Of Menace and Men!
1953 was a watershed year for Atlas Comics as it tried to revive its superhero comic books, a reboot that fell flat on its face. It also introduced two obscure characters that would later become prominent decades later in the early 2000s. These revivals happened in the pages of various anthology books. Since my Index skips over non-continuity or one-off stories from this era, I’m not going to be indexing any of them anytime soon (if at all). Instead of having multiple sub-pages indexing them all, I put them all in one place. So let’s get into it shall we?
Menace
Menace was an science fiction and horror anthology series that contains almost nothing but one-off stories that have little or nothing to do with continuity. The Marvel Vampires Handbook points out that a vampire story in Menace #9 is considered part of continuity. I’ve omitted that issue because I’ve got more important stuff I want to cover first. Maybe I’ll get back to it, or maybe you should track down a copy and read it yourself if you’re so inclined. The only other issue of note is issue #11, which introduced the Human Robot. Although a one-off story, the Human Robot was later revived again in Agents of Atlas a series that revived a lot of Atlas era characters. As you can guess, this index only includes issue #11 and only the Human Robot story.
Young Men
If Young Men was published today, it probably would have some more sinister connotations and an adult collector would have some explaining to do. However, in the more innocent 1950s it was an anthology comic book that featured one-off stories featuring young men. The series replaced Cowboy Romances and taking over its numbering with issue #4. The first 10 issues featured teenage characters having mundane suburban adventures and hot rodding. With the start of the Korean War issue #12 saw the title shift into a war title changing its name to Young Men on the Battlefield until issue #21 when the series reverted back to being about hotrodding teenagers again.
Starting with issue #24, Atlas attempted to capitalize on the revival of superheroes that was being enjoyed by rival DC Comics by reviving its own stable of superheroes. That issue featured the return of the Human Torch, Captain America and the Sub-Mariner. Unfortunately, the return of these Timely era heroes was a total flop and Young Men was cancelled after issue #28.
Although unremarkable in terms of superhero stories go, Young Men has the distinction of being the comic where the Human Torch immolates Adolf Hitler.
Men’s Adventures
Men’s Adventures was similar to Young Men only it was FOR REAL RED BLOODED MANLY MEN. I guess? The title replaced True Adventures with issue #4 and featured men doing manly things until issue #9 when it became yet another war title. It was crammed with on-off war stories until issue #24 when it changed gears and became a horror/suspense title until issue #26.
Issue #26 is interesting because it featured a story with a character called Gorilla Man. Although this was only a one-off story, Gorilla Man — like the Human Robot from Menace — was one of the characters revived in Agents of Atlas.
Issues #27-28 were published during the brief revival of Timely era heroes and featured the Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, and Captain America. Men’s Adventures was cancelled after issue #28, another title that fell victim to this failed superhero revival.
As far as this index is concerned I’m only covering issues #26 (and only the Gorilla Man story) as well a issues #27-28.
3-D Comics
Lastly, Atlast published two one-shots that were published during this time, 3-D Action and3-D Tales of the West. These were comic books that used the popular anaglyph process of 3-D imagery that was popular at the time. I am only including 3-D Action in this index because it features a Battle Brady story (and I’m only featuring that one story) Tales of the West was entirely one-off western stories. No thanks.
