COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Atom 33 Universal
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Grade:
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9.8
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Page Quality:
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WHITE
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Pedigree:
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John G. Fantucchio
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Certification #:
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0345455020
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Owner:
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Mississippi Mudcats
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SET DETAILS
Owner's Description
Issue #33 features the reappearance of the Bug-Eyed Bandit. In "Amazing Arsenal of the Atom-Assasin!”, Bertram Larvan is still building robot insects in jail, although he has no memory of his life of crime or Atom’s secret identity. When a blow to the head causes Largin’s memory to return, he orchestrates an attack on Atom by a remote control insect robot. The attack causes Ray's car to swerve off the road, off a cliff, and into the river. Soon radio reports of Ray Palmer's apparent demise hit the airwaves, and when Jean learns of Ray's supposed death, is devastated. The insect robot meanwhile returns to Bertram and after he hears the news about Palmer's death on the radio, has the robot bust him out of prison. Returning to his lab, Bertram dawns his Bug-Eyed Bandit costume and once more resumes his career in crime.
However, Ray has survived the crash, having used his size changing powers to save himself. Allowing the Bug-Eyed Bandit to think that Atom is out of the picture, Atom goes to Jean and tells her not to worry, and then to the police station to convince the police to continue the ruse so that the Bug-Eyed Bandit will strike. Atom tracks down two of his insects after a spectacular series of crimes. Attacking the robots, he manages to destroy one, however another escapes and reports back to the Bug-Eyed Bandit that Atom has survived. Falsely assuming that his hated foe has created a robotic duplicate of himself, the Bug-Eyed Bandit then begins modifying his insect to be able to deal with a robot Atom better in the future.
When Atom next clashes with the Bug-Eyed Bandit's insect robot, it's at the Ivy Town museum, where he finds that the robot is armed with a special sonic wave button that would disable a robot but instead makes him uncontrollably sneeze. Despite his best efforts, Atom is easily defeated in combat and is knocked out. Taken back to the Bug-Eyed Bandit's hideout, Atom's foe uses the size-change controls on Atom's belt to restore him to full size and seals him in a synthetic cocoon. When Ray revives, Bertram orders Ray to reveal the secret of his size-changing technology when he thinks the Atom's costume was destroyed, when in reality it turned invisible. Ray refuses, and the Bug-Eyed Bandit makes the cocoon cover Ray's face threatening to suffocate him. However, the Bug-Eyed Bandit does not account for the fact that there are also size-change controls within the Atom's gloves, allowing Ray to shrink down to microscopic size and break free from the trap.
Attacking the Bug-Eyed Bandit once more, Atom manages to defeat Bertram much the same way he did last time: with Bertram's own mechanical insect. This time, Atom redirects the sonic beams from the insect at the Bug-Eyed Bandit, causing feedback in his control antenna, once more erasing all memory of his career as the Bug-Eyed Bandit and Atom's secret identity.
Our copy of Issue #33 is from the John Fantucchio Collection and is one of five highest graded in the census. Fantucchio was a well-known artist in '60s fandom, drawing covers for RBCC and the Comic Buyers Guide (including the #1 cover), and even worked as an illustrator for the CIA from 1963 to 1988. During this time he amassed full runs of Marvel, DC, Gold Key, Charlton, ACG and Dell, among others, keeping them locked away and untouched, which resulted in uniformly high grades and near perfect cover inks. After his passing in 2016, the family auctioned the collection through Comiclink. Even though the books have no distinctive markings, many were CGC graded.
We acquired the book from the 9/1/2018 CL Auction.
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