Whatever Happened to the Atari Force Collection?

Dynamite Entertainment, four years ago, announced a licensing deal with Atari that included art books and comic reprints.

Art of Atari came out in 2016. The Swordquest pack-in mini comics were reprinted as Atari Classics: Swordquest in 2017. But the book I really wanted, the Atari Classics: Atari Force, never arrived.

It was due in January 2019. A book catalog website lists it as Cancelled. Here’s the original description:

A compilation of the extremely rare comics originally given away in connection with the promotion of the Atari 2600 and scripted by Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas with art by Ross Andru, Dick Giordano, and Mike DeCarlo.

In the near future, a team of humans from different nations uses the multi-dimensional starship Scanner One to search for a new planet for humanity to inhabit as the Earth is facing ecological devastation. The team is handpicked by A.T.A.R.I. (Advanced Technology And Research Institute). The Atari Force consists of Martin Champion as mission commander, Lydia Perez as pilot and executive officer, Li-San O’Rourke as security officer, Mohandas Singh as flight engineer, and Dr. Lucas Orion as medical officer.

I wonder if this project never appeared because DC later published a 20-issue Atari Force run about the descendants of some of these characters. The connections might make the project difficult — or interest in the Swordquest book may not have been strong enough to continue. Whatever the reason, I’m disappointed.