The Atlas Comics Library No. 3: In the Days of the Rockets

Expanding Fantagraphics' project to reprint Marvel Comics' 1950s genre titles, this volume blasts off to space opera adventure.

In the vein of earlier comics-to-multimedia stars Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, Atlas Comics launched their own pulp hero in 1951, looking ahead to the futuristic year 2000. Across five issues of Space Squadron (and one of Space Worlds), headline talents including George Tuska, Werner Roth and Allen Bellman (with back-up features by Joe Maneely, Christopher Rule, George Klein and Vern Henkel) showed Captain Jet Dixon and his Space Squadron blasting into action, facing cosmic threats like "The Armada of Death," "The Space Demons," "Terror from the Deep," "The Temptress of Jupiter," and "The Midnight Horror."

Come 1953, Hank Chapman and Joe Maneely gazed further into the future, envisioning the distant year 2075 and the adventures of Speed Carter, Spaceman. Scripted throughout by Chapman, Maneely launched and drew the first three issues before handing off one issue each to Mike Sekowsky, George Tuska and Bob Forgione, with back-up features by John Romita, Maneely, and Bill Savage. As other aspects of the Atlas line leaned into the peak of pre-Code horror, the Captain of the Space Sentinels and young cadet Johnny Day battled monstrous aliens with stories including "The Space Trap," "A Slaughter in Space," "Die, Spaceman, Die," and "The Thing in Outer Space." 

Unseen in 70 years, scanned in high resolution, restored to perfection and packaged as one extra-sized, beautiful hardcover volume, In the Days of the Rockets! will open a wormhole to the early cold-war four-color era of futuristic science fantasy.

Full-color illustrations throughout

Joe Maneely (1926–1958) blazed a trail through Marvel’s 1950s comic books that is unsurpassed in both quantity and quality. Maneely was revered as a lightning-fast talent, and he launched most of Marvel’s character features during that time, excelling at every genre ― westerns, horror, humor, and war. He is best remembered today for his signature character, The Black Knight. Maneely’s career was tragically cut short in June 1958 when, at the age of 32, he accidentally fell between the cars of a moving commuter train.

Hank Chapman (1915-1973) wrote steadily for a variety of comics publishers between 1940 and 1967, usually uncredited, but he has been identified as the author of several hundred stories. In the 1940s, he worked on the serialized battles between The Human Torch and The Sub-Mariner in Marvel Mystery Comics. He was also an editor at Fox Comics from 1949 to 1953, but is most known for his war stories while on staff at Atlas in the 1950s and at DC in the ’50s and ’60s. In addition to Atlas titles like Battle, Battlefront, Combat Casey, and War Action, Chapman wrote for a variety of genres, including horror (Adventures Into Terror), Westerns, crime, and romance. Beginning in 1955, Chapman is estimated to have written more than a hundred war stories for DC titles like Our Army at War and G.I. Combat.

Mike Sekowsky (1923-1989) was a prolific workman of the Silver Age of comics, notably co-creating the Justice League of America for DC in 1960, and having a run as writer/artist on Wonder Woman. But he began at Timely, drawing everything from Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal to The Human Torch and The Sub-Mariner. He had a rapid, distinctive style and racked up a large number of mostly unsigned credits over a couple of decades, making him possibly the most prolific penciler at Timely. During the Atlas era, Sekowsky drew stories for Apache Kid, Marvel Tales, My Own Romance, Crime Must Lose!, Black Rider, Adventures Into Terror, Mystic, Journey Into Unknown Worlds, Love Adventures, True Secrets, Men in Action, Strange Tales, Battle, Patsy and Her Pals, Crazy, and many more. Alongside this prolific 1950s output, Sekowsky did ghost work on daily strips including Sherlock Holmes and Flash Gordon. He shifted to animation work in the 1970s, designing characters for Hanna-Barbera cartoons, including Scooby Doo and Super Friends.

Dr. Michael J. Vassallo is a noted historian on Marvel's early pulp, Timely and Atlas periods. A Manhattan dentist, he spends his free time attempting to bring recognition to artistic creators of the 1940's and 1950's. He has also written introductions to 20 Timely and Atlas Masterworks volumes, dissecting the credits for posterity and providing historical context, as well as writing the detailed captions to the first 210 pages of Taschen's 75 Years of Marvel coffee table book. He lives in Westchester County, New York.