Atlas Era Venus

Replies

- JD DeLuzio > Jeff of Earth-J May 4, 2024 at 7:09pm
  
  The last one is ("The Kiss of Death"). The cover, too, is from Venus #19.
  
  Yes-- came here to report it.
  
  I also bought a copy of Rick Altergott's Blessed Be graphic novel at 20% discount.
Jeff of Earth-J May 5, 2024 at 9:54am

VENUS #18:

"The stories become more and more grotesque now," points out Michael Vassallo. The plots are bonkers but it's the art that carries them.

First Story: "The Sealed Specters" - Whit and Venus go on the "Tunnel of Love" ride at the "Cloney Island" amusement park. Inside, they and another couple are accosted by a group of ghouls led by Old Joe, who "used to be the chief caretaker here, but tey fired me because I was too old." (See? Ageism, even then.) He has somehow managed to build a seconary channel to divert the boats to his underground lair. His plan is to kidnap helpless victims and transplant the brains and hearts of his ghouls into them so that they can live on the surface. Hey, that sounds familar! Venus thinks so, too, and recalling "The Empty Graves" (a.k.a. "The Graveyard Waxworks") from #15, she suggests that Old Joe and his "ghosts, specters and goblins" take a look at the surface workd before they decide. She leads then to the carnival, and it is so loud, noisy and raucus they decide they don't want to live there after all.

Second Story: "The Mad Mountain!" - As the story begins, Venus is flying commercial "somewhere over the Southern range of the vast Rocky Mountains," presumably following a story of some sort. Suddenly, the plane inexplicably crashes into an inescapeable blind fissure. Scouting around, she finds a ghost town populated by ambulatory plant men. The plant men pursue Venus and company directly into the pth of an avalanche, and all are killed except Venus. "Aeons later," Venus awakens in the desert miles away and makes her way too a different small town. She phones in a report to Hammond and notifies the proper authorities. The sheriff and the townsfolk investigate but can find no evidence to support her story. Then the sheriff checks with the airline and the plane Venus said she was on landed safely in LA the day before, and she was not on the passenger list.

Third Story: "Tidal Wave of Terror" - Acording to Dr. Vassallo, "Nobody, I repeat, nobody, depicts aquatic environments, cascading waves and oceanographic epics like Bill Everett does. From Sub-Mariner and Hydroman to The Fin, Everett was the master of the briny deep and the seven seas." This story begins with Venus again being the sole survivor of a natural disaster, in the case, a tidal wave. Then it flashes back to real estate developer Deanna Seacrest. So many of her seside affordable housing communities have been destroyed by tidal waves that the FHA has refused her any further building permits. Hammond buys a house in one of Seacrest's housing developments, and Venus moves in.

That night, just before a tidal wave hits, Venus sees a woman swimming in the ocean. Swimming out to save the woman, Venus recognizes it to be Deanna Secrest herself. The tidal wave hits and Deanna could not possibly have survived. The next day, Venus goes to Seacrest's office to report the death, only to find out that she has somehow miraculously survived! It turns out that Deanna is really Neptunia, daughter of Neptune, and is waging war on the surface world by building cities then destroying them one by one because she holds the surface people responsible for the death of her father caused by "underwater atomic blasts at Bikini and Eniwetok. There's a big fight between Venus and Neptunia on the back of a sea monster named Neptunus, but Neptunia is washed away.

You might think that the death of the god Neptune would punch a hole in my GUTOG, but it doesn't, really.
Captain Comics May 5, 2024 at 3:22pm

Patience, Grasshopper. We've still got the death of the god Neptune to get deal with in #18.

You’re reading ahead! No fair!

I'm afraid that someone reading just my summaries might think, "That doesn't sound so great," but it's the wonky stories in combination with the bizarre visuals.

I’m guilty of something similar, where I point out all the inconsistencies or unaddressed plot points and whatnot in stories that you’re really not supposed to think about very hard. You’re right that we should just put our brains in “Park” and enjoy the ride.

One of the free comics I picked up today was a reprint of Atlas stories. The last one is ("The Kiss of Death"). The cover, too, is from Venus #19.

I wonder if I got that one. I went to my LCS on FCBD and got whatever was on offer, but I don’t think I remember that one. Maybe I did and just didn’t notice. I haven't read any yet, as after FCBD I went to a Kentucky Derby party and then out to dinner with relatives. I managed to read Venus #17-18 and then it was lights out. How do you guys read your stuff so fast?

VENUS #17:

[NOTE pre-Code bondage cover.]

Gotta love pre-Code books. After 1954 it was decades before they could tie a girl up a little.

First Story: "Tower of Death!"

A man in England is being haunted by a ghost and he calls Venus for help.

And right away I wondered, “Why is he doing that? He’s obviously done something terrible.” (“Cathy—my step-daughter! She’s the only one who knows what really happened that night in 1941!”) An investigation would jeopardize his secret, whatever it is. Maybe he’s got a guilty conscience and wants to get caught.

Also, I found it odd that the Englishman was wearing a monocle. From World War II up to Baron Strucker, I thought of monocles as visual shorthand for “autocratic German.” I guess Everett was just using it as shorthand for “evil and rich.”

Apparently she's a paranormal investigator now, because why wouldn't she be?

Indeed. Why let a little continuity get in the way of a good story?

If he didn't want this story to come to light, calling in Venus wasn't the wisest move he could have made.

Ah. You noticed that, too.

Venus arrives and, on her first night in the castle, encounters Cathy, the "ghost" of the step-daughter, though the previously-unrevealed power Venus has to see and talk with departed spirits.

Convenient! But it’s a red herring, which may be worse writing-wise, because it’s not playing fair with the reader. Surely Venus, if she really has this power, would know if she was using it or not.

Cathy tells Venus how she witnessed the murder of her mother but was unable to do anything about it because she was just a little girl at the time.

Since this is an obviously adult woman talking, alert readers should figure out pretty fast she’s no ghost of a 10-year-old. Unless ghosts age. Which in an Everett story, is entirely possible.

… through a chink in the wall through which she observed where her step-father buried the workmen. On the second day of her captivity, Cathy discovered a secret passage which she has been using, undiscovered, ever since.

Shakespeare made a number of double entendres with a “chink in a wall” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I can’t see the phrase “chink in a wall” without thinking of that scene and giggling, especially after seeing it performed once, where the actors were clearly making hand gestures indicating sexual intercourse. Because I have the maturity of a 12-year-old.

After I recovered my composure, my first thought was, “When Cathy discovered the escape tunnel, why didn’t she go directly to the police and tell them what had happened and where her step-father had buried the bodies of the workmen? There’s no story if she does, but her remaining in the tower, sneaking out to forage for food at night, for 10 years, ages 10 to 20, is a little hard to swallow. Unless she’s insane. Or really a ghost.

Venus explains she knew Cathy wasn't a ghost when she realized that ghosts don't age and Cathy was now a young woman instead of a little girl.

I knew it! But it doesn’t explain her sudden appearances and disappearances, or that in some scenes she was glowing.

Then she invites Cathy to return with her to the United States and Cathy accepts.

Won’t she own the castle now? Must be worth a pretty farthing. She could be rich in her homeland instead of starting over in a foreign country. But I guess it was a given in postwar America for Americans to assume everybody wanted to come here.

Or maybe she IS insane and Venus wants to institutionalize her. Or maybe she IS a ghost, who did age somehow, and Venus doesn’t want to break the news to her just yet.

Also, Venus notes that Cathy knocked a hole in the bricked-up window of her prison and shined a blue flashlight through it every night at midnight (for 10 years, presumably). A) Why? It served to terrify her step-father enough to call in Venus, which results in a just-deserts scenario, but she wouldn’t know it would work out that way. Why would she call attention to herself when she is hiding from him? B) Where do you get a blue flashlight when you’re imprisoned/hiding in a remote castle? I don’t know where to get one now, and I’m a grown-up with a car who can drive to Home Depot.

Maybe she's a ghost, who glowed blue every night at midnight, because ghosts do that kind of stuff. Might've rattled some chains and moaned a bit, too, for all we know.

I don’t really expect answers to these questions. Nor did they ruin my enjoyment of the story. Everett is at his most bat$#!+ here, and, as I said above, it’s best just to turn the brain off and go along for the ride.

Second Story: "The Cartoonist's Calamity!"

Dr. Vassallo refers to this story as "this title's tour-de-force masterpiece, the Venus magnum opus." I'm not sure that's true (most Venus stories are six pages, and this one is only five), but it is kind of bonkers.

Which is fun.

The previously-unseen cartoon editor of Beauty magazine, Jimmy Rogers, doesn't show up for work one day, and Hammond sends Venus over to his house to look for him.

More evidence that Beauty is some sort of general interest/news magazine. That sort of magazine would need a cartoon editor, whereas a beauty magazine would not. I agree that a title change is in order. Why not call it Venus? Too on the nose?

And isn’t Venus’ time a little too valuable to run an errand like checking on a sick employee? Sounds like a job for a copy boy or an intern. Or Della.

But then Della would have been killed and it would have been an entirely different story!

She finds him being terrorized by a group of beings that would give Basil Wolverton nightmares, and soon determines that they are Rogers' own drawing come to life. Venus convinces him to draw a "hero" who leaps off the page to save them. Then, in a scene directly from one of Walt Disney's early "Out of the Inkwell" cartoons, Rogers draws a panel of the hero leaping back into a bottle of ink, and the hero disappears from the real world.

Alan Moore and Hilary Barta’s Splash Brannigan, who appeared in Tomorrow Stories in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, was also very similar. Splash was a sentient ink spill that had been imprisoned in an ink bottle for 50 years before being freed by Daisy Screensaver, an employee of Kaput Comics. He was a square-jawed hero who would emerge from, and return to, an ink bottle much like the hero of this story.

Also, I’ve never made a mental list, but the idea of an artist or writer’s creations coming to life seems a fairly common one to me, especially in pre-Code horror books. A more benign version of the concept appeared in the Richard Matheson-written Twilight Zone episode “A World of His Own” (1960).

Second-and-a-half story: “The Storm!”

I know you’re not commenting on the non-Venus stories, but once again I will.

It’s not a particularly good story, with really pedestrian art (by Allen Bellman, with whom I’m not familiar, but seems to have spent his entire career at Timely/Atlas). But there are MERMAIDS again, and they are fish from the waist down again, and they are inviting a man to join them again in a naughty way, and he thinks it’s a swell idea again.

I do not find any sort of romantic liaison that involves fish scales to be an attractive proposition. Do. Not. I’m baffled by all the comic book dunderheads who do. Do you know how sharp those things are? You'd have to wear a full-body hazmat suit just to hug a mermaid.

Third Story: "The Stone Man!"

At a whopping eight pages, this story has a better shot of being labeled the issue's "tour de force magnum opus," but I'll leave it up to you to decide.

This is a darn sight MORE bonkers than “Cartoonist’s Calamity,” and therefore I fall on the side of naming this the better of the two stories. But horse races, I know.

Thirty-foot-tall statues of amphibious creatures begin appearing all over the world: New York, London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Leningrad, Moscow.

The fact that they’re appearing everywhere at once should alarm governments more than they do. I can’t believe that we were LESS paranoid in 1951!

Also, we see another Brit with a monocle. I guess that was more common than I remember. Especially since this Brit is in morning dress, where the monocle looks like it belongs.

Also, Everett’s Russian accents are indistinguishable from Everett’s German accents.

No one can figure out where they come from, until Venus and Hammond witness one arising from the sea. They are merely curious, but soon turn to stone in the upper atmosphere. Hammond phones the story in to the newspapers, but no one believes him. Then it starts to rain and the two New York giants (heh) come to life. The surface world then begins to destroy the remaining statues and the survivors flee to the sea, vowing revenge. And that's pretty much it. As Vassallo puts it, "They came, they destroyed, they left."

I think some people might have wondered already if they were alive or had been alive, just because of the impracticality of building hundreds of statues overnight. “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” So it wouldn’t been as much of a surprise when they do come to life—especially that water is elixir vitae, which also seems a bit obvious if you consider that they were alive, or once were. Because where else would they have come from?

Of course, once again I’m looking at this from the point of view of someone who’s read a LOT of comic book stories, and therefore am working out the story’s ending in my head instead of accepting that the people in the story would be terrified and baffled instead.

And all those questions are, as usual, beside the point. The point is the bizarre and breathless story drawn in Everett’s inimitable style with outrageous italics in the word balloons. The monsters are some of the strangest ever! If Venus had continued, I bet we’d have seen them again—and maybe their undersea kingdom, too.

It also gave Everett a chance to draw cities being destroyed, which would probably sicken an audience that was sadly familiar with the destruction of cities. But not shocked, I would guess.

And there's one scene in the middle of the story in which Whitney asks Venus to marry him and she refuses.

Venus thinks, “Poor Whit—he’s a sweet guy, and I do love him, but it’s just not in my nature to settle down and be domestic!”

Also, you’re immortal, and he’s not. Also, you’re not human, you’re a mythological goddess (or a siren). Also, you’re already married, to Vulcan. Also, daddy might object. Also … well, I could go on, but my point is: Of all the reasons for her not to marry Whit, the one she comes up with is the lamest.

I guess Everett was just addressing the elephant in the room, possibly to write Whit out of the book, like he did all of the other pre-Everett elements. Maybe Whit and Beauty magazine were destined for the trash heap in his mind. But now we’ll never know.

VENUS #18:

"The stories become more and more grotesque now," points out Michael Vassallo. The plots are bonkers but it's the art that carries them.

Agreed.

First Story: "The Sealed Specters"

Whit and Venus go on the "Tunnel of Love" ride at the "Cloney Island" amusement park.

Whit notes that Venus isn't usually very romantic toward him. He says it in a jokey way, but makes me wonder again if Everett isn't thinking of writing him out.

Inside, they and another couple are accosted by a group of ghouls led by Old Joe, who "used to be the chief caretaker here, but they fired me because I was too old." (See? Ageism, even then.)

Yes, and the young couple are also guilty of it. “Hey, you two in front … don’t you think you’re a little old for—”

He has somehow managed to build a secondary channel to divert the boats to his underground lair. His plan is to kidnap helpless victims and transplant the brains and hearts of his ghouls into them so that they can live on the surface. Hey, that sounds familar!

I thought so, too! I was mentally trying to remember the previous story with a similar premise, when …

Venus thinks so, too, and recalling "The Empty Graves" (a.k.a. "The Graveyard Waxworks") from #15, she suggests that Old Joe and his "ghosts, specters and goblins" take a look at the surface workd before they decide. She leads then to the carnival, and it is so loud, noisy and raucous they decide they don't want to live there after all.

A clever twist. And a rare callback to a previous issue!

Second Story: "The Mad Mountain!"

As the story begins, Venus is flying commercial "somewhere over the Southern range of the vast Rocky Mountains," presumably following a story of some sort. Suddenly, the plane inexplicably crashes into an inescapable blind fissure.

Everybody somehow miraculously survives without a scratch, which in most stories of this sort means everyone is dead and they just haven’t realized it yet. But Venus can’t be dead, so that’s out. Or maybe she is, and she’s somehow going to negotiate with the underworld to save everyone (or at least herself, so she can come back in the next story). I was thinking along these lines, when …

Scouting around, she finds a ghost town populated by ambulatory plant men.

OK, did not see that coming.

The plant men pursue Venus and company directly into the path of an avalanche, and all are killed except Venus.

Good grief! All of them? And since Venus didn’t die, they really might be dead!

"Aeons later," Venus awakens in the desert miles away and makes her way to a different small town. She phones in a report to Hammond and notifies the proper authorities. The sheriff and the townsfolk investigate but can find no evidence to support her story. Then the sheriff checks with the airline and the plane Venus said she was on landed safely in LA the day before, and she was not on the passenger list.

I have no explanation whatsoever. I want whatever Everett was smoking.

I love that the sheriff is ticked off that Venus wasted a lot of taxpayer money having him search for a non-existent plane. But, as always, Whit can just whip out his checkbook. As Batman noted in Justice League the movie, being rich is a super-power.

Second-and-a-half story: “The Little Man”

This story was seriously pre-Code in that the protagonist casually buys 1,000 slaves in Africa to trade and the story has no comment on that. I was shocked! Shouldn’t we be shocked? Even in 1951? But the story blithely continues as if he’d picked up a pack of cigarettes. He gets his in the end, as he should. But I’d rather they had drawn a clearer line from his transgression to his fate.

Third Story: "Tidal Wave of Terror"

According to Dr. Vassallo, "Nobody, I repeat, nobody, depicts aquatic environments, cascading waves and oceanographic epics like Bill Everett does. From Sub-Mariner and Hydroman to The Fin, Everett was the master of the briny deep and the seven seas."

This is true, AFAIC. Drawing water is harder than it looks, especially depicting things happening under water. Everett’s water looks like water, but he never errs in confusing the reader’s eye. Gil Kane (who used a sort of reverse Kirby Krackle) was also good at this, as were Ramona Fradon and Nick Cardy, both of whom drew Aquaman.

This story begins with Venus again being the sole survivor of a natural disaster, in the case, a tidal wave.

Starting to feel like she’s bad luck to hang around!

Then it flashes back to real estate developer Deanna Seacrest. So many of her seaside affordable housing communities have been destroyed by tidal waves that the FHA has refused her any further building permits. Hammond buys a house in one of Seacrest's housing developments, and Venus moves in.

Housing shortage was an issue after the war, wasn’t it? I’m guessing headlines about that were the impetus for this story.

That night, just before a tidal wave hits, Venus sees a woman swimming in the ocean. Swimming out to save the woman, Venus recognizes it to be Deanna Seacrest herself.

We know she’s evil, because she says “HO! HO!” in bold italics, as all good Everett villains do. Also, her face is oddly shaped, which usually means “not human” in Everett-speak.(She looks a little like Everett's Namor, which is probably no accident.)

It’s also a mild irony that trying to save someone else is what helps Venus survive. As she notes herself, if she’d stayed on the beach she’d have been a goner.

Considering that … what was her original plan, exactly? Buy a house, wait for the tidal wave … and die? Not a very good plan.

The tidal wave hits and Deanna could not possibly have survived. The next day, Venus goes to Seacrest's office to report the death, only to find out that she has somehow miraculously survived! It turns out that Deanna is really Neptunia, daughter of Neptune, and is waging war on the surface world by building cities then destroying them one by one because she holds the surface people responsible for the death of her father caused by "underwater atomic blasts at Bikini and Eniwetok. There's a big fight between Venus and Neptunia on the back of a sea monster named Neptunus, but Neptunia is washed away.

Anyone who says “HO! HO!” in bold italics in an Everett story is going to get a comeuppance.

You might think that the death of the god Neptune would punch a hole in my GUTOG, but it doesn't, really.

Why would I think that, when I don’t know yet what your GUTOG is? Besides, we never saw a body. It’s just hearsay at this point, and I think Venus would have been notified if her uncle had died. That would be a pretty big deal, given that he’s lived thousands of years.
Jeff of Earth-J May 5, 2024 at 5:15pm

Shakespeare made a number of double entendres with a “chink in a wall” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I can’t see the phrase “chink in a wall” without thinking of that scene and giggling, especially after seeing it performed once, where the actors were clearly making hand gestures indicating sexual intercourse. Because I have the maturity of a 12-year-old.

Before getting to the the comics themselves, I'll tell you what "chink in the wall" reminds me of.

Back when I was teaching, one of my seventh graders turned in a story titled "The Were-Chink" about a Chinese werewolf. I took him aside and told him why that was unacceptable. Some time later, while teaching a poetry unit, I used the poem Root Cellar by Theodore Rothke to illustrate several poetic devices we were studying:

Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch,
Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark,
Shoots dangled and drooped,
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!—
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.

...and BJ wanted to know why I could use the word "chink" when he couldn't.

Root Cellar by Theodore Roethke

Comments & analysis: Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch, / Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting fo
Jeff of Earth-J May 5, 2024 at 5:54pm

I’m guilty of something similar, where I point out all the inconsistencies or unaddressed plot points and whatnot in stories that you’re really not supposed to think about very hard. You’re right that we should just put our brains in “Park” and enjoy the ride.

"Say to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.'"

How do you guys read your stuff so fast?

Don't sleep.

Also, Venus notes that Cathy knocked a hole in the bricked-up window of her prison and shined a blue flashlight through it every night at midnight (for 10 years, presumably).

Cathy was "playing the long game."

Where do you get a blue flashlight when you’re imprisoned/hiding in a remote castle? I don’t know where to get one now, and I’m a grown-up with a car who can drive to Home Depot.

That's exactly the same thought I had!

More evidence that Beauty is some sort of general interest/news magazine.

I theorize the Whitney Hammond publiched more than one magazine (not unlike Martin Goodman). Beauty may have been his best seller, but his staff probably wore many different hats. J. Jonah Jameson once published NOW magazine. Maybe he bought it from Whitney Hammond.

Alan Moore and Hilary Barta’s Splash Brannigan, who appeared in Tomorrow Stories in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, was also very similar.

I remember that! I really should go back and re-read some of those ABC comics one of these days.

I know you’re not commenting on the non-Venus stories, but once again I will.

Go for it.

This is a darn sight MORE bonkers than “Cartoonist’s Calamity,” and therefore I fall on the side of naming this the better of the two stories.

Just think if Everett had been telling "novel-length" stories throughout his Venus run rather than three per issue.

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable..."

"...must be a Bill Everett story."

Of all the reasons for her not to marry Whit, the one she comes up with is the lamest.

I think "it’s just not in my nature to settle down and be domestic” is just shorthand for all those reasons you enumerated. And I agree that it's likely Everett would have soon eliminated Whitney Hammond (at least the romantic angle), except as maybe a story catalyst. Frankly, that's all he is now.

Yes, and the young couple are also guilty of [ageism]. “Hey, you two in front … don’t you think you’re a little old for—”

I noticed that, too. How old does Venus look to you? 26? 27? And I'll bet Hammond has barely cracked 30. "Never trust anyone over 30," indeed!

OK, did not see that coming.

Everett! [shakes fist at sky]

I have no explanation whatsoever. I want whatever Everett was smoking.

Really.

Gil Kane... was also good at [drawing water]this, as were Ramona Fradon and Nick Cardy

Chester Gould was pretty good at it, too (but it didn't come up all that often in Dick Tracy).

Considering that … what was her original plan, exactly? Buy a house, wait for the tidal wave … and die? Not a very good plan.

It's not explicitly stated, but I got the impression she was causing the tidal waves somehow, after the development was full. Atlantic tidal waves are not all that common, as the story points out.

Why would I think that, when I don’t know yet what your GUTOG is?

I was already blind-sided by "Thor"... I just want to make sure there are no other little "surprises" waiting for me.
- JD DeLuzio > Jeff of Earth-J May 5, 2024 at 7:09pm
  
  J. Jonah Jameson once published NOW magazine.
  
  For four decades, NOW was Toronto's hip alt-press / music and happenings source / wannabe Village Voice weekly. It's hilarious to imagine J. Jonah Jameson publishing it.
  
  It ultimately switched to a monthly and then ceased print form altogether. It's now a website.
Richard Willis May 6, 2024 at 3:07am

Captain Comics said:

Also, I found it odd that the Englishman was wearing a monocle. From World War II up to Baron Strucker, I thought of monocles as visual shorthand for “autocratic German.” I guess Everett was just using it as shorthand for “evil and rich.”

Back when I was wearing contact lenses for distance, reading became tougher. The optometrist suggested what he called “monovision,” which was wearing a single contact lens. Many/most people have the mental ability to take in one clear and one blurry image, ignoring/dumping the blurry one. I was able to do this successfully, so I wore a monocle for a few years. You just couldn’t see it.

But I guess it was a given in postwar America for Americans to assume everybody wanted to come here.

My father sure did! America hadn’t been bombed within an inch of its life like England and most of Europe. The British pound, which had been worth five U.S. dollars, was then only worth $1.50. In 1952, when we left, wartime rationing was still in force there.

Where do you get a blue flashlight when you’re imprisoned/hiding in a remote castle?

The flashlights in the Army had a transparent red disk that could be inserted in front of the regular clear lens to get a red light. The bulb was a regular bulb. Sneaking out as she was, she could have obtained a regular flashlight, batteries and some blue cellophane or glass.
Jeff of Earth-J May 6, 2024 at 6:38am

VENUS #19:

First Story: "The Kiss of Death!" - This story begins so abruptly that, if I didn't know better, would have sworn was the second chapter of a continued story. Venus and Hammond are consulting a medium, but they are really there to debunk him. After an initial skirmish with some skeletons to get the story moving, the medium's next client arrives, an old man.The man and his three friends all fell in love with the same woman back in WWI. She could not choose among them, and promised to marry the last one living. That's him, but he has lost track of her over the years and wants the medium to find her for him. First, the medium summons the spirits of his three dead firends, but eventually Mara arrives. She is a skeleton, too, and the man rushes from the circle of protection, his glove falls from his hand. Mara's skeleton removes the flesh from his skull (in a scene similar to that depicted on the cover), while the three dead soldiers look on.

Second Story: "Demon from the Deep!" - Whit and Venus are aboard the luxury liner S.S. Castletown when a green slimey creature crawls aboard. Earlier that day he had murdered his two brothers so that he could inherit the family fortune. When he was discovered by the ship's officers, he fled and jumped over the side. They fired at him, but missed, Now he's back. When he catches a glimpse of his reflection, he freaks out. He chases Venus, who trips over something. The monster can't catch her anyway because he's an intyangible ghost. What Venus tripped over was the man's own corpse. Then the monster dissipates.

Third Story: "The Box of Doom!" - Working late one night, Venus receives a package. When she tries to open it up, the box glows eerily and offers her unlimited wealth and power. She resists, but the delivery boy succumbs to temptation. When he opens the box, a formless glob arises from it and merges with him. After a chase, Venus notices that he casts no reflection, realizes he's a vampire, and stakes him through the heart.

And that's the end of the "Atlas Era Venus." But this discussion is not over yet. Tomorrow I'll take a look at Venus's post-Atlas appearances, then on Wednesday I'll begin to delve into my Grand Unifying Theory Of Gods.
Jeff of Earth-J May 7, 2024 at 7:06am

POST-ATLAS VENUS:

Venus disappears from the public eye at this point, resurfacing several years later during the Eisenhower administration. By this time she has cultivated a professional relationship with FBI agent Jimmy Woo and is one of five obscure heroes "assembled" by Woo to become the "Avengers" of the 1950s. This team shared only one mission together, however, before being disbanded by President Eisenhower: "These are suspicious times, my friends. People find communists under their beds--and Martians in every weather balloon. A few simplistic souls even feel that comic books, and anything resembling comic book characters--such as yourselves--are responsible for every social ill. That's why I'm asking you to disband the Avengers... while I take measures to cover up the fact that you ever existed!"

Venus's next known (chronological) appearance is during the "Summer of Love" (which seems appropriate) during which she met Thor for the first time. They also teamed with Pixie and Makarri of the Eternals as well as other members of the First Line to defeat the villain known as Rumor. It is also revealed that she knew Effigy as far back as 1952.

SUB-MARINER #57:

Venus's actual first appearance since 1952 was Sub-Mariner #57, written and drawn by Bill Everett. In the intervening 20 years, Everett had only gotten better. By 1972, Venus had assumed the role of Victoria Nutley Starr, Professor of Humanities and one of Namorita's teachers. She is helping to organize the students' peaceful demonstations against the war in Viet Nam. As the story opens, Namor spots a woman who has been "cast upon a rocky pinnacle that was not there a moment ago," recalling her mythological origin (one of them, anyway). She is being pursued by her suitor, whom she refers to as "Lord Ares--or, as I sometimes dub him, Mars." She introduces herself as Venus, but admits that Ares "chooses to call me Aphrodite" (although, later in the story, she says, "Aphrodite? I am Venus!" Interestingly, Ares swears an oath "by the thunder of Thor--by the forge of the mighty Vulcan." Why would a Greek God invoke the names of gods from two different pantheons? I have an idea, but I will say that this reinforces my idea that Marvel's 1950s comic book version of Thor and Vulcan are one and the same.

Venus displays a somewhat different power set this time out, including the ability to cast minor illusions and assume the form of a dolphin. As in the 1950s, she freely switches back-and-forth between her godlike and human personas. Also, it is her "Girdle of Cestus" which gives her the power of love over man or god, and without it she is defensless. With the help of Namor, Venus fights Ares to a standstill, then sends him back to Olympus to "lay your sins before the almighty Zeus" (not Jupiter). As with Whitney Hammond in the '50s, Nita does not believe her humanities professor is really a goddess.

THE CHAMPIONS #1-3:

By 1975 (real time), Professor of Humanities Victoria Nutley Starr was now teaching at UCLA. One day the campus is attacked by Harpies, Amazons and other creatures of myth looking for Venus. Hercules just happens to be there that day delivering a speech as a guest lecturer, Natasha Romanoff is there applying the the job of Russian language teacher, Warren Worthington and Bobby Drake are both students, and Johnny Blaze is there on an errand for a friend. They all get caught up defending Venus, and the villain is revealed to be Pluto.

Pluto has allied himself with other rulers of their respective underworlds. He the approached Zeus with the bargain that he would not attack Olympus if Zeus ordered Hercules to marry Hyppolyta and Venus to marry Ares. Actually, Pluto is using an Olympian law which dictates that "wife may not oppose husband--nor husband wife" in order to consolodate his forces, and plans to betray Ares and Hyppolyta later, anyway. After the initial skirmish, Hercules and Venus are captured and brought back to Olympus.

In this story, "Jupiter" is not mentioned, but Hercules is identified as Venus's cousin. Wouldn't that make Zeus her uncle? But aren't Zeus and Jupiter one and the same? (Don't worry; I've got this.) Pluto's perfidy is revealed, Ares and Hypollyta turn against him, and Venus elects to remain in Olympus. (The last we see of her, she is walking up to Ares' side.) This story makes it pretty clear that Venus is an Olympian goddess, not a naiad, not a siren, not an Eternal.

WHAT IF? #9:

In 1978 (real time), Iron Man calls a meeting of five very specific Avengers: himself, Captain America, Thor, Vision and the Beast. He has been experimenting with his own version of the dimensional transporter which brought the Squadron Supreme to Earth-616. He has discovered a group of "Avengers" (later to be known as the "Agents of Atlas") which banded together for a single mission in the 1950s, yet he his uncertain whether of not he is looking at the history of their Earth, or that of an alternate reality. He called these specific Avengers because he saw them as counterparts to the so-called "Avengers of the 1950s." Unbeknownst to any of them, however, their meeting is being observed the Watcher, and even he doesn't know whether or not Tony Stark's device is looking in on events of their own reality or those of a parallel world.

In 1999 (real time), the present-day Wasp and a Captain Marvel (Genis-Vel) from the future time-travel to an "imbalance point" in the space/time continuum, California in the year 1959, and discover that the "Avengers of the 1950s" did, indeed, remain together as a group for about six months prior to being disbanded by President Eisenhower. While they are there/then, reveal that Vice President Richard Nixon is being impersonated by a shape-shifting Skrull. In 2006 (real time), the "Avengers of the 1950s" are reformed as the "Agents of Atlas." I loved this series by Jeff Parker, but it is difficult to reconcile these characters (not only Venus, but all of the main characters to some extent) with their 1950s Atlas counterparts.

GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS #1:

The discrepancies are resolved (AFAIAC) in 2007's Giant-Size Avengers #1, also written by Jeff Parker. The "Marvel Adventures" line of comics takes place in an obviously different reality than Earth-616. An alternate timeline is created within that reality when, in 1958, Captain America is discovered frozen in ice by the Agents of Atlas, several years before he was supposed to have been by the Avengers. The groundwork had been laid as far back as 1978 that the events of What If #9 occurred in an alternate reality, the endnotes of Avengers Forever refer to the team as being from a "possibly-alternate timeline" and (again AFAIAC), Giant-Size Avengers #1 confirms it. In the post-Atals era, then, Sub-Mariner #57 and The Champions #1-3 occur on Earth-616, but most of What If #9 and the Agents of Atlas series both take place on "Earth-Atlas." (Agents of Atlas was mainly self-contained, but it may be assumed that any other heroes the Agents encountered during their adventures were actually natives of their own Earth.)

Next I'll begin my examination of who Venus is and how she fits in the pantheon of Marvel Gods.
Jeff of Earth-J May 8, 2024 at 3:36pm
GRAND UNIFIED THEORY OF GODS

Now that I have covered the 19 issues of Venus's "Atlas-era" run as well as her post-Atlas appearances, it's time to examine how she fits into the larger tapestry of the Marvel Universe as we know it today. In this treatment, I am going to avoid embellishments of my own (as much as possible) and concentrate primarily on evidence presented withi the stories themselves, but perhaps putting that information together in a new or unexpected manor. I will be relying primarily on the stories of John Byrne, Peter Gillis, Alan Zelenetz, J.M. DeMattias, and of course Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. I plan to present my "Grand Unified Theory of Gods" in four main sections.
- Who is Venus?
- Where is "Venus" (the "planet")?
- Who is Loki?
- Who is Jupiter?
I started by looking at the Greco-Roman pantheon of Gods as introduced during the "Marvel Age of Comics" and considered that canon. Some of them use their Greek names (Zeus, Hera, Ares, Artimis, Athena, Hermes, Hephaestus, Dionysius) and some of them use their Roman names (Pluto, Neptune, Venus, Vesta, Hercules), but I was mildly surprised to discover that, by accident or design, there was no contradiction or overlap. Although versions of Apollo and Hyppolyta (and "Thor") exist in both the Atlas Age and the Marvel Age, I will deal with that in the "Who is Jupiter?" section. Tto reiterrate, the Marvel Age versions are canon, and any discrepancies which exist in comparison to the Atlas Age versions must be dealt with and accounted for.

WHO IS VENUS?

Is she an Eternal? No. - That was a "neat idea" of my own I tossed out early on to account for the discrepancies between the Atlas and Marvel Ages. There's no published story which supports that theory, and besides, it's too similar to the way Roy Thomas folded Marvel Boy into the Marvel Universe.

Is she a Naiad or a Siren? No. - Evidence suggests that the Venus of the Atlas Age and the Venus of the Agents of Atlas series (as well as the other characters) are two distinct characters from two separate universe. (See yesterday's post.)

Is she an Olympian Goddess? Yes. - Again, I think yesterday's discussion of Sub-Mariner #57 and Champions #1-3 established that.

WHERE IS "VENUS"?

This one's pretty obvious, I think. The planet "Venus" of the early issues is actually Olympus. Atals simply got it wrong early on, and as soon as they realized their mistake, they course-corrected. I say all of the "godly realms" are in the same dimension. Take Asgard for example. From the Rainbow Bridge, Asgard appears to be an island floating in a sea of space. But once one steps off Bifrost and passes through the gates of the city itself, it is revealed to be an entire continent. As early as King-Size Journey Into Mystery #1, Thor found a tunnel which led between Asgard and Olympus and was able to walk there. In JiM #111, Balder encountered "a creature from a foreign universe" who happened to have wandered in to Asgard's outer regions. In Thor #143, Balder and Sif travelled to the far-off land of Ringsfjord where they encountered the Enchanters, powerful sorcerers "whose power comes from far beyond Asgard." I'll take my argument one step further: every comic book universe has such a dimension. In the DC universe, it's where New Genesis and Apokolips are; at Valiant, the Lost Land; at first, Cynosure. Every one of these realms have gateways from/to each other and to Earth. For Asgard it's the Rainbow bridge; for Olympus it's Mt. Olympus.

WHO IS LOKI?

If there is one thing I know about the underworld from reading comic books (Venus #9, Thor #128-130, Sandman's "Season of Mists") it is that ruling it is a dirty job that someone has to do, but no one wants to. I also know that there are as many versions of the underworld as there are pantheons of gods, and each one has its own unique ruler (see Defenders #111 as discussed here on March 18). So who is the "Loki" of the Atlas Age? Some have put forth that it might be the Deviant Kro, but I don't think so because there's no story evidence to support it. But if you look at Venus #9, Loki's minion Zoroba thinks of him as Lucifer. I think this is the same Lucifer mentioned by Satan in Defenders #111. Perhaps "Loki" is a nickname (of sorts) for "Lucifer" but (more likely), Atlas just got it wrong and should have been referring to him as Lucifer all along.

WHO IS JUPITER?

This one's a little trickier. The Gods first manifested themselves to the ancient Greeks thousands of years ago when they learned they could increase their power by the devotion and worship of mortals. When word of the Gods first spread across the Mediterranean, the Romans began using different names for them. The Gods created avatars of themselves and established a second Mt. Olympus in Italy to further empower them. But these avatars were more than just simple copies, each was actually a different aspect of the original, equal in power, a true, exact duplicate. But, after a thousand years, they discovered that twice as many worshipers meant twice as many demands upon them. After a time, worship of the "Old Gods" began to fade, replaced by Christianity and other religions. The decision was made to re-merge their two forms and forego human worship altogether.

But because the Greek and Roman versions of themselves were truly equal, some chose to retain their Greek identities while others adopted their Roman names. (This is why the Olympian Gods of the Marvel Universe have a mix of Greek and Roman names.) Certain Gods (noteably Jupiter), decided not to re-merge at first, putting it off for many centuries. Jupiter took these "duplicate" Gods and settled on Mt. Lustre. It is my assertion that none of the Gods who appeared during the Atlas Age, even those with the same name, are the same as their Marvel Age counterparts (Apollo, for example). When "Neptune" was reported "killed" in Venus #18, it was actually his aspect, which re-merged into a single being (but kept the name "Neptune" rather than "Poseidon") for his appearances in the Marvel Age.

Venus is actually the daughter of the aspect Jupiter, which is why she referred to Hercules as her "cousin" in Champions (because she thinks of Zeus as her "uncle"). It was the "death" of the Roman aspect of Neptune which led to the remaining Atlas Era Gods to re-merge with other selves. Shortly after that Venus disappeared from the public eye, until she resurfaced in Sub-Mariner #57 using the alias Victoria Nutley Starr. (Actually, I prefer to think she used that alias while working for Whitney Hammond at Beauty magazine as well, just another detail Atlas got wrong.) So that's my "Grand Unified Theory Of Gods." Take it or leave it.

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