Monday, July 27, 2009

1980's Flashback: Atari Force (2nd series)


DC Comics originally published Atari Force comics as inserts created mainly to illustrate story lines for video games being released by their subsidiary Atari Inc. The comics were packed with games such as Defender, Berzerk, Star Raiders, Phoenix, and Galaxian.

The second series was released as a regular monthly title beginning in January 1984, in standard comic-book format. This second "Atari Force", formed approximately 25 years after the first team and was led by founding team member, Martin Champion. He had become convinced that their original nemesis, the Dark Destroyer, still existed. Although Commander Champion was correct, most of the rest of humanity did not accept it, they simply humored him due to his heroic status in successfully leading the original Atari Force in finding New Earth. This second team included Christopher "Tempest" Champion, Erin "Dart" Bia O'Rourke-Singh; Hukka; Morphea, an insectoid-empath; Babe, an alien toddler of immense size and strength; and Pakrat, a humanoid rodent thief. Later additions to the team were Blackjak, Taz, a short alien warrior and Kargg, the Dark Destroyer's former chief underling.

Gerry Conway, who had written the game inserts, returned as regular series writer with José Luis García-López as pencil artist. Original series concept artist Ross Andru drew issues 4-5 and Eduardo Barreto eventually took over as penciler. Mike Baron replaced Conway as the regular writer through the final issue, #20.

1 comment:

wiec? said...

i had a few issues of this series when i was a litttle kid. it was drawn beautiful and the stories were pretty cool too. the issue where they introduced Taz was my favorite.

i often wondered why it was called Atari Force though.

i just noticed the tall blonde dude in the middle has a huge Atari logo on his chest.