31 Days of Scans - Most Cracktastic Moment

I’m not even sure what “cracktastic” means, exactly. Judging by the posts people went with on Scans-Daily, it leaned towards the Silver Age bizarre stuff. Just strange, silly things, I think. I probably had a few similar things I could have picked, but I went with the first thing that came to mind.

Agents of Atlas #11, from 2009. This was the final issue of Jeff Parker’s first attempt at an ongoing for his revived band of ‘50s era heroes, not to be confused with the original mini-series he’d done with Leonard Kirk a few years previously. At this point, Jimmy Woo and his bunch are under attack from the Jade Claw, the daughter of Woo’s old foe, Master Plan, and Jimmy’s old flame. Now she runs the other half of what was Atlas, the Great Wall, and she’s been kicking their asses for the last 3 issues. She has an advanced warbot of her own, one able to defeat M-11, despite the fact M-11 has been upgraded with Uranian tech (courtesy of the former Marvel Boy). Both sides are preparing for the final battle, but Gorilla Man thinks M-11 needs some help, so he turns to the creator of the Menacer series of robots, who has a possible solution.

Replicated personalities of history’s greatest warriors, and Ken knows just the one he wants. But who could be called “The Greatest”, if not warriors such as Shentzu and Alexander the Great?

M-11 has been infused with the fighting spirit (and smack talk skill) of Muhammed Ali! Which makes M-21 Joe Frazier. Or maybe George Foreman. It sort of looks like a grilling machine. But for a time, M-11 still can’t gain the advantage, until Bob destroys the satellite he’d detected earlier feeding power to M-21. And then Bob drops a little bombshell: The chip never worked on M-11, the robot is just jerking Ken around for kicks.

I think a robot pretending to be Ali to play a joke on a gorilla that used to be a man, while fighting another robot (which apparently has no sense of humor), is at least a little strange. I’m not showing you the finishing blow, because either you bought the series, so you already saw it. Or you didn’t buy the series, in which case it’s your fault it got canceled after 11 issues.

All panels from Agents of Atlas #11, written by Jeff Parker, colors by Elizabeth Dismang with Sotomayor, lettering by Tom Orzechowski. The first image was drawn by Gabriel Hardman, the other two by Dan Panosian.