The Scorpion Turns Tail

Atlas/Seaboard founder Martin Goodman built his company to get back at his former company of Marvel Comics to create his own line of comics. Some of these were slightly original like The Cougar, Planet Of The Vampires, and Ironjaw. Other Atlas titles were blatant knockoffs of Marvel characters such as The Brute who was the Atlas version of Hulk, Wulf The Barbarian borrowing from Conan, and Hands Of The Dragon copied Master Of Kung Fu. Two other Atlas comics began as their own creation, but both of them eventually caved into the Marvel formula despite their limited run. One was John Targitt who was a secret agent that already had a mask and spandex duds and in the last issue of his run decides to go with the moniker of Man-Stalker after dealing with the villainous Prof. Death. The other Atlas character who got Marvelized was The Scorpion whose first two issues were written and drawn by Howard Chaykin and took place in the early 20th Century where a daring pilot named Moro Frost used the alias of Scorpion when he fought in both World Wars. The thing with Moro is that he is seemingly immortal for no explained reason and had been kicking bottom at least as far back at the Civil War. Chaykin was fired by Goodman after the second issue, so he took his idea to Marvel where he reworked his vision of the character into a regular of their universe called Dominic Fortune. Atlas had plans to have Alex Toth take over the second issue, but it was rejected as they decided to reinvent the Scorpion for its third and final issue which was written by Gabriel Levy with art by Jim Craig and Jim Mooney. This version of Scorpion was apparently the same Atlas character who faked his death in WWII, and since he was immortal he waited until the mid-70s to adopt the new identity of David Harper whose alter-ego as the Scorpion was now a costumed-wearing superhero that looked like a variant of a certain wallcrawler, but instead of web-shooters he had your standard superhero grappling hook which could reach up to several stories high. Harper's day job was running his own newspaper, so he's also a Green Hornet ripoff as well with Daredevil elements sprinkled in. In this one Bronze Age outing, Scorpion runs across a modern-day Neo-Nazi leader named Golden Fuhrer who was really just a Red Skull wannabe. Goodman completely redid the comic just to have it keep up with the Marvel method, even though it's spiritually the same character that went from pulp adventurer to being yet another Spider-Man clone, and Heaven knows that we've already have enough of those things. Atlas tried to make their own mark in the comics market apart from Marvel but shamelessly copied the competition which led to their ultimate downfall.

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