flush the fashion (and the carburetor)

Armagideon Time favorite Mister Atom in 1947's Captain Marvel Adventures #78:


Armagideon Time favorite Mister Atom in 1978's Shazam! #33:
Further proof that whether one was a child, adult, or killer atomic robot, 1970's fashions were merciful to no one.

Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats - Rocket 88 (from The Sun Records Story box set, 1994) - What some consider to be the first rock and roll song ever recorded was actually the work of Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm, released in 1951 under saxophonist and vocalist Brenston's name for some arcane financial reason.

Girls at Our Best! - It's Fashion (from Pleasure, 1981) - Odd choral postpunk that could almost be mistaken for an outtake from the Penis Envy recording sessions.

Special Bonus: If the Sears Wish Book Racing Car Bed re-deco of Mr. Atom wasn't goofy enough, Shazam! #33 also features this bit of "is this for real or am I hallucinating?" sound effects insanity:

I don't know whether to laugh or cry...

produce a crazy science fiction creation

Roughly twenty years before Hank Pym got it into his head to dabble in the field of killer atomic robotology, Dr. Charles Langley decided to try his hand at creating a megalomaniacal cybernetic successor to the weak and pathetic human race. The creation of killer robots is an evergreen growth industry in the whimsically improbable world of comics. It’s right up there alongside weather control machines, hypno-ray satellites, and researching ways to destroy killer robots. And who, at some point in their lives, hasn’t considered combining the environmentally-friendly power of a nuclear reactor with the ruthless inhuman efficiency of an artificial intelligence?

Let’s face it, when you’re presenting your work at the 72nd Annual Metropolis Convention of Vaguely Unspecified Science, announcing that you’ve created an ambulatory nuclear furnace with genocidal tendencies has a certain dramatic flair that you just don’t get with some minor breakthrough in stem cell research.

Per the accepted conventions for this sort of business, the quite Devo-ish Langley succeeds in his efforts while inadvertently blowing up his suburban laboratory. (Note to aspiring killer robot makers, be sure that your homeowner’s insurance covers accidental nuclear explosions. You’ll thank yourselves later.) While Langley relaxes beneath a pile of smoldering rubble, his creation decides to check out what’s happening in town.

Now while Mr. Atom, as Langley’s robot has dubbed himself, has gotten off to a promising start on the path of killer robot-dom (what with his creator’s Promethean hubris and all), at this point in his career he isn’t “evil” so much as suffering from a cybernetic form of Asperger’s syndrome. Lacking the capacity to understand basic human interaction, he misinterprets the townspeople’s social cues (in form of having a safe dropped on top of him and getting blindsided by a CoastLiner) as being affirmations of his own perceived superiority.

His inflated sense of self-worth leads him to the United Nations building, where he makes a case for what he sees as his righteous stewardship of the world to the assembled delegates. It goes about as well as you’d think, and ends in a manner tragically familiar to anyone knowledgeable in the pathology of school shootings.

It’s the John Bolton years, minus the bad hairdo, all over again.

While the Danes scramble to come up with an interim replacement delegate, Captain Marvel (aka "The Big Red Cheese") arrives on the scene, having been alerted by the injured Langley about the “really cool” abomination the scientist has "accidentally" let loose on the world. Marvel and Mr. Atom duke it out, but the robot’s atomic power proves to be an equal match for the strength of Hercules and stamina of Atlas. Finally, on the grounds outside of the UN, the two titans dig down deep and give it their all in a brilliantly executed sequence that manages to accomplish more in four panels than Dan Jurgens did in the entire "Death of Superman" arc.

Being down is not the same as being out when one is an indestructible robot, and from the comfort of his cell, Mr. Atom delivers a final rant (presumably accompanied by a mix CD of his favorite Deftones, Marilyn Manson, and Rammstein tracks).

All kidding aside, this story, “Captain Marvel Meets Mr, Atom,” from Captain Marvel Adventures #78 (November 1947) is one of my favorite comic stories ever. It’s a fascinating glimpse of early Atomic Age pop culture (also see Paul Boyer’s By the Bomb’s Early Light) that hit the newsstands only two years after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. The story’s underlying message that the atomic beast would slip its lead and turn on the world came at a time before the first Soviet bomb test, when the United States held a monopoly on atomic weapons. That kind of introspection would soon retreat under the panic-mode thinking of the Red Scare and the formalization of Cold War societal postures.

Looking beyond the story’s popcult significance, I also love the design aesthetic of Mr. Atom. Sleek, streamlined, and metallic, he was populuxe before populuxe existed. I was disappointed that the character was redesigned in the 1990’s with a faux retro look more indicative of current attitudes about the early post war era than of the era itself. At least the Justice League Unlimited version stuck close to the classic design.

I Am Robot and Proud – Learn From Mistakes (from Grace Days, 2003) – Mr. Atom never learned from his. He later tried to assist the Comet Men in their conquest of earth, then got blasted into the future where he and his efforts toward world domination went up in an atomic fireball. Poor sap. Maybe he needed a dose of soothing electronica, such as this track, in his life.

The Scorpions – Robot Man (from In Trance, 1975) – This is how they rocked it in 1970’s Hannover, people. The Epoxies did a superlative cover of this song on 2005’s Stop the Future.

Helen Love – Atomic Beat Boy (from Love and Glitter, Hot Days and Musik, 2000) – Indie pop, Ramones fetishism, and techno collide, and the results sound like something from a bemani game. It might be a bit too bubblegum for some folks, but I like it fine...in small doses.

The Blood – Megalomania (from False Gestures for a Devious Public, 1983) – This is the sort of ferocious mix of punk and metal one would expect from a band fronted by a “Cardinal Jesus Hate.”