The first movie was wonderful, the three following movies were pretty good. (The fourth movie, which was only a 90-minute instead of the usual 2-hour, was the highest-rated movie of the year.) The four movies were published as books. The series, unfortunately, was utterly destroyed by Herb Solow, who made it into a "kiddie show, like a comic book" -- and Solow didn't even know comic books. A giant two-headed sea horse? A giant squid made from a plastic purple shower curtain? It was embarrassing. The blessedly short-lived comics series itself was even worse -- the stories were passable, but the art was about the worst that comics have ever dared to try to sell.
There were also four paperback books made out of the movies. They were pretty much exactly the same as the scripts.
Duffy did most of his own stunts, being better at holding his breath than the stunt man. (Boy, did he have a six-pack! Yummm....) But he really wasn't that good a swimmer -- he actually lost to the guy from Grizzly Adams in the swimming competition on "Battle of the Network Stars." Ouch.
Victor Bueno, the recurring head bad guy ("Mr. Schubert") said it was his favorite role of all time, since he could camp it up to his heart's content -- and this from a man who had done everything from Shakespeare on stage to villains on Wild Wild West and Batman. The other recurring bad guy, Ted Neeley, is probably better known for his role on a fairly famous musical -- as Jesus Christ, Superstar.
Man from Atlantis also served as the inspiration for main characters in Vonda McIntyre's "Superluminal" and her four-part Starfarers series. McIntyre is considered one of the top ten living science fiction authors.
Mark Harris is a classic "Stranger in a Strange Land" type character. Unlike Aquaman and Submariner, he is apparently the last, or only, one of his kind, a distinction he shares with another not-quite-human guy named Kal-El.
