Nuke Pop: Popular Culture Images of Nuclear War • Credits

Human A-Bombs and Superheroes

Human A-Bombs and Superheros
Comic book covers: Captain Marvel with headline, Beware of the Living H-Bomb! and Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen with Superman telling Jimmy, Stay away! You'll become a human Atom Bomb!
Clearly, ordinary humans were incapable of containing the atomic genie. Popular culture began to depict the bomb as a monster on the loose.
Human A-Bombs such as these could be defeated only by the superior powers of comic book superheroes, providing a comforting psychological barrier between the reader and the atomic menace.
Comic book cover, Atomic Mouse. Illustration of superhero mouse with A on their shirt with text, Atomic mouse smashes through with rollicking fun and laughter.
A more common theme had the hero deriving his super-powers from atomic power, as in the case of Atomic Mouse, who energized himself by eating uranium 235 pills much as Popeye fortified himself by munching cans of spinach.
Comic book cover for Captain Atom, first issue. Illustration of man in chair with electrical-like radiation current going through him. Text: After they blow him to bits the adventure begins!
Radioactivity had been touted as invigorating since the discovery of radium, and science fiction writers had promoted the notion that superior beings would evolve from radiation-induced mutations, but these ideas found their most striking and long-lasting home in the comics.
Captain Atom gained his superpowers by being blasted with an H-bomb the first time in 1960. In this 1986 revival, the absurd premise of an atomic explosion as incubator is referred to in an tongue-in-cheek manner on the cover:
“After they blow him to bits, the adventure begins!”
Comic book cover, Bushido with person and mushroom cloud.
The crime-fighting heroes in this 1988 comic gain their superpowers through the exposure of their parents to the radiation of the Hiroshima bomb.
Superman comic book cover with Superman kneeling in remains of an explosion. He is saying, They did it! They finally had a nuclear war! And nobody survived except me!
When in 1985 Superman confronted the threat posed by the nuclear arsenal, the disaster depicted on the cover turned out to be only a nightmare, but the Man of Steel was unable to solve the problem definitively.
“They Did it! They finally had a nuclear war! And nobody survived….except me!”
Panels from Superman comic with Superman looking over landscape with missile silos and text, The question hangs heavy on the man of steel's mind. I follows him through the day, ...it leads him to a missile silo site out west. - There they are, he says. Superman thinks, A nanosecond and I could disable all those missiles, but they'd detect that damage instantly...
Obviously if he could have destroyed the nuclear arsenals he would have done so long ago, and he has not;
More Superman comic panels: Superman is thinking - And how much would that solve? It would only leave them all wondering if they could've handled it themselves! And what's to keep them from developing newer, deadlier weapons? I'd have to police them constantly to avoid catastrophe. Mankind would have come to resent me for it... eve come to hate me... And I don't know that I'd blame them.
In recent decades it has become apparent that there are no easy solutions to the nuclear menace. Superman’s only solution in this story is to raise the next generation to be less hostile and violent. You may recognize a close similarity between this story and the plot of the 1988 film, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.
Comic panel from Dreadstar showing an air attack and an explosion. Two figures are in a sphere and one says, It's a sphere of protective mystical energy. I pray it will be strong enough.
Such protection as most contemporary superheroes can manage is dubious and limited.
“It’s a sphere of protective mystical energy. I pray it will be strong enough.”
(Dreadstar, March 1983)
Comic panel: One person says to the other, "You'll have to use your sword to absorb the radiation. The sphere will hopefully protect us from the impact."
“You’ll have to use your sword to absorb the radiation. The sphere will hopefully protect us from the impact.”
Comic panel with mushroom cloud in one panel and two people in the sphere in the other.
Such protection as most contemporary superheroes can manage is dubious and limited.
Comic panels - in first there is person peering out of hole in the ground. The second shows person walking in desolate crater made by explosion.
The superhero is barely able to preserve himself and his companion.
Comic panels with text: "Outside the crater it gets worse" "The air is filled with the smells of charred metal and flesh." "It's a good mile's walk before any physical signs of the once living begin to appear."
“Outside the crater it gets worse”
“The air is filled with the smells of charred metal and flesh.”
“It’s a good mile’s walk before any physical signs of the once living begin to appear.”
Comic panels with text, "It's still yet another two miles before Vanth sees his first body. The children are the worst to look at. Vanth walks on. There is nothing he can do here... ...nothing.
“It’s still yet another two miles before Vanth sees his first body.
The children are the worst to look at.
Vanth walks on. There is nothing he can do here…
…nothing.

Next: Chart of trends in nuclear war fiction