Quote:
They were just a feeble attempt by Stan to revive the line; an attempt that was about five years premature.


Yup. But it WAS interesting to see in one of the Astonishing issues a comic artist discussing his assignments with his editor, who went by the name "Stan".

And to the point that others are making, excusing the material for being lame because "they were restricted to 7 and 8 page stories". Might I remind you all that EC (being done contemporaneously with the Atlas revival) was also restricted to 7 and 8 page stories, and yet those stories were compelling and well-written.

I've figured out the difference, by the way. When Feldstein and Kurtzman were writing for EC, they treated their audience with respect, not assuming that everyone in the audience was a child. Timely/Atlas, right up until 1961, and DC right up until 1970 or so, addressed their readers "Dear Boys & Girls".

With the Atlas heroes revival, clearly Stan and Martin still assumed their only audience was children. Now, maybe their PRIMARY audience was -- but in writing to the lowest common denominator, they turned off a more mature audience.