Shortly after launching his men’s adventure line of comic books in 1949 (and just before he published his first war title), Atlas publisher Martin Goodman found, in the middle ground between crime and men’s adventure, the sneakier, conspiratorial sub-genre of spy comics. The first title was Spy Cases (soon followed by Spy Fighters and Kent Blake of the Secret Service) and the contents were Cold War noir stories, as Doug Grant, Secret Agent, protected America’s interests, fighting commies from behind the Iron Curtain. Led by superlative action/adventure artwork by Al Hartley (later Bill Savage) and supported by Atlas titans including Gene Colan, Bill Everett, Russ Heath, Jerry Robinson and Joe Maneely, America ferrets out sinister threats in thrillers like: “The Traitor!,” “Discs of Death,” “Frame-Up in Red,” and “The Case of the Missing B-29!” All spy comics had healthy runs and by 1952, the Korean War made its presence felt in every adventure title. Patriotic, but also subtler, darker and more sinister than the familiar costumed hero titles, the spy genre is a little-seen aspect of Marvel’s deep history.
