Agents of Atlas

"The Spy. The Spaceman. The Siren. The Mermaid. The Robot. The Gorilla."

Back in the 1970s, Marvel did What If? #9, which asked "What If The Avengers Had Formed In The 1950s?", bringing together a team of Marvel's Golden Age heroes to rescue a kidnapped President Eisenhower.

That was pretty much it for the next three decades, until editor Mark Paniccia stumbled across the "What If?" and decided to ask writer Jeff Parker what he'd do with the idea in the mainstream Marvel Universe. The result was a six-issue miniseries called Agents of Atlas, which came out in 2006.

The set-up: In 1958, FBI agent Jimmy Woo was tasked with recruiting a team of heroes to rescue President Eisenhower, who had been kidnapped by evil mastermind the Yellow Claw. Jimmy recruited Ken Hale, the immortal Gorilla Man; M-11, the enigmatic Human Robot; Venus, the goddess of love; and Bob Grayson, the superhero Marvel Boy. Following the success of their first mission, the so-called "G-Men" stayed together for the next six months -- before being abruptly shut down on orders from higher up. The team members disbanded, going their own ways.

Five decades later, Jimmy Woo, now a sub-director in SHIELD, led a mission to uncover the mysterious Atlas Foundation, but things went badly wrong; all of Jimmy's team-mates were killed, and Jimmy himself was left badly burned, and in a coma.

Jimmy's old team from the 1950s reunited to save Jimmy's life -- and to discover how far the Atlas Foundation's reach extended. In the process, they rejuvenated Jimmy, brought sea queen Namora back from the dead, and took on the Foundation's many agents, eventually confronting its secret masters.

Again, that pretty much seemed to be it for the Agents, although they made a couple of other appearances elsewhere in the Marvel Universe.

Then in mid-2008 came the news that the Agents would be getting their own ongoing series, kicking off in February 2009. Cue much Squee from the Agents' fans -- and a certain amount of cynicism, noting what usually happens with new series. This fate was semi-averted: the series wrapped up with #11, had a two-issue crossover with the the X-Men, was installed in Incredible Hercules as a backup, got relaunched, then got cancelled again, but even quicker this time. Sigh.

Note: Atlas Comics was the name Marvel went by for most of the '50s. All of the characters in Agents of Atlas were created during the Atlas Comics period, before the Fantastic Four ushered in the modern Marvel Universe.

This comic provides examples of the following tropes:
"Namor: I will resolve this dispute!"
 * Action Girl: Namora.
 * Alternate Universe: In one AU, Marvel Boy, Venus, M-11, Gorilla Man and 3-D Man became a team of 1950s Avengers; the timeline later got destroyed by Kang. The AU was based on the same issue of "What If?" that inspired the Agents.
 * Ancient Conspiracy: The Atlas Foundation.
 * Arrogant Kung Fu Guy: Temugin.
 * Back From the Dead: Namora.
 * Badass: The whole team.
 * Badass Normal: Jimmy Woo -- not least for forming and leading a team of supers in the first place. It says something about him that even five decades after the team originally disbanded, the Agents still jump at the chance to help him out again.
 * Batman Gambit: The secret plan behind the events of the mini is one of these, as the main Chessmaster is conscious that failure is an option.
 * Because Destiny Says So: One thread running through the mini is that the Agents were a team 'destined' to exist. Jimmy selected his original 1950s team in a dream, and strange coincidences play an important part in the team's reunion in the modern day.
 * Canon Immigrant: The team concept, which first popped up in an issue of "What If?".
 * Captain Ersatz: The Yellow Claw is an Ersatz for Fu Manchu -- who later ended up becoming part of the Marvel Universe himself. One of the cases where the original and the Ersatz share the same fictive space. Their similar claimed backgrounds are explained by "Ghengis Khan has lots of descendants."
 * Charm Person: Venus's central power; anyone who hears her voice will do anything to make her happy. Good thing she's The Messiah type.
 * The Chessmaster:, who collaborate on its Batman Gambit.
 * Comic Book Time: An unusual case, this: most of the Agents have been active in-universe at least since The Golden Age of Comic Books, but since most of them don't age as a human would, they still look much the same (allowing for updates, revisions, and so on). Jimmy is something of an exception: up until the mini, he aged pretty much in real time, then got rejuvenated back to his twenties.
 * Continuity Lock Out: Averted; everything we need to know about the characters' history is presented in the mini.
 * Covers Always Lie Issue 3 of the regular series features the Agents fighting Captain America on the cover. Cap does show up, but not until the very last panel. The fight happens in the next issue.
 * Lampshaded two issues later, where the cover shows the Agents fighting The Avengers. Just as the teams are about to clash, Spider-Man stops them both, suspecting that the Agents may actually be good guys. It looks like the cover has lied again, and the two teams are going to just talk it out. Nope. One misplaced laser blast later, the two teams are duking it out.
 * Cursed with Awesome: The catch to Ken's immortality? It made him an immortal gorilla. He'd like to be human again, but it's been at least fifty years, and he's pretty much adjusted to life as a talking gorilla. (He can still be killed through violence, though.)
 * Cyber Cyclops: M-11.
 * Death Ray: M-11 is equipped with one of these, which he fires from his eye. He was built to be a 1950s killer robot, after all.
 * Dragon Lady: Jade Claw.
 * Everything's Better with Monkeys: Ken, who's an immortal talking gorilla.
 * Five-Man Band
 * The Hero: Jimmy
 * The Lancer: Ken
 * The Smart Guy: Bob
 * The Big Guy: M-11
 * The Chick: Venus
 * Sixth Ranger: Namora
 * Flying Brick: Namora.
 * Flying Saucer: Bob has one of these, which the team uses to get around.
 * Fountain of Youth: Present-day Jimmy is left horribly burned, with no higher brain function, after his first Atlas investigation goes wrong. Bob restores him using his last recording of Jimmy's physical pattern. However, Bob's last meeting with Jimmy was about five decades ago -- so Jimmy gets reset, physically and mentally, to how he was in 1959.
 * The Golden Age of Comic Books
 * Immortality: Ken combines Undying and External. Venus has Perfect Immortality. M-11 has Regenerative.
 * Imported Alien Phlebotinum: Bob's Uranian technology, including his flying saucer and Mind Control headband.
 * Innocent Fanservice Girl: Venus.
 * Kissing Cousins: Namora and Namor. (According to Issue #6 they're Not Blood Cousins, thankfully.)
 * Let's You and Him Fight: Inevitable, given that . Astonishingly one was stopped by Namor:


 * Meaningful Name / Punny Name: The Yellow Claw's true name is.
 * The Messiah: Venus, who likes and cares about everybody, as befits a goddess of love.
 * The Mole:.
 * Mole in Charge: The entire premise.
 * Mythology Gag: The title Agents of Atlas is a nod to Atlas Comics, Marvel's predecessor, as a homage to the team's Golden Age origins.
 * A related mythology gag comes later, when Namora dates Hercules, who jokes that the Agents are named after "a guy dumb enough to be tricked by me."
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: See the top of the page. And that's just the heroes.
 * Parts Unknown: Bob tries to obscure the fact that he's from Uranus by solely referring to it as "the seventh planet".
 * Pick Your Human Half: Double-subversion with M-11. Initially subverted in that he looks and acts like a typical robot... which gets subverted in turn when we find out why he's called the Human Robot.
 * The Quiet One: M-11.
 * Retcon: The mini does this for most of the Agents, apart from Jimmy. It must be noted that Grayson's retcon does not fit in with facts about Marvel Boy known to be canonical. It's later explained in a followup mini.
 * Ret-Gone: Originally, Avengers Forever was supposed to be tied into the 616 timeline, thus explaining Wasp's surprise when they find the 50s Avengers in their past, as to her memory, they'd existed as different heroes, never as an Avengers team. This was explained by Immortus showing up to wipe said portion of the timeline from existence in order to keep a Skrull posing as Nixon from accidentally kickstarting human aggression against offworld races.
 * Robot Names: According to Word of God, the M in M-11 is short for Menacer. It's also a Mythology Gag, as the Human Robot's first appearance was in Menace #11.
 * Rule of Cool: Practically runs on the stuff.
 * The Spock: Bob.
 * Superhero
 * Super Team
 * Tomato in the Mirror:.
 * And now.
 * Touched by Vorlons: Bob, who was modified by the Uranians.
 * Trickster Mentor:.
 * True Companions: The Agents.
 * Wolverine Publicity: The Agents of Atlas show up in at least a guest spot in nearly every title Jeff Parker has written since the original mini; they've quickly become go-to characters for cameos and/or guest roles.
 * Yellow Peril: The Yellow Claw was pretty much this in his original stories -- balanced against the fact that Jimmy Woo, a Chinese-American, was the hero opposing him. Gets Lampshaded and subverted in the miniseries; it turns out Yellow Claw was invoking this trope on purpose because.
 * You Kill It, You Bought It: The Gorilla Man curse/blessing.
 * Zeerust: M-11, and Bob's Uranian tech, both of which were futuristic for the 1950s. Jeff Parker took advantage of the decades since their creation to update their capabilities -- but their styles still remain the same.