Once upon a time Martin Goodman sold Marvel Comics (and his other magazines) to Perfect Film and Chemical. Marvel continued on without him and Perfect eventually fired his son, Chip Goodman, from whatever Marvel job he had.
In retaliation, Martin started Atlas Comics (Atlas was one of many names Goodman used for his comics publishing prior to standardizing on Marvel) and tried to snatch up the best talent from DC and Marvel. Folks working for Atlas included Larry Lieber (Stan Lee's brother and Martin's nephew), Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin, Ernie Colon and many others. There was a black and white Warren style line and a color Marvel style line. The color comics each lasted about three months, and the final issue was often a change of direction to make the title much more like a Marvel superhero comic.
So here we are with Targitt #1. The Atlas trade dress and design work look an awful lot like the Marvel trade dress of the day. And that cover, not credited in the comic, but attributed to Dick Giordano online, is pretty nice. I'm not sure that it needs the word balloon, it looks to me like Targitt is already in plenty of danger without letting him know he is going down with the ship.
Boy, if the artwork inside is this good, then this book will certainly be a hit.
Uh oh.
To be fair, the artwork is pretty mixed throughout this issue. There are some panels that are occasionally grabbers, outnumbered by awkward storytelling and even more awkwardly drawn panels.
The single best panel is the double page spread with the story title, the credits and an exploding airplane, which is pretty spectacular.
The artist here is Howard Nostrand, who I mainly remember from Cracked magazine. He was a good airplane artist, kind of but not exactly like Bill Ward was a good girl artist.. Really. There was a nice picture of a jet plane in a movie or TV parody and there was a note from Howard Nostrand saying something like "Look at this plane! It looks like something out of Steve Canyon! Try and top that, Severin!". Probably one of the funnier things I saw in Cracked, which I would only get when I was too desperate for more Mad to wait until the next issue. Here Mr. Nostrand is clearly playing to his strengths in aviation art. It's too bad the rest of the book doesn't have more airplanes.
Here's a nice Atlas house ad drawn by Ernie Colón, who at the time I thought of as "The Good Richie Rich Artist". That guy in the foreground looks like his and Roy Thomas' "Arak, Son of Thunder" who is about 10 years away at this point. Colón is a seriously underrated comics artist, in my humble opinion. His Medusa Chain is a pretty swell album-type science fiction graphic novel and his art on Arak, Son of Thunder and especially Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld are terrific.
The comic itself is kind of a violent mess, Targitt becomes a rogue FBI agent after his wife and daughter are killed in a really well drawn plane bombing. There are shootings and stabbings and various beatings going on. This is more violent than the cop shows of the day. But it's not particularly engaging.
There's also a helicopter explosion at the story's climax. It's not as well drawn as the plane explosion. It's still pretty cool.
There's also a Bullpen Bulletins style page listing the absurd number of comics Atlas was releasing in it's first couple of months. I wonder if Atlas could have made a go of it if they had eased into the market and not made so many changes to their titles after two issues. Had the Goodmans played this right, they could have their own staple of successful comics that launched a series of movies and merchandising. Instead, we just get a mess that was over before it started.
Next time I am here I want to take a look at Superman Family #182, one of DC's first two Dollar Comics.
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