Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: bill everett, Carl Burgos, jack kirby, joe Sinnott, steve ditko

Kirby, Ditko on the Last Atlas War Comic, Battle #70 up for Auction

Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Joe Sinnott, Don Heck, Bill Everett, Carl Burgos, and Don Heck end Marvel's Atlas war comic era with Battle #70.

Published Sat, 27 Apr 2024 16:00:10 -0500

by Mark Seifert

Last updated Sat, 27 Apr 2024 16:08:12 -0500

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Article Summary

Battle #70 marks the end of Marvel/Atlas's era of war comics from the 1950s.
The issue features Kirby cover, with legendary artists Kirby, Ditko, Sinnott, and others.
Battle was Atlas's longest-running war series, concluding with its 70th issue.

The Marvel/Atlas war comic era started with War Comics #1, which hit newsstands in early September 1950, a little over a month after the United States entered the Korean War. That war would soon help inspire a wave of war comic books from countless publishers in the early 1950s, but war comics would be a significant category from Marvel/Atlas far beyond that. The publisher would ultimately publish some 500 issues of war comic books across 30+ titles 1950-1960. Pretty much no matter how one defines the end of Marvel's Atlas era (the usage of "MC" on Marvel covers beginning in early 1961 is one way to do it, though there's room for disagreement about that), Battle #70 is the last Atlas war comic book — and it's a fitting send-off for the era. There's a Battle #70 (Atlas, 1960) CGC FN 6.0 Cream to off-white pages featuring a Jack Kirby cover and interiors by Kirby, Steve Ditko, Joe Sinnott, Don Heck, Bill Everett, Carl Burgos, and Don Heck up for auction in this week's 2024 April 28-30 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122418 from Heritage Auctions.

Battle was the longest-lived of the Atlas war titles at 70 issues over nine years, and it ends in 1960 with some weighty work by the legendary creators involved. A Tank Knows No Mercy is Kirby with Ditko inks, Dateline – Iwo Jima has Burgos pencils and inks, The Thick of Battle has Kirby inked by Joe Sinnott, Gettysburg! is penciled and inked by Everett, with Face to Face with the Enemy drawn by Don Heck rounding out the issue. It's an impressive assemblage of artistic talent with a Kirby cover as well.

Marvel would not re-enter the war genre until well into the Marvel Universe era with Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #1 over three years later. Battle #70 is a fitting end of an era featuring work by a group of many of Marvel's greatest creators. And compared to most Silver Age Marvels, this issue qualifies as tough to get in high grade, with the highest graded on the census at CGC 8.5 and only ten entries overall above this Battle #70 (Atlas, 1960) CGC FN 6.0 Cream to off-white pages featuring a Jack Kirby cover and interiors by Kirby, Steve Ditko, Joe Sinnott, Don Heck, Bill Everett, Carl Burgos, and Don Heck up for auction in this week's 2024 April 28-30 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122418 from Heritage Auctions.