Hank Chapman

Though much of his Timely/Atlas work went unsigned, comics historians estimate that Chapman, a staff writer, penned several hundred or more stories.

[6] Among Chapman's works is an early self-reflexive comic-book story, in 1951, in which he and editor Stan Lee appear; and the creation, with artist Jack Abel, of the DC Comics character Sgt.

Mule, a pack animal that helped its Allied keepers fight the Nazis in a variety of World War II stories.

[4] His precise contributions are as lost to history as those of other writers and artists who legendarily collaborated on this hastily created confrontation.

[7]By the following decade, Chapman was one of at least five staff writers (officially titled editors) under editor-in-chief Stan Lee at Marvel forerunner Atlas, along with Ernie Hart, Paul S. Newman, Don Rico, Carl Wessler, and, on teen-humor comics, future Mad Magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee.

Among the titles for which Chapman wrote, beginning in early 1951, are the horror/fantasy series Adventures into Terror, Adventures into Weird Worlds, Astonishing, Marvel Tales, Mystery Tales, Spellbound, Strange Tales, Suspense, and Uncanny Tales; the war titles Battle, Battle Action, Battlefield, Battlefront, Battle Brady, Combat Casey, Combat, War Action, War Adventures, War Combat and War Comics; the Westerns Red Warrior and The Texas Kid; the adventure-drama series Girl Comics, Man Comics, Men's Adventures, and Young Men; the crime fiction series Crime Exposed and Justice; the romance titles True Secrets Love Romances; and such miscellanea as Sports Action, and Speed Carter, Spaceman.