ATLAS AGAINST THE CZAR has nothing to do with the Titan of Greek myth, for the hero renamed "Atlas"-- and also "Samson" in some translations-- is just Maciste, Italy's all-purpose hero. It's not even clear what culture the bare-chested hero hails from. He's revived from a long slumber in a cave, and then promptly gets mixed up in intrigues relating to the medieval Czar Nicholas.
Morris's Atlas gets to toss rocks around and to have a big tug-of-war to demonstrate his strength, but it's hard to say if he qualifies as a marvelous hero. However, the element of the centuries-long slumber proves sufficient to confer a marvelous phenomenality.
The intrigues are made duller by the fact that almost everyone aside from Atlas wears heavy fur garments. Thus, one of the genre's most enduring factors-- that of comely women in diaphanous garments-- is dumped out of hand, and nothing quite makes up for that lack.
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