Customer Reviews

Marvel Masterworks Atlas Era Jungle Adventure 1

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was surprised to see how well Werner Roth could compete with the best artists around in teh 1950's. I was familiar with his later stuff he drew; for instance the X-men. He died in 1973, and that was his later output, it was decent art but other people were inking him, and it just wasn't as standout as when he inked himself; like he did in these stories. I was hoping for the Jann of the Jungle stuff from Al Williamson which is fantastic, and Williamson was a alltime great by any standard, no matter who inked him. This book is typical 1950's jungle girl comics as our well endowed heroine battles various villians. Of course Lorna is a copy of the Sheena queen of the jungle. And these are precode adventures and therefore better than the postcode stories. It's worth reading and owning because these vintage comics would be beyond prohibitive for most of us and they wouldn't look as good as they do here anyway. And the stories are fun for sure. That's what makes these archive books so great the comics look better than they ever had and dc had better go back to this instead of cheap scans like they did in the simon and kirby sandman book.

This has probably been my second favorite Atlas Era masterwork next to the Black Knight/Yellow Claw volume. I'm somewhat at a loss to adequately explain why this is the case. The stories in this issue are generally no better and no worse than the ones in other Atlas Era masterworks, that is to say, juvenile at best and wretched at worst.

I think the thing that won me over was consistency - both in script and art. The art was by Werner Roth and he is admirably suited for stories featuring attractive women. This masterwork is very easy on the male eyes.

But beyond the "good girl" art there is something that just works with Don Rico's scripts. At face value it's childish and unrealistic. The jungle consists of animals (both real and imaginary, plenty of the latter) which without exception seem to have human intelligence, moral values, and motivations. Rico seems to work this premise into one satisfying morality tale after another.

The book itself seems a little thin; only nine issues instead of the usual 10. But perhaps they needed this number so future volumes will work out right. I can't recommend this book to anyone other than comic book fans who know what they're getting into, but it's easy to see why these comic books came up when new Atlas masterworks were being proposed.