Second, those covers. They're darn near somber. Heavy on dark colors, a limited palette, and two even had panels at the bottom cutting space for the main image.

Look at the crime and horror covers of the same time period. That is what sold those books. If this format was driving Goodmans best selling titles, it was only natural for him, or Lee, to think that it would do the same for the superheroes.

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Then they clearly were wrong. Why should dark, somber covers sell something that's NOT horror or crime? Did we have a Homer the Happy Ghost cover with Bill Everett drawing nighttime scenes of graveyards and little Homer? Nope. (Though I'd love to have seen such a cover.) Wasn't the right approach for a "kids" book like Homer. Dark isn't and never has been the approach for a successful superhero cover.

Surely Martin/Stan looked at the other SUCCESSFUL superhero books on the stands and would have noted what made them (Superman family, Bats, WW, and the Marvel family -- until they died from lawsuit not sales) work. Horror demands dark moody covers. Crime works well with that approach too. But superheroes? Can't name a single one who succeeded with that approach and the Atlas trio certainly did NOT.

So, at least SOME of the failure of the books has to be editorial/management related.