The first of the Atlas sword-slinging characters,
Ironjaw #1 debuted in January of 1975 with a dynamic cover scene by artist Neal Adams. Written by comic veteran Michale Fleshier and drawn by Mike Sekowsky and Jack Abel, our savage hero roams the world in earth's distant, post-apocalyptic future. The story starts out as Ironjaw is hired by rebels to help overthrow a tyrannical king, but the warrior soon discovers his true heritage. As an infant, his mother's lover killed Ironjaw's father, the true king, and ascended to the throne himself. With the complicity of the queen, the new king ordered the infant killed, since he would inherit the throne and depose the usurper upon reaching adulthood. However, a soft-hearted stable hand abandoned the boy on a snowy mountainside, rather than kill him. The baby is then discovered and raised by the bandit Tar-Lok and his tribe. Ironjaw eventually kills the tyrant-king and claims his throne with the help of his sister who noticed their identical birthmark that revealed his true identity. But the new crowned majesty slips away in the night since kingly duties are of no interest to a barbarian. The only character in the Atlas line up to have four issues and one appearance in the anthology title,
The Barbarians, Ironjaw was one of the most fleshed out characters as we discover his origin in
Ironjaw #4 how his jaw was removed by a jealous group of thieves and replaced with the hideous jaw made of iron. Pablo Marcos' bold style was a good choice to continue the artistic chores as new writer Gary Friedrich took the barbarian in a different direction before the company suddenly folded.
Pulp magazines (often referred to as "the pulps") are inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 through the 1950s. The term pulp derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed with ragged untrimmed edges; in contrast, magazines printed on higher quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages filled with lurid or exploitative stories and sensational cover art. Pulp covers were printed in color on higher-quality (slick) paper. They were famous for their half-dressed damsels in distress, usually awaiting a rescuing hero. Cover art played a major part in the marketing of pulp magazines. Many artists specialized in creating covers mainly for the pulps; a number of the most successful cover artists became as popular as the authors featured on the interior pages. Among the most famous pulp artists were Walter Baumhofer, Earle K. Bergey, Margaret Brundage, Bruce Minney, Mort Kunstler, Edd Cartier, Virgil Finlay, Frank R. Paul, Norman Saunders, Nick Eggenhofer, (who specialized in Western illustrations), Hugh J. Ward, George Rozen, and Rudolph Belarski. Covers were important enough to sales that sometimes they would be designed first; authors would then be shown the cover art and asked to write a story to match. So enjoy some of these sensational examples from the golden age of pulp fiction.
