Agents of Atlas

The Agents of Atlas are a fictional superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The first lineup was composed of characters originally appearing in unrelated stories published in the 1950s by Marvel's predecessor company, Atlas Comics. The characters debuted as a team in What If #9 (June 1978) and starred in the 2006 limited series Agents of Atlas, written by Jeff Parker and with art by Leonard Kirk. In 2019, the team's lineup was revamped as a new team made up of Asian and Asian American superheroes as The New Agents of Atlas, written by Greg Pak and art by Gang Hyuk Lim. Publication history This group of heroes, which was not a team in 1950s comics, was established through retroactive continuity as having been formed in the 1950s. They originally appeared as a group in the alternate-universe story What If #9 (June 1978) and then reappeared in Avengers Forever (1998–2000 miniseries), in which they and their reality were destroyed. The limited series Agents of Atlas #1–6 (Oct. 2006 – March 2007) was set in the present day and likewise set in mainstream continuity. The series emerged from what writer Parker called "a huge editorial hunch" at Marvel, and said the revival of the characters "is something that [editor] Mark Paniccia was looking at and [for which he] thought specifically of me, and asked me what I would do with it". Paniccia says the idea came to him when he picked up a copy of the What if? story and found the cover "intriguing".