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Terry Hooper-Scharf

Monday 2 July 2012

“A History Making Cross-Over” -It Says So On The Press Releases!


Right, I think if you are a regular you have seen my other reviews/postings on the Atlas line of comics. I’d like to take a bit more time on “The history-making crossover.”

First:

ATLAS UNIFIED #1
The Grim Ghost, Phoenix, Wulf the Barbarian, and Detective Sam Lomax join forces for the first time in 35 years in a historical Atlas crossover event! Which enemy could make these Atlas Heroes set aside their differences, forge an alliance, and risk everything to defeat it? (Ships with 4 different covers, including a wraparound!)




And now….



ATLAS UNIFIED #2
Writer:  Tom Peyer
Artist:  Jimbo Salgado
Price: $2.99
Full Color, 24 pages

The history-making crossover continues here!  The Grim Ghost, Phoenix, Wulf the Barbarian, Sam Lomax and some familiar faces find themselves battling a time-travelling villain in this epic new storyline that has been over 35 years in the making!

Right. Sergeant Hawk, a Second World War army man. There is absolutely no excuse what-so-ever for an artist to be unable to draw a uniform from that period.  Yes, I, and many other veteran artists, have lots of military reference books but if you are lazy and don’t want to go over to a book-shelf (if you have a book-shelf) then there are so many references online.  The helmet worn by Hawk goes from looking like an Italian 1934 style to 1936 Polish army helmet and the uniform…!!

I could go on -like WHY is the Grim Ghost now wrapped up like a mummy? Proportions on figures are out and it just looks a mess -oh, and on the other variant cover you have Grim Ghost, Phoenix and Wulf facing off a horde of Vicki The Models!  They are all in solo action and NOT working as a team. That said, the cover is possibly the best art.

oh, and if I see the ‘dead’ Phoenix rise once more I am going to fill a vomit bag and send it to Ardden who publish the Atlas books. It is now just a very bad joke to continuously pad out books that do not seem to be going anywhere. Seriously -have you read Phoenix???

And just how in the **** can you claim this is a team up of the old 1970s Atlas Comics (Seaboard Periodicals) characters when they are NOT? They are in no way similar as characters, most things have been altered to such an extent that a true 1970s Atlas fan, such as myself has to shout out loud.

“Historical” -very definitely NOT.  “35 years in the making”?? WTF???? No, Ardden only got the rights to use, I assume, the names what..3-4 years ago? I know the time between issues is getting longer and longer but really.

Tom Peyer has been around as a comics writer-editor for a good while -he was “discovered” by Roger Stern, who gave him co-writing gigs on a few of his (Stern’s) DC assignments in the late 80s.  So, he definitely has not been working on this story or script for 35 years! Still, the story seems disjointed and to jump at times to such effect that I thumb back to make sure I’ve not missed a page.

Now, look at this:




Unless there are TWO jimbo Selgado’s can someone explain to me how he can pencil the above pages but, for Atlas, produce pencilled/inked pages such as the below?




Perhaps, if there are NOT two Selgado’s there is a very clear message here:do not under any circumstances allow him to ink his own pencils!!! Or, make sure he IS inking his own work because the pencil style and inked styles do not match -an assistant being used?

For the amount of time and the delays it takes Atlas/Ardden to get an issue out there is no excuse for this. Do the publishers -Jason Goodman, Brendan Deneen and Richard Emms need glasses? Are they proud of this? And what of Editor-in-Chief Mike Grell -how is he letting this through????

To date only Wulf has shone out as an Atlas title. I feel really, really bad about being negative over these books and particularly the art but when you hear that your old favourites are to return you expect the same high quality art and story as in the 1970s. Not pale clones.

Already a large number of old Atlas fans have jumped ship. Newer fans are just dropping the titles from their pull lists.

No one from Ardden reads these postings (though I have sent links and messages -unanswered) but if they did I would beg that they take a hard long look at what they are producing and if they really want to keep the old and new fans -PLEASE shake things up because your reputation is not doing well from this.

And where, I ask, is the Wulf comic after all this time…?

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