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You raise some interesting points, but when the Atlas Era comics are considered in relation to the offerings of other 50's publishers, then you can see they weren't any worse in terms of content or art.


I'd disagree. From a superhero perspective, the only popular superheros in the early 1950s were the DC heros and the Fawcett Heros. And all of those books featured art that was extremely high quality, albeit more stylized than Atlas hero books, and, most significantly IMHO, were just a lot more fun to read than any superhero story put out by Atlas.

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The only exception to this is the EC New Trend line - where art and stories were truly outstanding for that period.


I think the Atlas non-superhero stuff compares favorably with most other publishers of the 1950s because they did have a lot of good artists, including some who worked for EC.

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You have to look for some other reason for Atlas not doing well. Superhero comics were generally in decline and I don't think the Atlas heroes were as recognisable as DC's (not even Captain America, who was primarily a war hero, and the atmosphere had changed with the Cold War). DC was struggling anyway. The 50's was realy the decade for Sci - Fi and horror and the Atlas books on those themes did better, even though the the same talent pool was used as on the Heroes books.


Again, while superhero comics had declined by 1953, there were signs of life such as the Superman t.v. show and the continuing health of the main DC books and the Fawcett books (Captain Marvel went strong until he was put out of business in November 1953).

Atlas' superhero failure, again IMHO, really is attributable to the fact they were stories straight out of WWII, the very type of story that had failed the industry in the late 1940s. Unlike DC, where Superman and Batman were becoming more and more fantastic and fun (perhaps more like Capt. Marvel in a way), Atlas went with a failed formula.

S&K had the same failing with the early issues of Fighting American. Their attempt to convert the book into a parody didn't work either.

Stan Lee's status as a genius rests on his discovery of a new formula that broke from the past. Atlas failed because it was just a rehash of a failed past.