need to stop a red threat where the reds are poisoning their own POW’s to try and prove the US are animals. Cap shows us they are the monsters.
-Captain America #78- Cap and Bucky battle Electro, a communist villain who can be charged with electricity. Cap wins. Cap and Bucky are in China in the second story and stop a red threat. Who knows what the threat but a mystical dragon gets involved, showing how bad communism is. Basically the dragon only comes alive when China is headed for a severe downturn and Cap thought Bucky was using a mechanical dragon, but it turned out to be real! The prose story is actually an interesting. It is an agent who must uncover a super-spy in just an hour! The way he does it is pretty clever. Torch and Toro free some US POW’s from the reds. The final story is of Captain America and Bucky trying to stop a famous actor who revealed himself to be a communist and is plotting to blow up half of New York! Cap and Bucky must stop him and Cap has to stop the clock from reaching three pm and exploding! He literally holds it back while Bucky disarms it. Another red threat stopped. Ironically, Cap could not hold back the clock any longer. This would be the last time he appeared in his own title for another 14 years (this was published in 1954, and Cap #100 hit in 1968) and I don’t think he would appear again until 1964.
-Human Torch #36- Human Torch busts a commie threat by uncovering a factory that had the facade of producing toys but were really making atomic rays. The second tale sees Torch and Toro trying to deal with a dinosaur that was reawakened by an atom bomb test and is spreading a deadly disease (which someone figures out in about 3 minutes). So Torch and Toro team up with the army to drown this priceless piece of scientific information. Oh well. The prose story features a man deep in the jungle evading some voodoo magic while his other adventurers die. Sub-Mariner appears in the third story and stops a man and his octopus (never told how they were teamed up) from trying to get a whole village of fisherman to move so he can have their land for oil. Finally, Torchy stops a mobster named Ape and teaches us the perils of poorly build tenement houses.
-Human Torch #37- Torch and Toro investigate the mystery of giant bats and vampires in the area. It turns out that the vampires are actually a breed of alien and the big bats came back to get them. The second tale sees the duo bust a kidnapping operation of a woman whose brilliant father was captured by the Reds so they could use his nuclear experience. A prose tale seperates the Torch tales and it is a decent story about a submarine being confused by locals as ghostly. Sub-Mariner and Namora try to bring two guys back from the ocean depths and fall under a mysterious power of the ocean causing hallucinations. Finally Torch follows a mysterious robot and uncover an alien plot where robots are taking over. There is a twist ending that isn’t terribly obvious but still neat.
-Human Torch #38- Torch stops a communist plot to take out all the atmosphere of the Earth. Weird, who wants to do that? It seems that the mad scientist behind it all was under Red influence. His daughter miraculously walks at the end. The second is a pure Torch vs. Communist story as they literally burn the pants of the villain. The prose story tells a decent tale of a lost floating island that is accidentally nuked. Sub-Mariner battles Octopus-Men (which Roy Thomas says reminds him of the aliens in the Simpsons which is accurate) and prevents them from blowing up Europe. Finally, Torch teaches a young soldier that he does have courage.
-The Bottom Line- There is a fantastic foreword by Roy Thomas that runs four pages. He basically goes into detail on the 8 issues in this volume with who wrote them, who drew them, how Carl Burgos (creator of the Human Torch) would paste Torch drawings over Dick Ayers’ originals in some of the early issues and is really quite expansive. The art and color of the comics are amazingly restored, as well. This stuff looks absolutely gorgeous. For being over 50 years old. There is also a wealth of incredible extras in the back as well, with tons of original art from Dick Ayers showing the pasted pictures from the Burgos paste-ups. Other extras include a Romita sketch to Cap #77 and an old in-house ad. They also reprint a story that was unearthed from the archives that was only reprinted in 1968. It is basically Torch battling an alien invader. These stories themselves are very interesting. They are generally short and quick to get through and it is jarring to see such a political stance these took, especially the Cap tales. These aren’t just stories, it is actually a picture of the time in the 1950’s when the Communist threat was very real. It is Atlas/Timely/Marvel at their most political. They are almost like PSA’s of the time. As a historical piece, these are essential. The stories themselves were really too short to be fantastic and no real common threads were built upon and the story telling was pretty one-dimensional. I highly recommend this though, just to catch a glimpse at a different time in history and are very enjoyable reads when you look back 50+ years in hindsight.
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