Ant-Man and (Kane's) Atom? Which came 1st?

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Author	Topic: Ant-Man and (Kane's) Atom? Which came 1st?
Silver Age Adam Member	posted April 08, 2003 03:06 PM And was either one inspired by the other? Does anyone know? I await your enlightenment, Adam! ------------------ Interested in joining Hal's Emerald Advancement Team? Check out www.glheat.cjb.net, and if you agree with our mission statement, then email the application to me at SilverAgeAdam@yahoo.com I INVITE YOU TO SUPPORT OPERATION EMERALD STORM!! Send your extra comic books to the families of our troops fighting in the Persian Gulf!! Emerald Storm c/o The American Red Cross 2700 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90057 Attn: Gwendolyn Parrish IP: Logged
Kamandi2 Member	posted April 08, 2003 03:25 PM quote: Originally posted by Silver Age Adam: And was either one inspired by the other? Atom first appeared in the September/October 1961 issue of Showcase (# 34) Ant-Man first appeared in the January 1962 issue of Tales to Astonish. Atom beat Ant-Man to the stands by 4 months. It's very unlikely Ant-Man was inspired by the Atom (but not completely impossible). IP: Logged
JayFlip Member	posted April 08, 2003 03:37 PM The answer to your question is: Doll Man! - Jay IP: Logged
India Ink Member	posted April 08, 2003 03:55 PM Forgive me here for being very vague, but I'm try to pull up a memory from very long ago, and I can't quite get at it. But wasn't the name Pym a reference to a character from fiction (Edgar Allan Poe or Jule Verne--but I think it's Poe), so part of the inspiration for Ant Man may have come from there. I also would venture a guess that Stan Lee knew of Tarzan and the Ant Men--and might have borrowed from that work. Also the idea of people turned into bugs or people like bugs was very prevalent in the nuclear holocaust scared fifties. As for Atom, Roy Thomas in an early issue of Alter Ego (v.3) went over his part and that of Jerry Bails in the creation of the character--as well as the part of Gil Kane, Gardner Fox, and Julius Schwartz. On Kane's part in the creation it seems obvious that he was thinking of Doll Man. IP: Logged
James Friel Member	posted April 08, 2003 03:57 PM If we're looking for popular cuture influences, look no farther than The Incredible Shrinking Man, a very popular (and classic) movie of the period. IP: Logged
Osgood Peabody Member	posted April 08, 2003 04:52 PM quote: Originally posted by India Ink: Forgive me here for being very vague, but I'm try to pull up a memory from very long ago, and I can't quite get at it. But wasn't the name Pym a reference to a character from fiction (Edgar Allan Poe or Jule Verne--but I think it's Poe), so part of the inspiration for Ant Man may have come from there. Not sure what the connection is to Ant Man, but The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is one of my favorite Poe works - his longest story by far, and memorably gruesome. It includes a shipwreck, cannibalism, a mutiny, a drifting boatload of corpses, and a truly off-the-wall (although somewhat anti-climactic) finale, as I recall. IP: Logged
daytripper Member	posted April 08, 2003 06:24 PM I always had trouble getting into the adventures of small,tiny, wee, whatever you want to call them, heroes. I didn't like them in any form, except for the comics. I liked Ant-Man, liked the Atom. But I really enjoyed the Atom's Time Pool stories. ------------------ Allen Smith IP: Logged
daytripper Member	posted April 08, 2003 06:26 PM I forgot to add that the one science fiction series I detested way back when, and still do, is Land of the Giants. Irwin Allen was just too low budget for my tastes. ------------------ Allen Smith IP: Logged
Aldous Member	posted April 08, 2003 06:58 PM quote: Originally posted by Osgood Peabody: Not sure what the connection is to Ant Man, but The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is one of my favorite Poe works - his longest story by far, and memorably gruesome. It includes a shipwreck, cannibalism, a mutiny, a drifting boatload of corpses, and a truly off-the-wall (although somewhat anti-climactic) finale, as I recall. Sounds like the inspiration for the Black Freighter parallel storyline in "Watchmen". I read quite a few of Poe's short stories (in a single-volume collection) many years ago, but I've never come across that story. But now I might have a look for it, if it's worth a read... IP: Logged
India Ink Member	posted April 08, 2003 11:31 PM It seems like in the mid-sixties just about the greatest thing ever in my life would happen every two months or so, starting with the Beatles on Perry Como's show (via film from England). After that it was a hodge-podge of life altering entertainments (and forgive the mixed up order, I forget the chronology of these events): Addams Family, Beatles cartoon show, Lost in Space, Time Tunnel, Batman TV show, Star Trek, Superman-Aquaman hour, The Champions, Captain Nice, Mary Poppins, The Incredible Mister Limpet, the Batman Sundays, Batman bubblegum cards, The Wild Wild West, Batman comics, Man on the Moon, Here Come the Brides, and Land of the GIANTS! IP: Logged
NecessaryImpurity Member	posted April 09, 2003 01:00 AM No "Thunderbirds" or "Captain Scarlet"? Super-Marionation was the best! IP: Logged
India Ink Member	posted April 09, 2003 01:06 AM Well, yes. Obviously I was just rattling off a random sampling of all those life altering events. But Thunderbirds most definitely. IP: Logged
Old Dude Member	posted April 09, 2003 01:42 AM With that weird Silver Age classic "Robin Dies at Dawn", there was a "prologue" story featuring a villain called Ant-Man. I remember he was a couple inches tall, wore a red suit with a skin-tight cowl with antannae and bug-eyes. And this was at the same time Ant-Man was appearing over at Marvel in Tales to Astonish! I've read that the editors at DC refused to lower themselves to check out what was happening at Marvel. This is pretty good evidence. IP: Logged
Old Dude Member	posted April 09, 2003 01:51 AM quote: Originally posted by India Ink: It seems like in the mid-sixties just about the greatest thing ever in my life would happen every two months or so... Also the Sean Connery James Bond films, The Man From UNCLE, Honey West, Green Hornet, Time Tunnel, T.H.E. Cat, Bantam Book reprints of the Doc Savage pulps, the Belmont Books Shadow series, Pfeiffer's book the Great Superheroes, tapes of old Shadow radio shows syndicated and broadcast on local radio, all the Sherlock Holmes stories back in print and available for the first time in MY short life, The Avengers TV show, Star Trek... The list seems endless! IP: Logged
profh0011 Member	posted April 09, 2003 02:18 AM I know it seems unlikely... but LAND OF THE GIANTS was reputed to be Irwin Allen's BIGGEST-budgeted TV series. The number of "giant"-sized sets, props and the amount of stunt work involved apparently ran up huge costs. Myself, while I liked the pilot and a few of the early episodes (and a novelization of the pilot which deviated from it ways that made it far more intriguing than anything on the show itslef) overall it just seemed too "limited" in story scope, and generally felt more like a "kiddie" show than Allen's 3 previous series. The best parts of the show were no doubt the actors involved (shame they rarely got much interetsing to do) and the music, especially John Williams 2 different theme songs. (I've also heard Alexander Courage's unused 1st year theme song-- nice, but Williams' was better, especially the 2nd one-- ironic as the 2nd year is nearly unwatchable!) IP: Logged
profh0011 Member	posted April 09, 2003 02:20 AM "Irwin Allen was just too low budget for my tastes." This is so ironic, as Allen's shows tended to have FAR bigger budgets than, say, STAR TREK. It's a matter of where the money got spent-- with all those great sets, vehicles & special effects, there probably wasn't anything left for decent scripts... IP: Logged
DavidSpofforth Member	posted April 09, 2003 06:23 AM quote: Originally posted by Kamandi2: Atom first appeared in the September/October 1961 issue of Showcase (# 34) Ant-Man first appeared in the January 1962 issue of Tales to Astonish. Atom beat Ant-Man to the stands by 4 months. It's very unlikely Ant-Man was inspired by the Atom (but not completely impossible). I agree that the time difference makes it pretty unlikely that TALES 27 was inspired by the Atom, but that first Pym story was just another throwaway self-contained story continued from Marvel's pre-FF era. Pym's return in TALES 35 heralded his first appearance as Ant-Man. By that time, Marvel could very well have been inspired by the Atom. IP: Logged
greene Member	posted April 09, 2003 06:48 AM My favorite Irwin Allen series is "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea." It had a nicely comic-booky feel about it, and I like that it was played rather 'straight' (without the sort of self-conscious camp that inflicted so many series of that era). Of course, the series was hardly perfect, and seemed to get in a rut of having some rubber-suited monster run amuck on the 'Seaview' every bloomin' episode. Still, it was good-natured sixties hokum. Never cared too much about "Lost in Space." Jonathan Harris was a bit much. I like the premise of the series, but the execution of it was rather eccentric, to say the least. "Land of the Giants" was awfully curious, too. Never quite warmed up to it, even though the oversized sets always had an appeal to me (ah, shades of Laurel and Hardy in "Brats," circa 1930). What other Irwin Allen series were there? "Time Tunnel?" Again, neat idea. But, dang the scripts were banal, and the show was an endless parade of stock footage from old Fox movies. Maybe if I'd caught the series as a naive youngster, I would have appreciated it more. I think Irwin Allen also produced the mid-70s "Swiss Family Robinson" with Martin Milner. Haven't seen that one in years. I'm I missing any other Allen t.v. offerings...? By the way, there's another (very) obscure tv series about a miniature/shrunken gent. It was a made-for-syndication item produced by Ziv, entitled "World of Giants," in 1960. I think there were only about 12 or so episodes produced. It starred b-movie stalwart Marshall Thompson. A good time to put in a request for a "Doll Man" archive, isn't it? IP: Logged
OldGuy Member	posted April 09, 2003 11:27 AM quote: Originally posted by greene: By the way, there's another (very) obscure tv series about a miniature/shrunken gent. It was a made-for-syndication item produced by Ziv, entitled "World of Giants," in 1960. I think there were only about 12 or so episodes produced. It starred b-movie stalwart Marshall Thompson. I realy loved this show. I think I saw it as a summer replacement. I've never been able to find it again or even tapes of it. In fact several people I talked to insisted it never existed and I was only misremembering Land of Giants. As I recall this was a much better show than that. I'd sure like to find some videos. IP: Logged
vinylchair Member	posted April 09, 2003 01:27 PM I got a couple-three Doll Man stories, and I've got to say they were pretty good for the time. IP: Logged
Silver Age Adam Member	posted April 09, 2003 08:12 PM Thanks for the info, gents!! I knew I could count on you guys. ------------------ Interested in joining Hal's Emerald Advancement Team? Check out www.glheat.cjb.net, and if you agree with our mission statement, then email the application to me at SilverAgeAdam@yahoo.com I INVITE YOU TO SUPPORT OPERATION EMERALD STORM!! Send your extra comic books to the families of our troops fighting in the Persian Gulf!! Emerald Storm c/o The American Red Cross 2700 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90057 Attn: Gwendolyn Parrish IP: Logged

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