Post-war and The Atomic Era
As with World War II, the ushering in of the era following the dropping of the atomic bomb in 1945 colored the content and subject matter of comic books in the mid-to-late 1940s. One blunt example is the educational comic book Dagwood Splits the Atom, using characters from the comic strip Blondie. Superheroes with nuclear-derived powers began to emerge, such as the Atomic Thunderbolt and Atoman. In the movie serial Atom Man vs. Superman, the titular hero fought a villain named Atom Man, while Superman's weakness to kryptonite recalled the dangers of atomic radiation. Contrasting these serious characters were atomic funny animal characters such as Atomic Mouse and Atomic Rabbit. One historian argues that these cute creations helped ease young readers' fears over the prospect of nuclear war and neutralize anxieties over the questions posed by atomic power. The heroes began to fight communists, and some got involved in the Korean War.
Read more about this topic: Golden Age Of Comic Books
Famous quotes containing the words post-war, atomic and/or era:
“Much of what Mr. Wallace calls his global thinking is, no matter how you slice it, still “globaloney.” Mr. Wallace’s warp of sense and his woof of nonsense is very tricky cloth out of which to cut the pattern of a post-war world.”
—Clare Boothe Luce (1903–1987)
“When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”
—J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967)
“It struck me that the movies had spent more than half a century saying, “They lived happily ever after” and the following quarter-century warning that they’ll be lucky to make it through the weekend. Possibly now we are now entering a third era in which the movies will be sounding a note of cautious optimism: You know it just might work.”
—Nora Ephron (b. 1941)