Concept
Atlas Comics was the 1950s comic-book publishing label that evolved into Marvel Comics. Magazine and paperback novel publisher Martin Goodman, whose business strategy involved having a multitude of corporate entities, used Atlas as the umbrella name for his comic-book division during this time. Atlas evolved out of Goodman's 1940s comic-book division, Timely Comics, and was located on the 14th floor of the Empire State Building. This company is distinct from the 1970s comic-book company, also founded by Goodman, that is known as Atlas/Seaboard Comics. Atlas Comics was the successor of Timely Comics, the company that magazine and paperback novel publisher Martin Goodman founded in 1939, and which had reached the peak of its popularity during the war years with its star characters the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner and Captain America. The early to mid-1950s found comic books falling out of fashion due to competition from television and other media. Timely largely stopped producing superhero comics with the cancellation of Captain America Comics at issue #75 (cover-dated Feb. 1950), by which time the series had already been titled Captain America's Weird Tales for two issues, with the finale featuring only anthological suspense stories and no superheroes. The company's flagship title, Marvel Mystery Comics, starring the Human Torch, had already ended its run with #92 in June 1949, as had Sub-Mariner Comics with #32 the same month, and The Human Torch with #35 in March 1949. Timely made one more attempt at superheroes with the publication of Marvel Boy #1-2 (Dec. 1950 - Feb. 1951), which was retitled Astonishing with issue #3 (April 1951) and continued the Marvel Boy feature through #6 (Oct. 1951). In the absence of superheroes, Goodman's comic book line expanded into a wide variety of genres, producing horror, Westerns, humor, talking animal, drama, crime, war, jungle, romance, espionage, medieval adventure, Bible stories and sports comics. As did other publishers, Atlas also offered comics about models and career women.
