Books featuring Atomic Iconography

[willettsj]

Hi All,

My name is James, and I'm a Grad Student currently doing research on the way that the Atomic Bomb came to be used in popular culture - specifically, the way that comics responded to nuclear weaponry in the aftermath of World War Two!

I'm looking for early examples of atomic imagery - nuclear weapons, mushroom clouds, atomic blasts - or atomic naming conventions or origins - anything 'radioactive', 'fallout', 'atom', or 'nuclear' inspired, basically. I'm guessing that war comics will mostly feature these, but they could also be from horror, sci-fi, or superhero comics too ...

I'd especially like to find examples of the idea of the 'Atomic Sublime', an idea that mushroom clouds were beautiful, or that nuclear weapons were somehow a link to the divine. Anyone have any ideas about that?

Thanks so much for any help you can offer,

[erwin-k]

One of the first comics inspired by the A-Bomb was Spark's Atoman The series only ran a couple of issues but the imagery is great.

link:  https://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?cid=267

Around 1980 a Superman giant reprinted a story from late 1945 or early 1946, I think. In the story Luther had duplicated the A-Bomb at roughly the size of a lawn dart. He hand threw the thing at Superman over Metropolis at less than 1000 feet up. Supes caught the thing and smothered the blast in his hands. The story came so early, I doubt any pictures of the real devices had been declassified.

In 1971 the novel The Jesus Factor caused a bit of a splash. Told by a U.S. Senator who, in 1945 dropped an A-Bomb on Tokyo that failed to detonate. On that Earth the planetary magnetic field prevented moving, or recently moved Nukes from going off. The Atomic Armes Race was a hoax while the world powers tried to secretly whip up super chemical and bio weapons to do the same job.

I'm sure that, just as soon as I hit "Post," I'll think of something else.

Good luck with your research.

[willettsj]

Thanks very much for the recommendations!

I've been looking at Atom-Man, and added that to some Captain Marvel and Superman as examples of superheroes with atomic imagery - thanks!

Are there any early war comics that deal with atomic conflict that you're aware of? That's an area I'm less familiar with!

J

[erwin-k]

From the early to mid-1950's there is Ace's Atomic War, and World War III.

American Comics Group (ACG) published Commander Battle & the Atomic Sub.

Charlton Comics had Atomic Bunny, Atomic Mouse, and Atomic Rabbit as funny animal super-heroes. They also published six issues of Space Western, circa 1952.  (Imagine, if you will, that Gene Autry did not spend his oil money on a baseball team. That he built spaceships, instead.) All six issues are on DCM. In one story Spurs Jackson and his Space Vigilantes head for Mars looking for the source of the H-Bomb that just vaporized Paris.

Late issues from Fiction House's War Birds & Wings Comics may feature Atomic devices, or Atom secrets & spies.

St. John released Atom-Age Combat.

One title I remember from the early 1950's was Youthful Magazine Atomic Attack. The first issue had a big mushroom cloud on it. But, after the first story, the rest of the book is non-nuke stories of WW2 & Korea.

Hope this helps,

Bob