Atari Force.... tell me all you can!

[wiseguyusa]

I am auditioning to be in a "reality" show in which I would be discussing the "Atari Force" comic books and related games.

 

I hope to make AA'ers proud of me as I represent a hobby that doesn't get enough love in the nerd word: Retrogaming, and Retro Game Collecting & Restoration!

 

Any trivia about the comics, or useful info to make me look well informed on the subject would be greatly appreciated!

[Matthew]

Atari Force was created to counter the popularity of George Lucas's Jedi force. It was hoped that young impressionable minds would be drawn to Atari Force instead of the Dark Side.

 

Atari Force ultimately failed in it's goal.

Edited May 31, 2014 by Matthew

[Zwackery]

Loosely based on trademarks of Atari, Inc., Atari Force was the name of two comic book series published by DC Comics from 1982 to 1986. Part of the ease of this collaboration came from both companies being owned at the time by Warner Communications. (In 1969, National Periodical Publications was purchased by Kinney National Company, which later purchased Warner Bros.-Seven Arts and became Warner Communications, and in 1976 Nolan Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications.[1]) The first Atari Force comics were mini-comics smaller than the standard size issues and were created mainly to illustrate story lines for the Atari 2600 (VCS) console games: Defender, Berzerk, Star Raiders, Phoenix, and Galaxian.[2] All of the titles, with the exception of Star Raiders[3], were converted from coin-op arcade games, so there was already a fan base for the titles, but Atari made the decision to include these pack-ins as incentives to get gamers to buy the titles, and by distributing the series across five issues, one would ostensibly have to buy all five releases to read the complete story.[4]

 

The comics were written by Gerry Conway[5] and Roy Thomas[6] and the artists included Ross Andru (best known for his work on Amazing Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Metal Men), Gil Kane[7], Dick Giordano (perhaps best known for introducing Charlton Comics' "Action Heroes" stable of superheroes), and Mike DeCarlo (working on such diverse titles as Batman, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Fantastic Four, Simpsons Comics).

 

Set in the year 2005, the original Atari Force was a team of humans assembled from the remnants of different nations after the “Break-Up” to use the multi-dimensional starship Scanner One to search for a new planet for humanity to inhabit as the Earth was facing ecological devastation. The think tank group known as A.T.A.R.I. (Advanced Technology And Research Institute) selected five candidates as the crew for the experimental starship Scanner One, equipped with a Multiversal drive that would enable its passengers to travel through various realities, in order to find a suitable replacement home for Earth's citizens. The candidates include Martin Champion, an experienced military man, as the team's commander; Lydia Perez, a former NASA astronaut, as the pilot; Li San O'Rourke, an experienced military woman, as its security and tactical officer; Mohandas Singh, a former Indian street boy possessed with incredible intelligence, as the engineer; and Dr. Lucas Orion, a former member of the UN Peacekeeping force, as its physician. Through their travels, the Atari Force found a friendly alien mascot called the Hukka as well as a malevolent entity called the Dark Destroyer that was bent on destruction and controlling races. Eventually the team found the perfect new home for Earth's citizens to relocate to.

 

The second series was released monthly, in conventional comic-book format. Gerry Conway returned as writer while José Luis García-López (interior pencil artist on many titles including Batman, Deadman, and Elseworlds Superman) became the main pencil artist. However, original series concept artist Ross Andru did draw issues 4-5. In issue #13, Eduardo Barreto (a long run on New Teen Titans and Superman and Batman in the 1990s) took over as penciler and, in #14, Mike Baron (creator of Badger and (along with Steve Rude) Nexus as well as a long run on The Punisher) became the regular writer through the final issue, #20. Issues 12-20 also featured backup stories by different writers and artists. In 1986, a "Special" issue was released with work by different creators, some of whom had done backup stories for volume 2.

 

The second team, formed approximately 25 years after the first, was also led by Martin Champion. He was convinced that the original team’s nemesis, the Dark Destroyer, still existed. Although he was correct, most of the rest of humanity did not believe it, but humored him due to his heroic status in successfully leading the original Atari Force to find New Earth. Champion forms a new Atari Force to confront the Dark Destroyer in his latest humanoid form. The new team included Martin's son Christopher Champion (Tempest) [8] who can travel through the Multiverse by a technique called "phasing"; Erin Bia O'Rourke-Singh (Dart), a skilled mercenary with telepathic abilities; Morphea, an empathic Canopian who served as Martin's psychiatrist and counselor; Babe, an infant from an alien world who is being watched over by Morphea; and Tukla Oly (Pakrat), a Markian thief who goes into berserker rages when cornered. Along their journeys on board the Scanner One which they stole from a museum on New Earth, the Atari Force picked up Taz, a short alien female who is proficient with weapons, and Moses Fisk (Blackjak), Dart's partner and lover who was presumed dead, but was actually captured by the Dark Destroyer and forced to do his will. The new Atari Force team met the new form of the Dark Destroyer, who revealed that he was responsible for the death of Martin's wife Lydia and was now planning to destroy the New Earth universe with his anti-matter bomb. Though the bomb did detonate, taking the Dark Destroyer with it, and the Atari Force escaped its destructive force, they found the New Earth universe still intact (although the Multiverse has been scrambled/damaged) and returned there only to face charges against them by the government. With the help of Taz's offspring, who assembled a Multiverse transporter, Martin Champion and his new Atari Force team relocated themselves to Old Earth.

[1] Interestingly, despite creating a Superman video game in 1979 following the 1978 film, Atari did not include a pack-in comic, although a special release of the game came with a Superman wallet shrinkwrapped to the box.

[2] Alan McNeil, an employee of Universal Research Laboratories (a division of Stern Electronics), had a dream one night involving a black-and-white video game in which he had to fight robots. This dream, with heavy borrowing from the BASIC game Robots (Daleks in the UK), was the basis for Berzerk, which was named for Fred Saberhagen's Berserker series of science fiction novels.

[3] In an article in the June 1980 issue of Creative Computing Magazine, Star Raiders was criticized at the time for violent gameplay. In 2007, it was included in a list of the 10 most important video games of all time.

[4] In 1983 DC Comics published a graphic novel inspired by the game; it was the first title of the DC Graphic Novel series. It was written by Elliot S! Maggin and illustrated by José Luis García-López. The second title was Warlords, based on another Atari arcade and home console game.

[5] known for co-creating the Marvel Comics vigilante The Punisher (with artist Ross Andru) and scripting the death of the character Gwen Stacy during his long run on The Amazing Spider-Man. At DC Comics, he is known for co-creating the superhero Firestorm (with artist Al Milgrom) and for writing the Justice League of America for eight years. Conway is also notable for scripting the first major, modern-day intercompany crossover, Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man.

[6] Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics and for his championing of Golden Age comic-book heroes — particularly the 1940s superhero team the Justice Society of America — and for lengthy writing stints on Marvel's X-Men and Avengers, and DC Comics' All-Star Squadron, among other titles.

[7] Kane co-created the modern-day versions of the superheroes Green Lantern and the Atom for DC Comics, and co-created Iron Fist with Roy Thomas for Marvel Comics. He was involved in such major storylines as that of The Amazing Spider-Man #96–98 (May–July 1971), which, at the behest of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, bucked the then-prevalent Comics Code Authority to depict drug abuse, and ultimately spurred an update of the Code. Kane additionally pioneered an early graphic novel prototype, His Name is...Savage, in 1968, and a seminal graphic novel, Blackmark, in 1971.

[8] Tempest was also the name of a 1981 vector-based arcade game from Atari, a tube shooter (a type of shoot 'em up where the environment is fixed and viewed from a three-dimensional perspective) notable for being one of the first video games with a selectable level of difficulty (determined by the initial starting level).

[+Random Terrain]

Related links:

 

atariage.com/comics/

 

atariage.com/forums/topic/154400-atari-force-comics-all-21-issues-in-pdf-available/?p=2125571

[Lynxpro]

The comic was ahead of its time. It followed a war in the Middle East. When the US broke up, in my recollection, Atari controlled the West Coast and also assumed control of NASA and JPL. Their building HQ was shaped like the Atari Fuji logo.

 

Think about this…Google and NASA cooperate. Atari of the Atari Force universe was far more powerful than Google is today.

[roadrunner]

Why was the 4th comic made out of thicker paper than the other ones and had fewer pages?
and Lydia was hot.

[+bennybingo]

[+xucaen]

My humblest apologies for resurrecting an old thread. Can I assume that Phoenix was released with Atari Force vol. 4 and Galaxian with Atari Force vol. 5? (and would my assumption be correct? ) It seems that the boxes for those 2 games did not advertise there was a comic book inside.

Thanks!

[Zwackery]

My humblest apologies for resurrecting an old thread. Can I assume that Phoenix was released with Atari Force vol. 4 and Galaxian with Atari Force vol. 5? (and would my assumption be correct? ) It seems that the boxes for those 2 games did not advertise there was a comic book inside.

 

Thanks!

 

Actually, the boxes did:

 

International versions of the box did not have the same corner advertisement.

[+xucaen]

Thanks! Google image was misleading.

[Philflound]

International boxes didn't have the comic at all.

 

Phil

[Serblander]

 

...[start to Finish]...

 

 

Superbly explained and fantastic detail! There literally was nothing else for me to add.

 

International boxes didn't have the comic at all.

 

Phil

Correct, and that still pisses me off (on both counts)!! While i have all 20 comics + the Annual as well as the 5 originals, it still ticks me off that the PAL boxes of the games i have lack the box art (AND the fact shipping on these suckas cost me a s#*t-ton!)

 

I am auditioning to be in a "reality" show in which I would be discussing the "Atari Force" comic books and related games. I hope to make AA'ers proud of me as I represent a hobby that doesn't get enough love in the nerd word: Retrogaming, and Retro Game Collecting & Restoration! Any trivia about the comics, or useful info to make me look well informed on the subject would be greatly appreciated!

 

Curious to know if this has transpired, and if so, how did you go?