They weren't called 'Atlas' because they held up well.

I've been reading a lot of 1950s Atlas Comics from the war/spy genres recently and have begun to notice some peculiar recurring ideas. Perhaps it shouldn't surprise me that much to find similar ideas repeated again and again in the comics, but these four tropes were a bit surprising.

Trope the first: Women Must Die!

This one came specifically from reading a bunch of issues of Kent Blake of the Secret Service back-to-back. Kent Blake's stories were usually set in Washington DC but would send him all over the world to ferret out communist spies. Sometimes the stories were established as a mystery to make the reader guess which suspect might be a commie. Frequently, the spies would die in the climax.

What's amazing about the Kent Blake series is how often the spies turn out to be woman and that the series almost always kills them. If the spy is a man, he might die or he might be captured. If the spy is a woman, statistically she is almost certain to die (so far I've read only one story where the woman spy is taken alive). It's not that the character of Kent has a thirst for women's blood - they tend to fall off roofs or be murdered by their male associates. There was something which convinced the Kent Blake creators that women were soft on communism and therefore deserving of death.

But even the women on Kent's side tend to be picked off, be they Iranian women or Korean women, simply associating with Kent is a good way for women to enter an early grave. In one story, Kent has a girlfriend named Gale who invites him her to home for a vacation (which naturally leads to a "find the commie" plot that ends with a woman spy dying). Gale wants to marry Kent; that's enough to make Kent want to get as far away from her as he can. Totaled up, Kent Blake has a pretty strong misogynistic streak within it. It makes you wonder if Mickey Spillane were still writing for Marvel in those days.

Trope the second: Peace Is Hell!

Now and then a character in a war comic might wistfully wonder, "can't we give peace a chance?" The plot will almost always demand, no, you cannot. There are some stories set during the Korean War where communist soldiers realize "the American way" is superior and will defect to the other side (usually executing a few of their fellow commies to prove themselves), but usually when a soldier in one of these stories thinks something outrageous like "communists are people too," the story will go out of its way to prove him wrong, wrong, wrong by having the communists commit terrible atrocities, disobey the rules of war and prey upon the soldier's weak-minded egalitarianism. By the climax, the peace-minded soldier will have learned his lesson (the only good red is a dead red) and will probably die in a suicidal strike against the communists.

Trope the third: We Have Met the Enemy!

It would be wrong to think the Atlas Comics glorified war. I mean, they did, but some of the time - particularly pre-Code - they told a number of "war is hell" stories where good men die senseless deaths, sometimes killed by munitions dropped by their own side. Still, you almost never saw a story where the United States Army were the bad guys...

...Unless you count stories set during the US Civil War. The one time where it is acceptable to depict the United States as an unjust aggressor battling a noble people? That would be the time they had to fight their own rebellious citizens, y'know, the ones who believed in racial superiority and the principle of owning other men as property; that never comes up in the Atlas stories, as you can well imagine. Virtually every Civil War story is some variant on "Lost Cause" hogwash and ends up taking the centrist position of, "gosh, there were very good people on both sides." There's something very unsettling about the one scenario where the US Army are allowed to be the bad guys is when they were battling a tyrannical slave state.

Trope the fourth: Yellow Fever!

Atlas Comics had a whole cottage industry of war comic book features starring a pair of vitriolic best friends, two manly men who would always be bustin' each other's balls while going on consequence-free adventures in the middle of a war zone. That is, they were basically rip-offs of the characters Flagg & Quirt from the film What Price Glory? and were often written by Hank Chapman.

Within those stories there were a number of notable female villains - Asian women often dressed in military garb (but just as often showing off their cleavage) whom our heroes would spar with time and again, never killing them despite their deadly possibilities. They were essentially ersatz Dragon Lady copies. Some of these ladies appeared so frequently they would fight the heroes in more than one story per issue!

Combat Kelly and Cookie Novak had Yalu River Rosie, the Panther Lady, Muktong Molly and Korea Katie; Battle Brady and Socko Swenski had General Olga; Iron Mike McGraw and Gunny Gorski had Chee; Battleship Burke and Salty Smith had Hungnam Hannah (I commented about her before). That's everyone I've found so far. Obviously there was a bit of the ol' fashioned western interest in Orientalism, particularly on the exoticism side. It also seemed to provide a means to belittle the USA's communist adversaries: "Hey, dem commie dames jus' wanna tough 'Murican guy tah put 'em in der place."

The Great Marvel Hoax

Currently I'm reading the book Bunk: The True Story of Hoaxes, Hucksters, Humbug, Plagiarists, Forgeries, and Phonies by Kevin Young and it is quite a fascinating read as the author attempts to connect the various kinds of frauds people perpetuate. I thought of this book when I recently bought an issue of Marvel UK's Planet of the Apes magazine featuring Apeslayer.

You know, Apeslayer! That great Marvel science fiction hero Apeslayer! Surely every Planet of the Apes fan remembers Apeslayer?

Marvel's weekly comics in the UK always had a conundrum - how to fill their pages every week when the US comics they were publishing only came out once a month? You might be able to divide a monthly comic into four issues (filling up the rest of the book with text features or installments of other Marvel characters with a similar audience), but it would take just one month with five shipping weeks to throw you off your schedule. Therefore, the closer the UK's first issue release date was to that of the original US first issue, the quicker they'd exhaust their supply.

In the late 1970s when Marvel UK faced this issue on Star Wars they simply published original material. The audience for Star Wars was so vast - and so instrumental in Marvel staving off the market implosion of the late 70s - that they could justify the expense. But two years earlier in 1975 when Planet of the Apes ran low on US material there was just one thing to do: hoax their way out.

The editors of Planet of the Apes took Marvel's hero Killraven and edited his name into 'Apeslayer' then darkened his hair and modified all Martians/Martian slavers into apes. Frankly, they spent so much time touching up the art and text they might almost just as well have printed new stories! But at least it meant they didn't have to plot any new stories.

"...The War of the Worlds-- I mean, Apes!" This hoax was a pretty flimsy one and I have to assume a number of UK readers didn't fall for it. I mean, the kind of Martian technology seen in Killraven was a lot more advanced than what the Planet of the Apes apes were utilizing. Also, if they were an astute Marvel Comics fan, they'd already read those Killraven stories on first publication and would have put two and two together pretty fast.

Apeslayer! When your comic must be delivered in 30 minutes or less!

Creator credits for Iron Fist (Season 2)

Hey, that was an improvement... is the very least you can say.

Roy Thomas: creator of the title "The Fury of Iron Fist" (Marvel Premiere #15, 1974); of the title "Heart of the Dragon" (Marvel Premiere #16, 1974); co-creator of Turk Barrett, a gangster (Daredevil #69, 1970); of Luke Cage, a Harlem-based hero with unbreakable skin (Hero for Hire #1, 1972); of Iron Fist, alias Daniel Rand, orphaned at the age of ten and raised in the city of K'un-Lun, where he trained in the martial arts to become their greatest warrior, passing every test and trial before him until gaining the power to channel his chi into his fist, making it superhumanly powerful; Iron Fist called a "living weapon"; Wendell Rand and Heather Rand, Daniel's parents who perished nearby K'un-Lun; Harold Meachum, Wendell's business partner who betrayed him and had Wendell and Heather killed; K'un-Lun, a hidden city found in the Himalayas which exists within another dimension and only connects to Earth at intervals spaced years apart; of the Iron Fist costume with open chest, green garments with yellow mask; of Yu-Ti, the ruler of K'un-Lun who oversaw Danny Rand's trials (Marvel Premiere #15, 1974); of Daniel Rand fighting the dragon Shou-Lao the Undying, an immortal dragon, and received a dragon-shaped brand on his chest from the dragon along with the power of the Iron Fist; Lei Kung the Thunderer, Daniel's K'un-Lun mentor in the martial arts; of the Thunderer's insignia (Marvel Premiere #16, 1974)

Chris Claremont: creator of the title "A Duel of Iron" (Iron Fist #1, 1975); of the title "The City's Not for Burning" (Iron Fist #3, 1976); of the title "The Dragon Dies at Dawn" (Iron Fist #9, 1976); of the title "Target: Iron Fist" (Iron Fist #13, 1977); of the title "Morning of the Mindstorm" (Marvel Premiere #25, 1975); co-creator of Colleen Wing and Misty Knight as allies (Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #32, 1977); of Davos, a resident of K'un-Lun; of the Steel Serpent brand; of Misty Knight's background as a police officer (Iron Fist #1, 1975); of Daniel Rand being disliked in K'un-Lun as an outsider; of Daniel's K'un-Lun surname 'Rand-K'ai' (Iron Fist #2, 1975); of Davos working with Joy Meachum; of Misty Knight's bionic right arm (Iron Fist #3, 1976); of Colleen Wing following the path of bushido and wielding a katana (Iron Fist #7, 1976); of the Golden Tigers, a Chinese-American street gang which engages in gang wars and battle both Iron Fist and Davos; of Chen Wu, one of the Golden Tigers (Iron Fist #8, 1976); of Davos siphoning the Iron Fist from Danny Rand into himself (Iron Fist #14, 1977); of Davos as Lei Kung's son; of Davos nearly killing Iron Fist by draining his chi (Marvel Team-Up #63, 1977); of Davos training alongside Daniel Rand to become the Iron Fist; of the Iron Fist as a title which many have held over the centuries (Marvel Team-Up #64, 1977)

John Byrne: co-creator of Davos, a resident of K'un-Lun; of the Steel Serpent brand; of Misty Knight's background as a police officer (Iron Fist #1, 1975); of Daniel Rand being disliked in K'un-Lun as an outsider; of Daniel's K'un-Lun surname 'Rand-K'ai' (Iron Fist #2, 1975); of Davos working with Joy Meachum; of Misty Knight's bionic right arm (Iron Fist #3, 1976); of Colleen Wing following the path of bushido and wielding a katana (Iron Fist #7, 1976); of the Golden Tigers, a Chinese-American street gang which engages in gang wars and battle both Iron Fist and Davos; of Chen Wu, one of the Golden Tigers (Iron Fist #8, 1976); of Davos siphoning the Iron Fist from Danny Rand into himself (Iron Fist #14, 1977); of Davos as Lei Kung's son; of Davos nearly killing Iron Fist by draining his chi (Marvel Team-Up #63, 1977); of Davos training alongside Daniel Rand to become the Iron Fist; of the Iron Fist as a title which many have held over the centuries (Marvel Team-Up #64, 1977)

Gil Kane: co-creator of Iron Fist, alias Daniel Rand, orphaned at the age of ten and raised in the city of K'un-Lun, where he trained in the martial arts to become their greatest warrior, passing every test and trial before him until gaining the power to channel his chi into his fist, making it superhumanly powerful; Iron Fist called a "living weapon"; Wendell Rand and Heather Rand, Daniel's parents who perished nearby K'un-Lun; Harold Meachum, Wendell's business partner who betrayed him and had Wendell and Heather killed; K'un-Lun, a hidden city found in the Himalayas which exists within another dimension and only connects to Earth at intervals spaced years apart; of the Iron Fist costume with open chest, green garments with yellow mask; of Yu-Ti, the ruler of K'un-Lun who oversaw Danny Rand's trials (Marvel Premiere #15, 1974)

Ed Brubaker: co-creator of Iron Fist taking the place of Daredevil (Daredevil #87, 2006); of Orson Randall, Danny Rand's predecessor as Iron Fist; of the Crane Sisters, allies of Davos (Immortal Iron Fist #1, 2007); of the Iron Fist's chi being channeled through different weapons; of Orson Randall's trenchcoat and chi-firing pistols; of Wu Ao-Shi, a female Chinese Iron Fist called 'The Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay (Immortal Iron Fist #2, 2007); of the Iron Fist called an Immortal Weapon; of Wu Ao-Shi falling in love with a fisherman (Immortal Iron Fist #7, 2007)

Larry Hama: co-creator of Daniel Rand fighting the dragon Shou-Lao the Undying, an immortal dragon, and received a dragon-shaped brand on his chest from the dragon along with the power of the Iron Fist; Lei Kung the Thunderer, Daniel's K'un-Lun mentor in the martial arts; of the Thunderer's insignia (Marvel Premiere #16, 1974); of Joy Meachum, Harold's daughter (Marvel Premiere #18, 1974); of Ward Meachum, a relative of Harold and Joy; of Colleen Wing, a Japanese woman, ally and sometimes love interest of Iron Fist (Marvel Premiere #19, 1974)

Matt Fraction: co-creator of Orson Randall, Danny Rand's predecessor as Iron Fist; of the Crane Sisters, allies of Davos (Immortal Iron Fist #1, 2007); of the Iron Fist's chi being channeled through different weapons; of Orson Randall's trenchcoat and chi-firing pistols; of Wu Ao-Shi, a female Chinese Iron Fist called 'The Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay (Immortal Iron Fist #2, 2007); of the Iron Fist called an Immortal Weapon; of Wu Ao-Shi falling in love with a fisherman (Immortal Iron Fist #7, 2007)

Doug Moench: creator of the title "Citadel on the Edge of Vengeance" (Marvel Premiere #17, 1974); co-creator of Joy Meachum, Harold's daughter (Marvel Premiere #18, 1974); of Ward Meachum, a relative of Harold and Joy; of Colleen Wing, a Japanese woman, ally and sometimes love interest of Iron Fist (Marvel Premiere #19, 1974)

Len Wein: co-creator of Daniel Rand fighting the dragon Shou-Lao the Undying, an immortal dragon, and received a dragon-shaped brand on his chest from the dragon along with the power of the Iron Fist; Lei Kung the Thunderer, Daniel's K'un-Lun mentor in the martial arts; of the Thunderer's insignia (Marvel Premiere #16, 1974)

David Aja: co-creator of Orson Randall, Danny Rand's predecessor as Iron Fist; of the Crane Sisters, allies of Davos (Immortal Iron Fist #1, 2007); of the Iron Fist's chi being channeled through different weapons; of Orson Randall's trenchcoat and chi-firing pistols (Immortal Iron Fist #2, 2007)

John Romita Jr.: co-creator of Typhoid Mary, Mary Walker, a woman with multiple personalities who wields a machete; Typhoid Mary sent to monitor a super hero, her 'Mary' persona develops a crush on him (Daredevil #254, 1988)

Ann Nocenti: co-creator of Typhoid Mary, Mary Walker, a woman with multiple personalities who wields a machete; Typhoid Mary sent to monitor a super hero, her 'Mary' persona develops a crush on him (Daredevil #254, 1988)

Travel Foreman: co-creator of Wu Ao-Shi, a female Chinese Iron Fist called 'The Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay (Immortal Iron Fist #2, 2007); of Wu Ao-Shi falling in love with a fisherman (Immortal Iron Fist #7, 2007)

Jason Henderson: co-creator of Colleen Wing as a member of the Hand (Shadowland: Daughters of the Shadow #1, 2010); of Colleen leaving the Hand (Shadowland: Daughters of the Shadow #3, 2010)

Ivan Rodriguez: co-creator of Colleen Wing as a member of the Hand (Shadowland: Daughters of the Shadow #1, 2010); of Colleen leaving the Hand (Shadowland: Daughters of the Shadow #3, 2010)

Tony Isabella: co-creator of Misty Knight, an African-American detective who encounters Iron Fist (Marvel Premiere #21, 1975)

Arvell Jones: co-creator of Misty Knight, an African-American detective who encounters Iron Fist (Marvel Premiere #21, 1975)

Jay Faerber: co-creator of Iron Fist battling the Hand; of the Hand seeking to control Iron Fist's power (New Warriors #7, 2000)

Jamal Igle: co-creator of Iron Fist battling the Hand; of the Hand seeking to control Iron Fist's power (New Warriors #7, 2000)

Charles Soule: co-creator of Sam Chung, a Chinese-American man (All-New All-Different Marvel Point One #1, 2015)

Ron Garney: co-creator of Sam Chung, a Chinese-American man (All-New All-Different Marvel Point One #1, 2015)

Archie Goodwin: co-creator of Luke Cage, a Harlem-based hero with unbreakable skin (Hero for Hire #1, 1972)

George Tuska: co-creator of Luke Cage, a Harlem-based hero with unbreakable skin (Hero for Hire #1, 1972)

John Romita: co-creator of Luke Cage, a Harlem-based hero with unbreakable skin (Hero for Hire #1, 1972)

Bill Everett: co-creator of Matt Murdock, alias Daredevil, a costumed crimefighter (Daredevil #1, 1964)

Frank Miller: creator of the Hand, a clan of evil ninjas who battle Daredevil (Daredevil #174, 1981)

Stan Lee: co-creator of Matt Murdock, alias Daredevil, a costumed crimefighter (Daredevil #1, 1964)

Marshall Rogers: co-creator of Colleen Wing and Misty Knight as allies (Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #32, 1977)

Travel Foreman: co-creator of the Iron Fist called an Immortal Weapon (Immortal Iron Fist #7, 2007)

Brian Michael Bendis: co-creator of Typhoid Mary wearing black leather (Daredevil #46, 2003)

Marco Checchetto: co-creator of Bakuto, a member of the Hand (Daredevil #505, 2010)

Kurt Busiek: creator of the title "This Deadly Secret" (Power Man and Iron Fist #99, 1983)

Antony Johnston: co-creator of Bakuto, a member of the Hand (Daredevil #505, 2010)

Michael Lark: co-creator of Iron Fist taking the place of Daredevil (Daredevil #87, 2006)

Andy Diggle: co-creator of Bakuto, a member of the Hand (Daredevil #505, 2010)

Jo Duffy: creator of the title "War Without End" (Power Man and Iron Fist #83, 1982)

Alex Maleev: co-creator of Typhoid Mary wearing black leather (Daredevil #46, 2003)

Gene Colan: co-creator of Turk Barrett, a gangster (Daredevil #69, 1970)