Intro 00:01
Welcome to the Corner Box, the podcast equivalent of your favorite comic shop. The racks are packed. The energy's high, and every wall has something worth discovering. Longtime industry professionals, David Hedgecock, John Barber And their guests are here to show you around, digging into the stories, the craft, and the wonderful absurdity of the greatest artistic medium on the planet. Comics.
John 00:27
Whoa! New intro. Hey, that must mean this is a new number one episode.
John 00:33
I'm your brand new host. New John Barber. And with me for the first time ever, my other new co-host,
David 00:40
David Hedgecock.
John 00:41
Yeah.
David 00:42
I'm all shiny. It's like I'm chromed out over here, John.
John 00:46
That's cool. I just got the regular metallic ink. I got the death wreck deal, not the ectokid deal.
David 00:51
I'm full ecto kid over here.
John 00:53
Oh wait, did we shouldn't do callbacks?
David 00:54
There's nothing before this, John. This is a new number one Oh, I'm the silver sable of uh new number ones. Right.
David 01:02
If you look at me right now, that's what I look like. Excellent. New number one.
David 01:06
Look at all the new people here. There's so many new faces. As comic book guys, we only know one way to boost sales and boost ratings, and that is to put a new a shiny new number one on a thing.
David 01:15
And so that's what we've got. We're uh starting a new season. This is season four, John.
David 01:20
We have been doing this for a long time.
John 01:22
Amazing.
David 01:22
Uh but you know what? I truly love doing this with you I think that my fandom for comic books has done nothing but grow over the last three years because of our conversation. Uh you've introduced me to so many cool books that I would never probably have found on my own.
David 01:38
And the podcast itself has inspired me to stretch beyond my my normal bounds of comic book reading to keep myself entertained in it and hopefully to keep our listeners entertained. So I'm really excited. to uh start this new season.
John 01:51
I thought you were gonna leave at the end of that. I'm sorry. I thought that was like a to be fair to ourselves.
John 01:56
David, we were about to record a couple days ago and we said, hey, the quality's not gonna be what the corner box fans deserve. Let's hold off a couple days and do it now. When you're when you finish this episode and you're like, how?
John 02:08
That's how.
David 02:09
Yeah, for our listeners, like keep in mind this is the better version. Of what of what we were gonna give you for the new number one. Alright, so listen, we got new people here.
David 02:19
We gotta mind our Ps and Q's a little bit. You know, we gotta let people like ease their way into the water. We gotta we can't just throw 'em into the deep end.
David 02:26
So For for our longtime listeners, you maybe you can skip ahead 15 seconds, but we're going to reset everything here. We're going to introduce ourselves just briefly and sort of give our credentials. And then we're going to jump into a couple topics and everyone can kind of get a feel for what we do around here.
David 02:41
So my name's David Hedgecott, and I've been working in the comic book industry forever. I don't even know how many years at this point. But uh my love of comic books is strong and deep and has lasted for a very long time.
David 02:56
I got into comic books because I just love the art form. I love the medium. And I was inspired as a youth by some of the creative talent out there.
David 03:06
to try to do it myself. And so I managed to pull that off and I've been doing it for, like I said, for a long time. At a number of different levels, I Drew comic books, I've lettered comic books, I've written comic books all professionally.
David 03:19
And mostly I've been on the business side of comic books, though. I was the Publisher of a company called Ape Entertainment back in the early 2010s. We were responsible for all the DreamWorks animation comic books. So we were doing Kung Fu Panda Shrek.
David 03:35
Uh Penguins Madagascar, stuff like that. Ape Entertainment also was doing cool stuff like Strawberry Short Cake and Richie Rich comics, briefly, and a bunch of other stuff. We we published all kinds of stuff.
David 03:47
We had the number one best selling digital comic book for a couple of years called Pocket God. From there I went to IDW. It's a local publisher here in San Diego, IDW Publishing, small local publisher.
David 04:03
Where I was the uh managing editor and then editor-in-chief and then associate publisher. If you're not familiar with IDW publishing, they're responsible for all kinds of cool stuff. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, while I was there.
David 04:13
They were doing stuff like G. I. Joe and Transformers and a bunch of the other Hasbro licenses like My Little Pony, Sonic the Hedgehog, stuff like that. I largely worked on the management side of things, my time at IDW. And now I am uh doing this podcast.
David 04:27
No. Now uh I run a uh publishing consulting business. Sometimes that's for comic books. And sometimes it's not.
David 04:34
Some of the comic book stuff I'm still involved with. My company manages the entire Conan, The Barbarian. comic book and magazine catalog.
David 04:44
So Conan's had a long and illustrious history of uh comic book publishing. It's been over 50 years now. And my team is responsible for making sure that the archive of all that material is digitized and has the best sources and is basically searchable and understandable and easily accessed.
David 05:07
for the owners and for the people that uh publish Conan stuff. So in addition to just uh managing the archive, we also put together and package all the omnibus. So Titan Publishing currently is the publisher of note for Conan the Barbarian Omnibus and all things Conan.
David 05:24
And we are responsible for the omnibus packaging over there right now. So That's an example of one of the things that that I'm still doing to this day. Still got my hand in the comic books, John.
John 05:33
You're you're frequent Kickstarters. I mean you're you're Miss Mina.
David 05:36
I consider that sort of like my hobby part of the business, but I still publish my own comic books I am writing and have a number of really cool people drawing three different projects. One is called Miss Mina and the Midnight Guardians. We just ended our book three campaign for that and it was really successful.
David 05:52
We had over 650 people. The name of the publishing company that I have is Funtime Go. And the number of people we had for this campaign ended at 666.
David 06:02
And we were 696% over our initial ask. So I'm not those were very fun time go numb like numbers. to to to have.
David 06:15
We also ended at four twenty PM on Friday.
John 06:18
Oh boy.
David 06:20
Yeah. Lots of cool synergy there. And our next project, which you'll be hearing an advertisement for sugar bomb.
David 06:27
Hey everybody, it's David. We're gonna take a moment out of the show so I can talk to you about my new project. on Kickstarter that's coming soon.
David 06:34
It's called Sugar Bomb Milk Run. What is Sugar Bomb Milk Run? Well when twice blessed Supervillain Milk Made turns a corporate superhero squad into rampaging moo tents.
David 06:45
It's up to cybernetic hero Sugar Bomb to bring the chaos under control. Exploding with satire style and radioactive dairy, this is one high stakes showdown you won't forget. Get ready for an An utterly insane ride.
David 06:59
Right now on Kickstarter we have the sample page up, but if you go to get dot funtimego. com, you can find out all about Sugar Bomb Milk Run and the puns. that I just read to you will make a lot more sense.
David 07:15
Alright, go to git. funtimego. com to grab your VIP reservation now.
David 07:21
Sugar Bomb Milk Run with art by legendary artist Bart Sears. Featuring pinups from Juan Jose Rip, Alan Goldman, Anna Plethera of amazing talent. Get your VIP access now.
David 07:36
Git. funtimego. com.
David 07:39
It's a great way to support the show. We don't take in the advertising and we don't do Patreon or anything like that. John and I just do this because we love comic books and we love talking to all of you.
David 07:47
There's so many of you listening now that it's just really, we're really grateful for it. Okay, thanks everybody. Let's get back to the show And that's Sugar Bomb.
David 07:55
If you go to git. funtimego. com, you can learn more about that one.
David 07:57
Okay. I wanted to end my uh time with a plug and I feel very good about myself. It's your turn.
John 08:02
My name's John Barber. I currently am the editor-in-chief of Pan Universal Galactic Worldwide, or PugW, a publishing company run by John Nee, a couple XIDW people. And a few others.
David 08:15
Former Wildstorm and former Marvel publisher John Mee.
John 08:18
Yep. We published some uh licensed Marvel books Including the Art of Jim Lee that uh just kickstarted for half a million dollars uh a little bit ago, and we're nearly done with that. We've got a Secret Wars book that's finished and we're just uh waiting to do the final edits on it.
John 08:33
We've got some other ones coming up. We do three D Marvel Comics uh reprints of old three D stuff. We are airing after New York Comic Con and nothing will have been announced there, but Soon we'll uh we'll have a a cool announcement, some neat stuff, including uh r the the return of the comic that I've uh been working on for a while called Cygna and uh possibly some other comics that I've I've been working on as well.
John 08:54
Right now I'm also writing a couple kids graphic novels for various entities, doing some weird work that I can't quite talk about yet for a major kids graphic novel line. Doing a few other odds and ends and weird stuff. Picked up the pen and been drawing my own stuff too.
John 09:10
So hopefully we'll I'll have something uh to show from all of that work in the in the future. And yeah, being on this podcast has reignited my love of comics as well, which drifted off a little bit during the time before here. Uh before here, I way back when I I I was an early webcomics dude.
John 09:27
I wrote a book about webcomics with my friend Steve Withrow. Then I I worked at uh Marvel Comics as an assistant editor and then uh associate and editor where I worked on Marvel Zombies, Dark Tower, Ultimate Sline, a bunch of other stuff. Uh I I brought in writers like Jonathan Hickman, Kieran Gillen, Marjorie Lou's first editor over there.
John 09:47
And then I went over to IDW and I wrote a lot of Transformers and I edited a bunch of Transformers and other Hasbro stuff First person there to professionally to hire for a uh like a work for higher comic, Kelly Thompson, Jem and the holograms with uh Sophie Campbell, who are both currently killing it over at DC.
David 10:06
Crossing it at DC.
John 10:08
Yeah. Then I left, and then I and the uh then associate publisher whose name I cannot recall asked me to come back and
David 10:17
I've apologized for this.
John 10:20
I didn't mean it like that. I was just making a general joke. And then I that was editor-in-chief for both of you.
John 10:25
for the 200 years during COVID, if you remember that uh those couple centuries. Now I'm back and here I am. Super excited.
John 10:31
Can't wait for everything. I think this is I'm I'm really excited about comics in this upcoming year. of twenty twenty seven.
John 10:37
So excited to be here right now and talk about topics that are just right in the forefront.
David 10:41
Yeah, we're so topical here. Yeah, it's gonna be great. Thank you, John.
David 10:45
You also didn't mention the fact that you're in the Transformers Hall of Fame. And I love that about you. And I just need people to know that you are in the Transformers Hall of Fame as a writer.
David 10:53
There's a lot of people have written comic books, but not a lot of people have written enough Transformer comic books that they're in the Transformer Hall of Fame. So congratulations
John 11:01
Every time I run into Steven Spielberg or Weird Al Yankovic or Bumblebee, he gives us something to talk about.
David 11:08
Yeah Which happens a lot more than you would expect, really. So Tom, we got a exciting uh deep dive today. We've decided that we're gonna recommit a little bit to doing some more of these deep dives The audience has spoken over the last year or so and the the episodes that seem to always garner the most attention are the ones where we uh put in a modicum of resource before we talk.
David 11:33
So we're gonna do a little bit more of those. We're committing to uh a little more deep dives. We're gonna try to do this maybe once a month.
David 11:39
We're gonna start with this new number one. Just going to dive right in. Before we do that, there there's one bit of a newsworthy news that I wanted to share with you and get your opinion on because uh maybe we can have one thing that's topical that's not 40 years old.
David 11:53
So I just got an email. I think it's bad news. I don't know.
David 11:56
Marvel Unlimited is sunsetting as of December 7th, 2026.
John 12:00
A day that will live in infamy, David.
David 12:03
December 7th, yes. So, Marvel Unlimited is the thing that I've been using for man the last several years to read pretty much all of my Marvel comic books. Marvel Unlimited is the digital app.
David 12:14
Uh usually new material comes out about 30 days after it's on sale in print. And it's got a really nice, a pretty decent that catalog of preexisting Marvel comic books as an example. I've been reading the entire Avengers run from issue one.
David 12:33
I'm up in the 70s or 80s right now. They've got the whole thing right there on the app. So if I was trying to Go out and get any version of the first 100 issues of Avengers, no matter what format I'm trying to get, omnibus or whatever It would cost quite a chunk of money, but I can read it for the cost of almost nothing on the app.
David 12:52
So I really enjoy and appreciate the app for that. I don't know whether that's good for the uh comic book shops here in the United States, but uh it's certainly good for my wallet. So, man, the sunsetting of Marvel Unlimited seems like a concern, but the good news is that they're going to start a new Marvel Comics app, and it's going to be powered by Webtoon.
David 13:12
Now, where have we heard about Webtoon before?
John 13:14
The internet. I don't know. The show? Uh man, like several places.
David 13:19
So uh webtoon was recently bought, right, by Disney uh within the last 12 months, I think. The fact that they're already rolling out this new Marvel app through WebTune, that's a pretty quick turnaround, I I would think, for that level of Tech.
John 13:33
I don't think Web Disney bought Webtoon. I I I think they partnered with them Oh really? Yeah, for some deal that they hadn't specified which Well until today, which which seems to be this.
David 13:43
For some reason I thought Webtoons got bought by Disney. I wanted to read this email to everybody just so they can get an idea. Earlier today the Marvel Comics app powered by Webtoon was announced.
David 13:51
With the launch of this exciting new service from Webtoon, also comes the announcement that Marvel Unlimited will be sunset on December 7th, 2026. We want to thank you for being part of the Marvel Unlimited community. who helped shape the digital age for Marvel Comics.
David 14:04
The team at Webtoon has been hard at work building this all new digital comics experience and we're excited for you to get your hands on it soon. We will have much more in the coming weeks on all the exciting new features this service will bring. In the meantime, we know that with change also comes many questions, and we want to ensure we answer those as best we can.
David 14:23
I give a link to a FAC, FAQ. Then they talk about how they're gonna refund me and then they talk about how much it's gonna cost for me to buy the new thing.
John 14:33
Yeah, it's barely comparable, right? Like it's not like if looking at the price, like it's not totally out of line, is it?
David 14:38
I haven't even looked at it yet, but I hope it's comparable.
John 14:41
Yeah. It sounds like a pretty similar deal.
David 14:43
With something like this, like I don't know, change makes makes me a little queasy, but the Marvel Unlimited experience was okay. It was fine. Like any version of this that's slightly better, I'm all for.
David 14:56
Do I want to pay for slightly better? No, because I was happy with the price and I was happy with the quality that I was getting at that price Yeah. So I'm hoping that they're not gonna give me a bunch of whistle bells and whistles that I really don't want and then try to charge me more for it.
David 15:09
Much like everything that's getting AI inserted into it.
John 15:12
You can really use AI to power this. I hadn't sorry, go ahead.
David 15:16
And then they're gonna charge us for it. Like I don't need my Adobe PDF reader to be AI powered, and nor do I want to pay more for that. Like stop putting AI into things and then charging me more for it.
David 15:27
I don't want it. I don't want the AI, period. Like get it out.
David 15:30
And then you're charging me for it more for it. It's like Let me make the experience worse for you, John, and then charge you more for it.
John 15:36
David, you just hit upon the business plan of every web-based company Let's make it worse and then charge for it.
David 15:44
That's my concern here.
John 15:45
I always thought the Marvel Unlimited app, it was almost a like a throwback to an earlier time in the sense that like I was an early adopter on it, and that thing had database problems early on. But you couldn't complain that much because you're spending like like I think like less than a dollar a week to get like every Marvel Comic that they had on there. And you have these things of it's like, oh, they don't have this comic.
John 16:04
The reason they don't have certain comics on there is literally because they haven't had the manpower to digitize or if they have digitized to convert the files into the right formats. It was admirable in that it's like this is like a seat of the pants thing. You're not paying very much, you're not getting as good an experience as you do if you pay more.
John 16:21
But if you want to read all the stuff, here it is. And from Marvel's point of view, it's like here's $60 from somebody that goes right to Marvel. There's nobody in in in between.
John 16:29
Are you going to lose some people that were spending thousands of dollars to buy comics? Maybe a couple, but probably not too many, because if you're spending that much on those comics, you're probably spending them for a slightly different reason. Maybe you're the exception, you know?
David 16:42
I don't know, but I am the exception. I don't buy Marvel I buy very few Marvel comic books in print anymore. I just get 'em on the app.
John 16:48
Yeah. I'm curious where it goes with the webtoon. Like Webtoon is, as far as I uh know in my little bit of research just right now, that it is a pub a publicly traded company.
John 16:56
So uh Disney doesn't own it, but you can uh listener. All you need is uh I don't know, a couple billion dollars. I I don't know how much things cost these days.
John 17:03
Uh Disney is a uh stakeholder of like two percent, not like a a super significant one. Like I get where Disney and Marvel come from in that like let's offload all of the technical problems and all of the back-end stuff that we have to do to somebody else, and it becomes somebody else's problem to
David 17:19
Oh yeah.
John 17:20
You know, monetize this, but also to deal with just to deal with the problems of like, oh my punisher number 45 didn't load right. And at a certain point that's that's probably just a strain, and at a certain point A company, you know, is gonna look at at ways to cut those sort of costs and move 'em into a different category. It's a difficult gig being a profitable subscription-based company.
John 17:41
That's not the home run that everybody acted like it has been. So it'll be interesting to see how that goes. As far as like on the user side, this feels way less problematic than other app closures where like you lose a bunch of stuff that you've bought.
John 17:54
I don't think you could buy stuff on there. Or could you? Could you buy stuff on the app that you're losing?
David 17:59
I did not. I do think that there was a way for you to buy stuff and it would show up in the Marvel Unlimited app.
John 18:05
Was that powered by Comixology though?
David 18:07
I think it was powered by something else. I never
John 18:09
purchase digital I I don't purchase Monaco Research, sorry.
David 18:13
I know that it was like, you know, there was the Marvel Unlimited, like there was points and stuff that you could get. And if you did certain things, like watch certain videos or read certain things, you could get points and get such But I never paid any attention to any of that. I just read the books and I also very much am opposed to buying digital copies of things.
David 18:31
My digital experience for subscriptions is I I I know that I'm renting it, much like, you know, I I have Apple Music. I don't buy my music to download and keep it that way. If I want to do that, I will go out and get a C D. Same for the comic books.
David 18:43
If I want to own the comic book, I'll go out and buy the physical print version of that thing. Reading into the email, it does appear that you're going to be able to transfer over everything you have. into the new app.
David 18:54
I'm sure they've made it as seamless as they can. I'm sure there's gonna be hiccups, but um it does appear that any purchases you've made previously, you know, using Marvel Unlimited or how whatever Marvel version you have, will it will be transferred over to the webtoon. So that's good news for people who do invest in purchasing their digital comic books.
David 19:14
I I've always felt like the Marvel app, the Marvel Unlimited app, was a way which I appreciate, which is was a way for Marvel to say, hey, Stop pirating the shit.
Intro 19:23
Yeah, okay.
David 19:24
Which I appreciate because if I wanted to read a comic book on my iPad, right? Because I'm you know, going on vacation or something and I don't want to lug, you know, thirty comic books in a backpack or an omnibus in a backpack, especially when I can just throw it all on my, you know, iPad and read it that way, even and read more even more material. That's how I like have done things.
David 19:43
And so having a an option where I can legally pay for this stuff and have access to it. is I really appreciate it. And I I kind of have always felt like that was sort of what Marvel was doing.
David 19:55
And that's kind of always what the apps felt like. It has never felt like it's like a big investment for them. I know they've done the infinity comic books and I know there's probably some level of sort of investment in creating assets for that stuff, but Dear God, do I hate those infinity comic books?
David 20:11
So I don't really know. Can't possibly cost that much to do those things. No slight to anybody working on those things.
David 20:18
It's just I'm old man shaking my fist right now, I'll stop. Well anyway. All right.
David 20:23
That was the only topical thing that we had to talk about. All right, so John, for your listening and viewing pleasure and and our our listeners listening pleasure, I submit to all of you of the four issue entire run of a comic called The Destructor. The Destructor was a comic book published February of 1975, was the first issue by a publishing company called Atlas Comic Books.
David 20:54
So I want to talk about this comic book today, but before we talk about the comic book, I want to set the stage for everybody, because this is 1975. This is like at least 10 years ago, if like my math is right. You know, ages ago.
David 21:05
So Atlas, what was Atlas Comic? Well, for people who don't know, it's actually this is a fascinating little uh tidbit of history, uh comic book history. I want to lay out the timeline of Atlas Comics publishing, and then we're gonna dive into uh the destructor.
David 21:18
Atlas Comics evolved from another company called Timely Comics, which was the home of Captain America, John.
John 21:27
Ah, I I'm familiar with them.
David 21:29
So Timely evolved into Atlas, and in the 40s and 50s, they were publishing a whole huge variety of comic books, horror, crime, and suspense and monsters. They had Millie the model, all kinds of stuff. And then in 1955, this jerk named Frederick Wortham came around and started this witch hunt on comic books.
David 21:48
Out of that came the Comics Code Authority, which completely decimated the comic book landscape for decades, really. And so Atlas Comics, DBA, Marvel Within about two years of the Comics Code Authority showing up, the major distribution company that Atlas was using called American News Company Distribution, they liquidated. So by 1957 American news company distribution had had to liquidate.
David 22:15
They were going out of business. Atlas was going to go away if something happened. And so the owner and publisher of Atlas Martin Goodman, I remember the name Martin Goodman, decided to go all out.
David 22:29
He saw that DC had put out a book called Justice League and it was doing quite well. And so he called his nephew into his office and said, Hey, do some of that stuff. John, do you know who his nephew was?
John 22:40
I do, yes.
David 22:41
His nephew was Stan Lee Lieber, also known as Stan Lee. And Stan Lee got together with one of the Marvel stable artists who was at that time drawing like Rawhide Kid and like Some romance comics and other stuff like that, Jack Kirby got together with Jack Kirby and they came out with a comic book called The Fantastic Four, John.
John 23:02
Okay.
David 23:03
The modern era of Marvel Comics was born. And so Marvel Comics explodes from there. By the time we get to nineteen sixty-eight, just like ten years later.
David 23:12
Marvel's like dominating the landscape. They're the hot new kid in in town. DC Comics is number two.
David 23:17
They're looking over their shoulder. And the publisher, Martin Goodman, is like, man, things are going great. So it's a perfect time for me to sell.
David 23:24
So he sells Marvel. to another company in nineteen sixty eight, one of the conditions was that when he retired as publisher from the company, because he stayed on as the publisher. for a few more years.
David 23:36
But the condition was that when he retired, his son, Chip Goodman, would become the publisher when he stepped down.
John 23:42
Okay.
David 23:43
And that didn't happen, John.
John 23:45
Oh, interesting.
David 23:46
When Martin Goodman does step down as publisher, instead of letting Chip Goodman become the publisher, they decide to give that publishing title to Stan Lee, Martin Goodman's nephew. Stan Lee gets the title. This kind of pisses Martin Goodman off, and so begins the best sort of business in comics, which is the business of hate.
David 24:07
Even though it's his nephew that gets the job, Chip Goodman is supposed to get this gig. And so out of pure spite, as far as I can tell, Marvin Goodman takes his money and he opens up a new publishing comic book company. And he calls it Atlas.
David 24:22
Of course. It's also called Seaboard. So Atlas Comics or Seaboard Comics.
David 24:26
Those are a little interchangeable. The comic book company opens its doors in 1974. Martin Goodman, he wants to prove that he can do another Marvel anytime he wants, and he can definitely do it with his son Chip.
David 24:39
And so he puts his son Chip in as the publisher. And then the very next thing he does is he hires his nephew to become the editor. But it's not Stan Lee, John.
David 24:52
No. No, it's Stan Lee's brother. Larry. Larry Lieber.
David 24:59
I feel like Martin's just like, well, any of my nephews can do this. Like, stand at it. Larry's going to be just as good.
David 25:07
So he throws Larry Lieber in as the editor, and they're off to the races. Now there's a couple of really innovative, and this is like the legacy, I think, in some ways, of this new iteration of Atlas Comics. institute a number of really creator-friendly business decisions.
David 25:22
I think part of the reason they do this is again despite Marvel because they're actively trying to just like do things to piss Marvel off. But also because I think they knew they had to compete and the only way to compete was to get the really good talent. And the only way to get really good talent was to overpay for it, basically.
David 25:40
And so they institute higher page rates. They do something that at that time had never been done before, and they promise that all original art is going to be returned to the talent. Something that was not normal at that time.
David 25:52
This is 1974. Yeah. They offer that creators retain partial ownership and retention of character rights.
David 26:00
unheard of at that time. You know, Martin Goodman had been a publisher of note for a couple decades. And so he also had a good reputation within the industry.
David 26:08
And That was also a thing that sort of was like pulling in talent and also sort of like a cover for the business, a way to attract people into the business. All of these ideas, it works. They draw in some real cool star talent right out of the gate.
David 26:19
They've got Steve Ditko. They got Neil Adams doing some cover stuff. They've got Wally Wood, Alex Toth, Howard Chaiken, Larry Hama, like a who's who, really, of creators of that time.
David 26:30
None of them pass their prime, essentially. Might maybe someone with the world g getting a little, you know, towards the end of their prime, but all these guys are like well within their prime at Howard Shaken, Larry Hama, they're newer to the industry, but already, you know, showing uh the kind of talent that has served them for decades up until today. So this all sounds like a recipe for success, right John?
John 26:49
Yeah, yeah. That's what made them the number one comic book company in the world today.
David 26:53
You would think, but that's not what happened. Uh what happened was within about a year Atlas shut down. Didn't mess, John.
David 27:01
Looks like it was mostly just kind of a perfect storm of bad decisions. First of all, the Marvel Comics owners were right in not hiring Chip Goodman as a publisher, because as it turns out By all accounts, he was pretty incompetent. Didn't really know what he was doing and didn't have the experience to inserted himself in ways that did like experience Atlas was also just mostly interested in plundering Marvel and just imitating their success.
David 27:29
It was almost like, you know, we're more Marvel than Marvel Comics Which at that time, man, Marvel was on a heater, man. It's 1975. Marvel's just like crushing it, right?
David 27:37
You're not gonna pull you know the Marvel faithful away from Marvel at that time. It's just not gonna happen. Uh and that's kind of was what they were trying to do One of the most entertaining things in retrospect was that by the time you get to issue three of all these books, now none of these books lasted past four issues, John.
David 27:52
But by the time you get to issue three of almost all of these books, the storylines are completely rebooted into something completely different and almost unrecognizable. That is the part that I can't wait to share with you because it's awesome.
Intro 28:06
Yeah.
David 28:06
But in that time, maybe not so much. There's also some weird things like Larry Lieber was in charge. Larry Lieber, you know, Stan's brother.
David 28:13
He had experience. Like he wrote Iron Man number one, right? Like he had experience as a superhero guy.
David 28:20
But they put him on the black and white magazines and they had another kid who was very young in his twenties, his name escapes me at the moment. He was in charge of the superhero line and he was coming from Eru Comics. So he had been doing the black and white magazine stuff and they put him on the superhero stuff and they took the superhero guy and put him on the black and white magazine stuff.
David 28:39
And so it was like a You need a s flip that and actually I think they do try to do that at one point.
John 28:44
Uh-huh.
David 28:44
Uh but it's it's kinda just it seems like it's just too late already Distribution was still struggling, right? We're still suffering from the effects of the Comics Code Authority. So distribution is tight, and Atlas just struggles to secure stable distribution channels.
David 29:00
So they just got a real inability to get there. You know, Marvel and DC are dominating what is left of the distribution space. And so for Atlas to get in and consistent have a consistent, stable distribution channel.
David 29:12
was very hard. And I think that was probably a lot of what happened here. We can talk a lot about sort of like the dressing of the comics themselves and what's going on there, but I think ultimately if you can't get into the shops, like you can't have a business.
David 29:24
And I think that was probably a lot more of it than some people might think.
John 29:27
That's interesting.
David 29:28
One more thing that's really fascinating about this time is that and this is not something that was by all accounts spoken out loud, but Marvel and DC were quietly letting any of their talent know At that so at that time, you were a Marvel guy or you were a DC guy in terms of the creative talent. You kind of stuck with whoever you were with. Okay.
David 29:49
Um there wasn't like a shifting back and forth. You know, you didn't have a lot of guys like Josh Williamson who's writing top tier books for every single publisher right now. You worked at Marvel or you worked at DC.
David 29:59
You didn't s really work at both. And so Marvel and DC Town were quietly being let know that If they were started working for Atlas, it might not reflect well on them later. And so if Atlas doesn't make it, you know, then maybe you're not gonna have a job when you come back on your hands and knees begging for work.
David 30:16
This was a rumor, it's not one that is like, you know, largely said out loud, but knowing the insides of the convocation should be the way I do. 100% that was happening.
John 30:24
Yeah, I think a lot of the people that were going over there are either the people that like we're just gonna we're gonna take that as a challenge I might be wrong, but like I could imagine Neil Adams being like, Okay, take your best shot and don't hire Neil Adams when he comes back to you.
David 30:36
Like Steve Dicko w famously I don't think had had really been working that much in comic books at that time or hadn't certainly been working for the big two for a little while before this thing comes in. So he's all in when Atlas shows up.
John 30:48
Yeah, it did cause seem like he would always go for where the where he was able to do the thing he wanted to do, more than where the money was. You know what I I am understating things when I say that. It isn't like Ditko seemed like that was sort of what he did.
John 30:59
That was exactly what Ditko did. Are you you gonna get into the three issue thing in general more later or just specific to the destructor? Because I have a couple thoughts about that.
David 31:08
We could do it in the general sense. There are a few more Atlas Comic projects that I want to talk about down the road. Okay. But which probably just as well that we just talk about it right now. So I just mean like conceptually.
John 31:19
I think one of the things that sometimes gets overlooked is the smartest thing that Marvel did after the Fantastic Four launched. is having everything be like very much in the same tight universe and in the same location. So these characters could run into each other DC technically existed sorta in the same universe, but just the way that that company worked, it was built out of two companies, so you had characters from different companies going in there.
John 31:43
But I think if you looked in nineteen seventy-four or so, I maybe I'm wrong, but I think you'd see that like not only did you have people that were exclusive to Marvel or DC, but you had people that were exclusive to specific editors at DC and that never went over to other editors or other editorial groups in DC. Yeah, there just wasn't that common back and forth. So the what what happens is when Hulk gets canceled at issue six, rather than the Hulk being just discarded and thrown away the Hulk can show up in other comics and you can keep building up the Hulk and then eventually the Hulk becomes a popular character.
John 32:13
So y y you keep that window open. You know, like even when the doors close, even when X Men stops publishing new X-Men comics, they keep showing up in Marvel comics. The Marvel fans learn about X-Men.
John 32:23
So when when an X-Men comic launches again in the future, they know what X-Men is.
David 32:27
Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch like immediately over on the Avengers as as like full time members, you get the beast showing up there. Yeah. Yeah.
John 32:34
Scarlet Witch Quicksilver were Avengers when the X-Men was still running, but there's an entire epic collection of just the X-Men comics that came out when there weren't any X-Men comics. But the other funny thing is like when you when you say these things change premise, like you could look at some Marvel comics too and be like, oh the Hulk turns green. Thor's a big one, you know, for me that I that I I think people don't talk enough about that like Thor was not the disgraced as guardian god in the body of Don Blake in the beginning.
John 33:01
He was Don Blake who got a stick that turned him into Thor, like it would turn anyone into Thor. And it wasn't for a little while that that became this whole different story of what Thor was and Thor got much better. But it's still recognizably Thor.
John 33:14
Thor is and you read the first appearance of Thor, you know, you're not gonna be like, that's a completely different character in every sense of the word to the one that I that I bought here on issue four, you know? And that's not the case with Atlas. To me the wildest one is the scorpion.
David 33:28
That's what I was gonna say too. Yeah. Like that's what got me into Atlas.
John 33:30
Like I have like a ton of Atlas comics that I bought during this time where I was trying to get a bunch of Chakin stuff. So how are Chaikin's doing this character of the Scorpion? I I don't remember the exact story, but it's something like maybe issue three or four four is running late or something.
David 33:43
Shaken does the first two issues.
John 33:45
Yeah. And then he finds out that Alex Toth has done issue three. Alex Toth is like one of Shaken's Idol.
John 33:51
In the Shadow Trade paperback, there's an interview with Chaikin where at that point in his life in 1986, Chaiken says, if Toth were a church, I would be a disciple. They would later not agree with one another about things. But at that time they this is like Chaikin's like number one or one of his top artists comes in and draws issue three.
John 34:09
But rather than draw him as like the thirties aviator adventurer guy, he's a superhero in the present day. So Chaiken takes the pages, what was gonna be issue three of the Scorpion, and it becomes Dominic Fortune, just with a different coloring job at Marvel.
David 34:23
Yeah, exactly that. And issues three and four of The Scorpion, now it's a superhero book. It's a complete rug pull.
David 34:30
Uh and that happens a lot in in the books. And so you could kind of see like, oh well, you know, things aren't going that great over there I think Scorpion in particular, since we're talking about it, was like their best title. It was like their most widely recognized and potentially best selling.
David 34:45
And then they just yank it and do something totally different. So I'm laying that at the feet of Chip Goodman, you know, the the lack of experience as a publisher and and sort of what to do. But it sounds like Martin Goodman was sort of in there like a little more hands-on than he had been at Marvel and and it wasn't working Some good things did come out of all this, uh even though the the company basically only lasted about a year.
David 35:05
One of those things was that DC and Marvel were basically forced to up their page rates. Which is great. Creative talent's getting more recognition, getting more money.
David 35:13
And also it did start in a meaningful way. It started the discussion of ownership of art and participation. of creators in the things that they've created.
David 35:24
Around this time, you've got Siegel and Schuster. The Superman movie is is about to land. And so there's a lot, you know, Neil Adams is sort of carrying the torch for uh Siegel and Schuster.
David 35:35
And so This idea that Atlas Comics is out here like offering creator rights and creator ownership and ownership of original art really pushes the conversation forward in a meaningful way. So Even though the company didn't last that long, it did have a meaningful impact in that regard, uh, even though people don't really remember the comic books themselves. So if we fast forward all the way to 2011.
David 35:57
Jason Goodman, son of Chip Goodman. So this is the grandson of Martin Goodman, the the guy who owned Marvel. Jason Goodman decides, you know what would be a good idea in 2011?
David 36:07
Let's start up Atlas Comics again. And so he does. So he publishes a couple of comic books.
David 36:12
in 2011, bearing some of the names of the old books. Uh one was the Grim Ghost. Can't remember what the other one is.
David 36:17
Maybe it was the Protector. So he publishes these books, he starts publishing, and it immediately gets sued. Because as it turns out, they no longer owned the Atlas Comics trademark.
David 36:29
They did not own that name.
John 36:31
Right
David 36:32
The third party that had bought it and doesn't own it is Dynamite Entertainment.
John 36:36
Wow. All right.
David 36:37
And so Dynamite Entertainment like took him to court basically and legally secured the Atlas Comics trademark many years prior. There was a lengthy legal dispute and Goodman family lost out. Atlas Comics went away once again.
John 36:49
I didn't know that. I actually thought Marvel might have had it because they have got the uh agents of Atlas Comic. I think this is okay to talk about. At one point at Marvel back when I was there, idly came up, and I mean like like like just as like a thought experiment more than anything that was like ever any sort of actual plan For Marvel to relaunch a line of Atlas comics. Like I think it might have just been trying to use the name. Again, this never got to a a a stage where anybody vetted any of this sort of
David 37:15
what what this would be, what what it like any any of what it was even legally possible.
John 37:20
Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just kind of a a fun bit of Marvel Hubris.
John 37:23
that I was a part of. People at Marvel were worried that DC was going to alienate so many DC fans that those DC fans would need to have a place to land to keep reading comics like the DC comics they liked. Several years ago of DC comics.
David 37:38
Right. Okay, so that's Atlas Comic Bug. Anything else you wanted to add?
John 37:41
Here's just a funny thing, cause this would have been absolutely frickin' hilarious Because out of nowhere you come out with the destroyer. Like three weeks ago, I tried to buy a complete set of the destroyer on eBay. Found out who drew it, and I've I've read other comics by that team uh that we've talked about on here that I'd subsequently read.
John 37:59
And I'm like, man, that'd be that'd be terrific. I gotta check that out. I almost always just buy buy it now's, you know, uh on eBay.
John 38:05
Like I almost never get into the bidding uh situation of things, but this was an auction. So I signed up for it and I was getting these alerts at the zoo and I couldn't tell that I lost. I thought I still had the winning bid 'cause I was just like kinda not paying attention fully and and it wasn't that big of a deal to me either.
John 38:20
You're right. It was just like by chance I wound up not getting these things. This wasn't like a a high stakes bid.
John 38:26
This is like, you know, I thought if I've another quarter would have
David 38:28
Yeah, maybe done the trace. Right.
John 38:30
Very nearly would have been like, oh yeah, I just read that too, David. If I have, I've forgotten. Because uh that happens
David 38:39
Okay, so we're gonna get into this destructor, John. First of all, after reading the four issues of The Destructor, the complete four issues available ever in print of The Destructor, I almost feel like I don't have to read comic books ever again. Everything I could possibly want in a comic book was in these four issues.
David 38:58
I'm almost loathe to read another comic book because it'll never measure up to what I experienced with the destructor. So I'm not gonna hype this up too much, but this was the most amazing comic book in the history of comic books And literally everyone needs to read this. Wow.
David 39:16
So Atlas Comics presents the destructor, born of fury, sworn to vengeance. He is. the destructor right there on the cover.
David 39:25
First of all, Larry Lieber draws the cover, which is hilarious because it's Steve Dicko doing the interiors. But it's a very good cover. But when you see who inked it, you realize why it's a very good cover, because Wally Wood inked the cover.
David 39:39
Wally Wood, one of the greatest comic book artists of all time. Here's the creative team for this book. This thing's got a pedigree, John.
David 39:46
Yeah. First of all, written by Archie Goodwin. Yeah.
David 39:49
Archie Goodwin is at the height of his powers, right? Like if he's not there, he's about to be there. Like Archie Goodwin is the real deal in this moment.
John 39:58
Yeah.
David 39:58
I'm gonna go into this first page with you guys because you can tell right away that Archie Goodwin, again, is like at the height of his powers. Drawn by Steve Ditko. We're 10 years away from Amazing Spider-Man number one.
David 40:09
This is what Steve Ditko is doing for superheroes. Steve Ditko is Really, really, really good, but the inks on this book are by Wally Wood, and Steve Ditko is never ever better than when Wally Wood is inking him. The two of these guys together is the most killer combo.
David 40:28
I don't even know who you could name a better team. Him inking anybody, it's going to be like probably the best combination, but wow, is it beautiful. And then edited by Stanley's brother, Larry Lever.
David 40:39
You open the comic book and on the left hand side on the inside front cover is an ad for like 30 different little like things like uh X ray vision glasses or you control a seven foot glass size cover ninety five cents for like thirty. X ray vision shocker I don't even know. You control a seven foot away I'm like oh man bring me back to nineteen seventy four I'm There's a vibrating shocker.
David 41:03
I don't even know what that is. And then see the beautiful splash splash pitch. And it's and it's The destruction cost cost coming straight up straight on the camera.
David 41:15
Oh man, ground are are hand hands holding Uh gun of some sort of one. Tommy Tommy gun. And there's and there's bullshit the destruction explosions behind him.
David 41:30
In the background, there's there's other like gelatics, some with some with some options. Jumping out of a car, brandishing machine guns. There's like there's drawing drawing cars.
David 41:48
It's in the background. That's also Another just random half circle circle that's towards gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. And it's the most inviting splash splash that you could possibly possibly imagine.
David 42:03
What is happening here? Firing and firing animals flying everywhere. Man, this guy this guy is not concerned about it.
David 42:14
Again, again loving the bicep co with With gorgeous embellishment. This is what uh you know greets the eyes when you open this book. And then, John, this dialogue is so good, I have to read it.
David 42:27
I hope our listeners can just give me the moment here because He bursts from the city darkness a figure grim and mysterious, moving with the speed, the instinct of a wild animal, stalking its prey. the roar of gunfire, the shrill whine of bullets, do not stop him. For he is a man with a mission, a vigilante, an avenger, vowed to turn all his strange powers to smashy Destroying the beasts and predators of the human jungle that is organized crime.
David 42:58
For he is The destructor! And there's like a huge like the destructor at the bottom of the page, like logo-sized. But before this night, there was a beginning.
David 43:08
There was dot dot dot. And that's the first page. Holy moly, I have never been more invited to continue reading a thing in my entire life.
David 43:18
Like we've talked before on the podcast about Superman Action Comics number one and the introduction of Superman, like the origin story of Superman is on page one of Action Comics number one. Like Everything you've ever known about Superman is on the first page of Action Comics number one, the introduction of Superman. It's a perfect origin story done on one page, in my opinion.
David 43:40
Like there's a reason why Superman was so popular so quickly is because Everything you ever wanted to know about the guy was on the very first page and it was super interesting, right? This felt like this felt like that to me is like, whoa, I want to know everything about this guy and what's going on. We get into the story and I really hope that people like get these things you can get them on eBay for like dollars.
David 44:02
Like it's not like a big spend here. I happen to buy like a giant chunk of these things. There's only 61 issues of Atlas Comics ever published as far as I can tell.
David 44:11
I'm not sure if that includes the mag the black and white magazines or not. So 61, possibly just comic books. Maybe that also includes the magazines.
David 44:19
I'm not 100% clear. But you can get the destructor off of eBay all four issues for a fairly reasonable price, like ten bucks maybe. Anyway, everyone I really everyone needs to go Go out and get these because it's just like we get the or we're treated to the origin story of the destructor, and it might just be the Spider-Man origin story, but it's it's okay, it's fine, it's fine.
David 44:41
I'm still super into it. So we're we're introduced to the destructor before he's the destructor. He's Jay Hunter, and he's a small time mobster working for this mob boss named Max Raven.
David 44:53
So he's a bit of a douche. He's a bit of a jerk, right? Like he's working for the bad guys, working for the mob.
David 44:58
Jay Hunter, our main character, thinks he's a bit of a badass. And he's like sort of talking to Max Raven, his boss, the mob boss, uh sort of talking himself up, like, hey. I'm ready for more.
David 45:08
You know, I I'm I'm delivering what you want me to do. I'm smart. I'm hungry.
David 45:13
Like, give me more to do. Like I want to be more important to your organization. You know, the mob boss Max is like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, you're you're doing great, kid.
David 45:21
We definitely got plans for you. And so Jay Hunter walks away thinking to himself, like, Oh yeah, I'm in good, man. I'm gonna I'm gonna be making all kinds of money, you know, working for this mob boss guy.
David 45:32
And as he walks away, the mob boss, Max, pulls one of his other guys aside and says, Hey, that kid's uh getting a little too big for his britches. Kill him. Jeez.
David 45:41
So it's like real, like, whoa. Man, don't be confident in your job. Like Be a C plus student, John, I think is what they're trying to say.
David 45:49
Jay, our our lead character, goes home, meets his dad, and we meet his dad as readers, and his dad is a super scientist. But largely ignored by the science community and poor uh because he's thrown all his time, energy, and money into developing this super serum that no one believes he can actually develop, but he believes him in himself. And even his son is just like, man, dad, you're a bit of a putts.
David 46:13
Like, I'm just gonna be keep doing this mob stuff because I can make real money. Like while you're putting around in your science lab. And so, you know, we establish the fact that maybe dad's not looked upon that favorably by his son or anyone else.
David 46:25
And then the mob guys show up to kill Jay for being competent at his job. They shoot him. They shoot him.
David 46:32
They shoot Jay, and they shoot his dad too. And as his dad's dying, his dad pulls out the superhero serums like, oh, there's only enough serum that I've made for one of us. I have to save my son and maybe if he drinks it fast enough, the bullets as long as it hasn't hit any of his in major organs, it can probably heal and he'll survive.
David 46:52
And so with his dying breath, he pours the serum into his son Jay's uh mouth and makes him drink it, and then he uh dies. Right.
John 47:01
And so guess what, John? It works.
David 47:03
It works. You're right. You're so good at this.
David 47:06
GA turns into a superhero. And then of course he's like, oh man, I gotta get vigance on these mob guys now that I've got superpowers. And uh also, man, I feel real bad about treating my dad like dirt after he saved me instead of himself with his super serum.
David 47:21
And by the way, he was right all along and everybody else was wrong. And uh I feel kind of crappy about that So I'm gonna get vengeance for from my dad. And oh, as his dad was dying, by the way, his dad was like, I was always working on this in the hopes that, you know, you would drink the serum and become a superhero.
David 47:39
and check in the closet and then he dies and then then he checks in the closet and there's a superhero costume there, John. It's the destructive superhero. So his dad gave him the super serum and just coincidentally had already created a superhero costume for him.
John 47:52
That's a good deal.
David 47:53
Everything ties up in a nice tidy little bow. It's real nice. And then there's an ad for sea monkeys.
David 47:59
So we I'm paused on the Sea Monkeys ad. You remember these, John? Oh, absolutely.
David 48:04
These sea monkey ads were ubiquitous, man. They were like in every single comic book for the next 10 years. Sea monkey b guys were doing a good business.
David 48:11
So it's with Max Raven, the mobster, the destructor is now stort sort of like messing with his business, right? So he's get pissed off. He's like I know a guy and I'm gonna hire him to take the destructor out.
David 48:21
And so he does. He hires the sleigh master
John 48:25
Is he Santa Claus? No, it's S-L-A-Y, but very different situation.
David 48:34
Yeah, totally different. To be continued, John. This is our first to be continued.
John 48:41
Well it's not our first, but it's like Well, this is the first episode, so it has to be the first to be continued.
David 48:46
That's what they do in comic books. They have it to be continued. We want to leave people hanging it like a cliffhanger. Man, we got a cliffhanger in our first episode. This is awesome.
John 48:54
Yeah. Find out what Santa Claus does. I mean, the other guy.
John 49:00
Archie Goodwin is one of the all-time great comic book writers, and one of the all-time greats of writing to the artist, you know, especially at that era. Like he just gets the best out of people sometimes and having him, Ditko, Wood all together, one of Wally Wood's least impressive feats is he's the guy that designed the red daredevil costume. You've got the guys that made Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and the the way Daredevil looks all together, let alone all of the other stuff that Wally Wood has done, you know, like like a lot of stuff.
David 49:27
Man, it's pouring off the page, man. You can just feel it. The legends are just working.
David 49:32
Like maybe this isn't a really well recognized work, but you can see these guys working. It's so fun and entertaining So okay, so to be continued, we'll wrap up the destructor next time. We went a little long today, but thanks everybody for coming.
John 49:44
Like and subscribe. Come back next week We will definitely be here as we have been for our jokes aside every week the past three years. We'll be back with the conclusion of this Things are going good for the destructor.
John 49:56
The creative team seems like they're excited. You know what? The creative team seems to be acting as if they've got on their hands the next Spider Man and they're giving it its all and we'll see what happens next, next time on the corner box.
David 50:09
See ya guys, by.
Outro 50:12
This has been The Corner Box with David and John. Please take a moment and give us a five-star rating. It really helps. And join us again next week for another dive into the wonderful world of comics.
