An early “instant book” swept together a potpourri of popular articles greeting the atomic age with both fear and exhilaration and was available on the newsstands by the end of August, 1945.
The cover of Picture News, January, 1946, read “Will the atom blow the world apart? George Bernard Shaw warns: It’s likely-If we don’t watch our step!”
The same month, Science Comics, in “The Exciting Story of the Atomic Bomb,” proclaimed: “the world entered a new era: the Atomic Age!”
For most Americans, the Hiroshima weapon was simply “the bomb that won the war.”
So fierce had American opposition to the Japanese been during the Pacific campaign that few probably saw the irony in such words accompanying an image of “the peace-loving nations of the earth” meditating wiping the “Japs” off the earth. In addition, this notion that the atomic age simultaneously promised utopia or Armageddon was a commonplace of the period right after the war. Side panel text: “Thus, the atomic bomb supreme achievement of modern science – soon brought about the surrender of Japan and the end of the global conflict! In the hands of the peace-loving nations of the Earth, atomic energy will help build a new world far more wonderful that man ever dreamed a few brief years ago!Shortly after the famed 1946 Bikini Atoll atomic bomb test, Superman was sent to cover a similar event.
With a little grit, know-how, and common sense, nuclear war could be survived. Fire departments distributed this 1952 comic book to help the public deal with the incendiary side effects of the new weapon.
Fretful Mom: “Tom-It- It’s frightening! When I think that some day we may be under an A-bomb attack it makes my knees weak! I feel so helpless!”
Wise Dad replies: “I know, Mother! The threat of war isn’t pleasant! But we’ve got to face it! We’ve got to be ready when and if it does come! If we are, we’ll be far from helpless!”Even more effort was put into getting the public to feel comfortable with atomic power.
Pro-nuclear comics such as these continued to appear throughout the fifties and later, and were often distributed free to children in public schools.The tendency to trivialize the threat of nuclear weapons is apparent even in this early post-war children’s comic. America’s favorite duck cooks up his own atomic bomb, hoping to get richDonald Duck playing with chemicalsBut he is not much of a scientist, and his explosions seem at first ineffective.But it turns out that his mild explosions cause people’s hair to fall out, just like the radioactivity from real atomic bombs, so he gets rich anyway-selling hair-restoring tonic.
