Rawhide Kid and Wyatt Earp and a Couple of Writers

Here are two Atlas western hero writer's lists--taking up not too much space since there's only one writer on each before Stan Lee takes over (and in fact his Rawhide Kid is the completely new version started with Jack Kirby a couple of years after this one is cancelled). This isn't too surprising; in 1954-58, Joe Gill has ended up the sole Kid Colt writer pre-Lee.

"The Day Marshal Earp Met Annie Oakley" in WE 5 (July/56) guest-stars the Atlas version of Annie from her own comic book--her 1955-56 feature being written solely by Hank Chapman. To bring her a little more in line with the historical Annie and thus further the conceit that this Wyatt Earp comic is "based upon the facts and legends from the career of the amazing life of Wyatt Earp," this is the only time her real name is mentioned.

scripts by Don Rico
in RAWHIDE KID

Mar/55-Sep/57

1-16

all Rawhide Kid scripts

Rawhide Kid script by Rico
in WYATT EARP

Dec/58

20

The Last Outlaw

scripts by Hank Chapman
in WYATT EARP

Nov/55-Feb/58

1-15

all Wyatt Earp scripts

Wyatt Earp script by Chapman
in WILD WESTERN

Jan/56

47

The Lion of Tombstone

Wyatt Earp scripts by Chapman
in GUNSMOKE WESTERN

Jun/56	35	The Terror of Tombstone
Aug/	36	Apaches on the Warpath
Jan/58	44	Apache Trouble

Spy Fighter Written by (Mostly) Robert Bernstein

Clark Mason, Spy Fighter is a feature at Atlas written, all but two stories, by Robert Bernstein, including the origin in issue 1, "The Snake of Saigon," as seen here (art by George Tuska). The "Eaaaa" was my signal to look for other Bernstein mannerisms among the stories. Remember that he was writing Black Rider for Atlas at the time; there he actually got a number of credit lines thanks to artist Jay Scott Pike.

I can ID a few of the backup stories, ones written by main feature writers Bernstein or Hank Chapman. The one art ID I'll put forth is a story by the "Dinosaur Island" Batman artist, Paul Cooper.

Jumping on the war magazine bandwagon for a while, Clark Mason is in uniform as an Army lieutenant and then a captain, in combat in Korea in #9 through #13.

Clark Mason writers in Spy Fighters

Mar/51–Jul/52	1-9	(all Clark Mason stories)	Robert Bernstein
Sep/52	10	P-38	Bernstein
		The Vision	Hank Chapman
		Suicide Flight	Bernstein
Nov/	11	(all Clark Mason stories)	Bernstein
Jan/53	12	The Silent Death	Bernstein
		The Strange Enemy	Chapman
		Captured!	Bernstein
Mar/–Jul/53	13-15	(all Clark Mason stories)	Bernstein

Backup stories in Spy Fighters

Sep/51	4	Deadliest of the Species	pencils: Paul Cooper
Nov/	5	Arsenal for R-Day	wr: Bernstein
Mar/52	7	The Tower of Terror	wr: Bernstein
Sep/	10	Secret Weapon	wr: Bernstein
Nov/	11	The Destroyer	wr: Bernstein
Jan/53	12	The Human Target	wr: Chapman

The Two 1950s Human Torch Writers

For completeness' sake I've listed all the Human Torch 1950s revival stories, but most of the Hank Chapman IDs are not new; I identified him on Young Men 24 and 25, and then Lou Mougin did on Human Torch 38's three stories, Sub-Mariner 35, and Captain America 78. When Chapman returns to the feature after the first YM stories, all of his scripts use Toro as narrator.

Joe Gill often sets up his story in the blurb, or fills in information in a caption, with the past participle: "They had defeated him." His use of past or present tense is inconsistent—a few times within a single script—but I found some of the stories in the different tenses tied together by references to the Torch's and Toro's "unique body chemistry." In his first two stories in YM 26 and 27 he uses "Up, flame!" and then "On flame!" before settling on the standard "Flame on!"

Human Torch scripts
in YOUNG MEN

Dec/53	24	The Return of...the Human Torch	Hank Chapman
Feb/54	25	[The Young Old Men]	Chapman
Mar/	26	[The Vulture]	Joe Gill
Apr/	27	The Face of Death	Gill
June/	28	[The Prize Was...the Moon]	Gill

in MEN'S ADVENTURES

May/54	27	[The Jet]	Gill
July/	28	[The Flying Saucer]	Gill

in HUMAN TORCH

Apr/54	36	[The Atomic Blaster]	Gill
		[Tyrannosaurus Rex]	Gill
		[The Monk]	Gill
June/	37	Vampire Tale	Gill
		A Spy There Was...	Gill
		The Menace of the Unhuman	Gill
Aug/	38	The World's End	Chapman
		In Korea	Chapman
		Flame On	Chapman

in SUB-MARINER

Apr/54	33	[The Flying Saucers]	Gill
Jun/	34	[Virus X]	Gill
Aug/	35	Human Torch--Fugitive at Large	Chapman

in CAPTAIN AMERICA

May/54	76	[The Vulture Returns]	Gill
July/	77	[The Thing]	Gill
Sept/	78	Playing with Fire	Chapman

out of inventory
in MARVEL SUPER-HEROES

Sept/68

16

The Un-Human

Chapman

...and a Sub-Mariner ID
There are a couple of exceptions to Bill Everett's run in Sub-Mariner's 1950s revival: two stories drawn by Bob Powell. It isn't a stretch to find Joe Gill on the Devil Octopus story when you know he's writing the Torch in the same issue. The Black Shark story in Men's Adventures 27 (May/54), though, is still a poser. "Aaeeeeegh" in two spellings and a "Walloping halibuts" suggest someone else yet to be determined.

Sub-Mariner script
in HUMAN TORCH

Apr/54

36

[The Devil Octopus]

Joe Gill

Annie Oakley Written by Hank Chapman

Atlas had two Annie Oakleys. The original version was very much in the style of Hedy Devine (who had the back-up story in #1), Millie the Model, and the other girl features; she debuted with a Spring 1948 cover date, beating Sun Girl, Namora, and Venus to the stands by half a year. Her comic lasted four issues.

The title was resumed mid-Fifties as a straight western. The covers were by Joe Maneely, John Severin, Carl Burgos, Sol Brodsky, and one was even by the interior artists, Andru and Esposito. The back-ups were the usual western shorts, on which I have no new info.

Hank Chapman's scripts in the earlier Atlas war titles, even when he isn't credited, stand out with "Cripes," "Holy Cripes," and "Ca-ripes." Not a single one of those shows up in any of these stories. I don't know if those interjections struck Chapman as too modern  for a Western, or if the new Comics Code considered even euphemisms too rough. At any rate, it's the variations on "Oww"—including "Ow-w" and "Oww-w"—that put me on Chapman's track here. The Annie Oakley stories tied in with those war stories in other ways, though; Chapman uses footnotes to translate Western lingo here and Chinese or Korean there; and Texan infantryman Battle Brady, in his own Korean War series by Chapman, uses the expression "Great Grizzlies" that Annie does here.

Annie Oakley
Written by Hank Chapman
Pencilled by Ross Andru
Inked by Mike Esposito

June/55	5	Introducing the Champion Cowgirl of the West, Annie Oakley
		The Mystery of the Vanishing Herd
		The Secret of Lost Canyon
Aug/	6	Bushwhack at Bull's-Eye Ranch
		Grizzly Giant of Vista Valley
		Skillets and Six-Guns
Oct/	7	The Scarlet Shadow Strikes
		The Treasure of the Conquistadores
		Contest of the Champions
Dec/	8	Queen of the Cowgirls
		On the Warpath
		Six-Gun Showdown
Feb/56	9	Wanted: Dead or Alive
		The Cowboy
		Flaming Fury
		Buffalo Bandits
Apr/	10	The Tribal Treasures
		Double Trouble for Annie
		Law of the Wild
		Shot-Gun Sadie
June/	11	Bandits in Buena Vista
		Outlaws Beware...When the Oakleys Ride
		A Sheriff's Duty
		Little Sure Shot

A Short-Lived Series from Writer Hank Chapman

After running as an anthology adventure book, Timely's Young Men took to presenting series—four of them: Flash Foster, a hot-rod racer; Rocky Steele, a boxer; Rex Lane, an occult detective; and Buzz Brand, a soldier in basic training. After three issues, publisher Martin Goodman and editor Stan Lee decided they liked the series idea fine, but tweaked it in late 1953 by replacing these characters with the Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, and Captain America, all last seen in 1949.

The first writer on the revived Human Torch was Hank Chapman, and by the end of the revival, the character's major artist was Dick Ayers. They had already worked on a series in Young Men: Buzz Brand.

Of the four short-lived series blurbed on the splash pages as "Young Men in Action," Buzz Brand is the one where I find Chapman's trademarks like "Ow-w," "Holy smokes," and "Cripes."

The GCD says that stories signed "Ayers" as opposed to "Dick Ayers" at this time (as are the first two here; the third is unsigned) are inked by Ernie Bache.

The two story titles come from the covers.

Buzz Brand in the United States Army, in Young Men
Writer: Hank Chapman; Penciller: Dick Ayers,; Inker: Ernie Bache

June/53	#21	Under Fire
Aug/	#22	(untitled)
Oct/	#23	Stopped Dead

"Till Death Do Us Part" 1950s Swipes

Marvel reprinted "Till Death Do Us Part" (Journey into Mystery 15, Apr/54), from its Atlas days, in Vault of Evil 4, Aug/73. Artist Vic Carrabotta signed the splash page. A number of years later, when Eclipse reprinted some stories from Standard in Seduction of the Innocent, I felt I recognized a few panels and eventually matched them up with "Till Death." I found another familiar panel in an EC reprint. Carrabotta's panels come first in each pair below:

On the right: "Grip on Life" art by Alex Toth from The Unseen 13, Nov/53.

On the right: "Your Grave Is Ready" art by Ross Andru from The Unseen 9, Mar/53.

On the bottom: "Atom Bomb!" art by Wally Wood, Two-Fisted Tales 33, May-June/53.

(Toth and Andru were inked here by, respectively, Mike Peppe and Mike Esposito, but the pencillers' layouts were what Carrabotta took.) I wonder how many swipes I've missed in this and other Carrabotta stories, when I happened to chance upon just these three source panels.

By the way: "Till Death Do Us Part" opens with a four-panel tier before the splash panel, and at one point someone says "Ow-w-w!" The unsigned writer is Hank Chapman.

Speed Carter, Spaceman Writer

Hank Chapman's getting writing credits at Timely/Atlas in the Fifties puts him ahead of all the other writers except Stan Lee, but the crediting was inconsistent. Spaceman shows this: Chapman's name appears on just two stories, the second and third ones in issue 3, but he scripted the entire series.

The splash page layouts that I mentioned in my post on the Human Torch stories written by Chapman appear among these stories: a splash panel taking almost the entire page, with one story panel; and a tier of story panels before the splash.

The contemporary-sounding "Holy smokes" in Chapman's Torch and mystery stories doesn't appear here; the futuristic "Great galaxy" and "Holy atoms" substitute. "Ow-w-w," with some variations of length and hyphenation, appears throughout.

The Famous Explorers of Space back-ups take place in Speed Carter's past. The Eadeh and Savage art guesses I pass along from the GCD.

Speed Carter, Spaceman—written by Hank Chapman

Sept/53	#1	Speed Carter, Spaceman, and the Pirate Planet	a: Joe Maneely
		Slaughter on a Star	a: Maneely
		The Robots' Revenge	a: Maneely
Nov/53	#2	[The Birdmen of Uranus]	a: Maneely
		The Half-Horrors of Hyades	a: Maneely
		Who Stole the Sun	a: Maneely
Jan/54	#3	[Grave-Robbers from Outer Space]	a: Maneely
		[The Core People]	a: Maneely
		[The Bems]	a: Maneely
Mar/54	#4	[The Positpeople and the Neganatives]	p: Mike Sekowsky  i: Jack Abel
		[The Jet-Men]	p: Sekowsky  i: Abel
		[The Mosquito Men]	p: Sekowsky  i: Abel
May/54	#5	Die, Spaceman, Die!	a: George Tuska
		[Beastmen of Space]	a: Tuska
		A Slaughter in Space	a: Tuska
July/54	#6	The Thing in Outer Space	a: Bob Forgione
		The Kiss of Death	a: Forgione
		[Spaceworld of the Scorpeople]	a: Forgione

Famous Explorers of Space in Spaceman—written by Chapman

Sept/53	#1	Venus: Earth's Twin Sister	a: John Romita
Nov/53	#2	Mercury: The Red-Hot Planet	p: Bill Benulis  i: Abel
Jan/54	#3	Mars: The Dying Planet	a: Al Eadeh?
Mar/54	#4	Jupiter: The Giant Planet	a: Maneely
May/54	#5	Ceres: The Biggest Little World in the Asteroid Belt	a: Bill Savage?
July/54	#6	How Saturn Got Its Fourth Ring	a: Benulis

The First Human Torch Writer (of the Fifties)

Hank Chapman wrote the Human Torch in the Forties, if only as one of those remembered pitching in on the marathon weekend putting together a Torch/Sub-Mariner battle issue. I haven't yet run across his other stories in that decade. Luckily for me in tracking down his style, Chapman in a number of Fifties stories at Timely/Atlas was uncharacteristically (for a writer at the time) given a credit line. He was probably best known for his war stories, and he continued writing that genre in the Sixties at DC.

Uncredited, Chapman wrote the first two Torch stories in the Fifties revival, in Young Men 24 (Dec/53) and 25 (Feb/54).

Art on the YM 24 story is by Russ Heath, with the exception of a splash panel pasteover of the Torch by Carl Burgos.

The first clue to Chapman's writing a story is "Ow-w-w"—most often hyphenated exactly like that, but not always. That's best as an indication when the other writers at the particular company and time aren't using it, of course. And "Holy Smokes" in the splash panel helps lead me to Chapman here. The following panels are from a story with Chapman's credit line, "My Brother . . . the Ghoul" in Adventures into Weird Worlds 6 (May/52), with art by George Roussos.

Another occasional clue to Chapman is seen by comparing the first page of Young Men 25's Torch story with the first page of "My Brother . . . the Ghoul" (and note "Holy Smokes" again in the Torch splash).

The tier of panels before the splash in each case is something Chapman uses off and on; also, for that matter, the splash with a single story panel following, as in YM 24.

Other writers did the rest of the superhero stories in Atlas's short-lived revival experiment of the mid-Fifties.