Golden Age Idol--Atomic Thunderbolt

Here at Slay Monstrobot, we like to recognize that there are levels: there is hyperbole, there is over-the-top-hyperbole...and then there is "are you serious" levels of insane hyperbole:

You know, given that super-hero comics were less than a decade old at this point, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that this could have been a true claim.

However, A) It's on the cover of the first issue, perhaps a little bit early to make such claims; B) There was no second issue, or or subsequent appearances of the hero, so, no, not so much with the "most dynamic super-sensational hero;" C) The pink ink and cursive font sort of works against the claim...

But still, there's something about:

So why might this public domain super-hero warrant revival? Yes, it's starts with your typical mad scientist...

...who has a way with a catch phrase:

But when we meet our subject/victim/soon to be hero, there's something a teensy bit deeper here than you expect to find in a Golden Age story:



Wait...a semi-serious treatment of the problems of returned veterans with post-traumatic stress? Of society's acceptance of them? Of homelessness? Am I reading too much into this?

Geez Louise, a treatise on the plight of veterans and suicide? Are you kidding?

Soon, mad doctor Josiah Rhonne gets willy back to his lab, and we find out the purpose of the proposed experiments:


You know, this comic has a February 1946 cover date, and while we can't be certain how much lead there was for the sole publication of the Regor Company, certainly this wasn't created too long after the dropping of the atomic bombs. So, in its Golden Age Sciencey sort of way, it's one of the first comic books to discuss the consequences, and sort of foreshadow the dread of the forthcoming Cold War and the balance of terror. It's certainly unusual to see a 1946 comic story call for making the Bomb irrelevant.

Than again, it is a mad scientist from the Golden Age, so there's a ridiculously bi-polar range of results for this experiment:

Nothingness, or superhuman. Those are your outcomes, nothing in between.

Sadly, Rhonne is pretty much the stupidest guy ever, because...

Yes. He accidentally pulled the wrong lever, and blew the entire castle to kingdom come.

What. An. Idiot.

Willy survives, gets tangled up with villains who were trying to steal the doctor's experiments, and...

That's it. Not only do we not see the punch, we don't know the result. Is the bad guy unconscious? Atomized? We have no clue, because in the next panel:


"Devoting his life to save mankind from itself?" Man, that is so not a Golden Age way of thinking. Seriously, this comic, although published in 1946, may be the first 1950's story, replete with atomic dread and fear that mankind could not survive his own inventions.

Of course, Willy decides to deal with it in a conventional Golden Age way...

Sorry, kiddies, no next issue. But the Atomic Thunderbolt did have a cameo in the second feature of this comic, the Laurel and Hardyesque comedy stylings of "Rigor & Mortis, Alchemists." Therein we learn that the Thunderbolt can fly, and...

"Airwaves?"? Man, that is sooo Golden Age. Mad scientist and failed experiment create hero with vague, causally defined powers (that probably morph from story to story, based on the authors' needs).

But still...I'm sure that I'm just reading a little something extra into this that might not really be there. But then again, I've read a fair number of Golden Age super-hero stories...and this one just seems to have the tiniest bit of something more...a little bit less cookie cutter (albeit only a little less), a little more intent on dealing with some of the social issues of the early post-WWII era, a tiny bit more self-aware than was standard.

The names of Atomic Thunderbolt's creators are lost. But I'd sure be interested in reading more comics by them.

And just for being so potentially intriguing, I'd say that Atomic Thunderbolt has earned a shot at resurrection by some enterprising comic company. What do you say, guys?

Yeah, I thought you'd agree...