Monday, August 23, 2010

Random Reads: The Brute #1


Greetings, Groove-ophiles! Here's another of the short-lived Atlas/Seaboard's attempts to rip off another Marvel character. This one's pretty obvious: The Brute=The Hulk. The Brute is a hulking giant who is angry at the world; instead of being created by gamma rays, he's released from being frozen in ice (a la Captain America) by nuclear radiation. He has blue skin instead of green skin (I s'pose from being in ice all those centuries), and he's a whole lot more vicious than Marvel's mass of manic muscle. In fact, that's the thing that really sets The Brute apart from The Hulk; by the end of the first issue, he'd killed four people. It should come as no surprise that this much darker and edgier Hulk knock-off was written by Michael Fleisher, best known for his work with Jim Aparo on the epitome of mid-70s dark and edgy, The Spectre. The art by Silver Age great Mike Sekowsky is inked by Pablo Marcos--an unlikely but quite appropriate combination. When most folks think or hear about The Brute, they usually think about the--eh--suggestive tail numbers on the airplane featured on its last page, but that's doing this mag a huge disservice. Fleisher, Sekowsky, and Marcos crafted a very well done comic. From November 1974, under a far-out Dick Giordano cover lurks... "Night of the Brute!"

6 comments:

  1. Experience has taught me never to wax too lyrical about an Atlas comic but that really is a beautifully executed cover by Giordano.

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  2. You'll also note the infamous 5H17 on the body and wing of the aircraft. That one snuck past the editors and the comics code...

    Apparently Sekowsky was pissed off at the editors.

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  3. Atlas died way too soon. Also the book owes a heck of a lot to the movie Trog.

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  4. Groove:

    I think we're going to have one of our rare disagreements on this one! Like yourself, I've got a soft spot for the Atlas (Seaboard) line but I thought this one was a stinker. I actually gave it a D+ when I reviewed it — one of only four comics that have dipped down into the D's!

    Of course, I still own. It's a sickness, Groove!

    Cheers,
    Andrew
    ComicsBronzeAge.com

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  5. One man's trash is another man's treasure and all that rot, Andrew. It's what makes life (and comicbook collecting) interesting!

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  6. you know,when I first saw the Brute,I passed on it-thinking it as an extremely poormans Hulk.Now having read here,I'm glad I passed on this really stupid idea.Obviuosly,somebody thought they had a really good idea-well,sorry no.One man's trash is another man's treasure-sometimes-One man's trash is another man's trash as well.

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


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