Captain Atom [2]
Entry updated 25 August 2025. Tagged: Character, Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1965-1967). Charlton Comics. 12 issues (numbered #78-#89). Artists include Jim Aparo and Steve Ditko. Scriptwriters include Steve Ditko, Gary Friedrich, Joe Gill and Dave Kaler. 36 pages. Captain Atom's numbering was a continuation of Strange Suspense Stories, whose final issues (#75-#77) had reprinted eleven Captain Atom stories from Space Adventures. From the comic's retitling, each issue would have a new long strip starring Captain Atom (typically about 18-20 pages); in addition, aside from a one-page text piece (which quickly became a letters page), there would also be another, shorter strip: from #83-#86 this would be a Blue Beetle story, for #87-#89 Nightshade. Drawn (that is, pencilled) by Ditko, the first four Captain Atom scripts were by Gill, subsequently by Kaler, with Ditko often providing plots for both writers. This iteration (see below) of Blue Beetle was conceived by Ditko, who drew the strip and, it is believed, devised the plots (though Friedrich wrote the scripts). The Nightshade scripts were by Kaler, and drawn by Aparo. All three heroes would subsequently appear in DC Comics, who bought many of Charlton's characters in 1983.
The Captain Atom strips are very good, helped not a little by Ditko's often strong artwork; the stories too are enjoyable and structurally a little more ambitious than was typical of Charlton comics, such as the end of #86's tale where the antagonist is abducted on the brink of victory by three people we have not seen before, the explanation waiting until #89. More characterization is also attempted, in the Marvel Comics style, but seems half-hearted. The Blue Beetle and Nightshade strips – though the former looks good and the latter slowly bleeds in the heroine's backstory – have less interesting storylines.
#78's Captain Atom tale is "The Gremlins from Planet Blue" and features a very brief précis of his origin: a US Air Force captain caught in an atomic explosion, Captain Adam emerges "charged with unlimited nuclear power ... [that] enabled him to hurtle through space at fantastic speeds! Almost indestructible, with superior vision, hearing, and strength" – not to mention the ability to pass through walls – he becomes the Superhero Captain Atom (#80 has a longer recap). In this tale Aliens are sabotaging US space missions, including abducting two astronauts and brainwashing a Scientist into working for them. In #79 (and #81) Captain Atom faces "Doctor Spectro Master of Moods", Doctor Spectro being an embittered Scientist who, after a laboratory accident, is able to generate emotion changing Rays. "Death Knell of the World!" (#80) has a planetoid on a collision course with Earth: Captain Atom discovers this is an artificial world with a thriving civilization inside. The inhabitants explain that, unfortunately, the Physics of the situation means it cannot be stopped nor steered aside unless they can build a "gravitational motivator". Our hero helps find the parts, but learns their leader plans to rule the Earth. In "Captain Atom vs. The Ghost (#82)" he begins his occasional team-up with "Darling of Darkness, Nightshade" (here simply athletic and a good fighter, but in #85 we learn she has a device that turns her into a shadow) to defeat the Supervillain The Ghost, a costumed scientist with gloves that Teleport himself or other objects. In #84, aside from the Captain getting a costume change, one of his opponents, Iron Fist, has partial Powered Armour ("power-pack generated arms"). "Strings of Punch and Jewelee" (#85) has two petty criminals finding a chest washed up on the seashore containing "rare Weapons from a strange civilization" (this is not followed up), including a memory implanting device that shows how to use them and build further advanced Technology; they become Punch and Jewelee. In #86 Captain Atom and Nightshade have been defeated by The Ghost when three green haired-women in golden armour arrive and take him away.
"Ravage of Ronthor" (#88) has the US receiving a distress call from a planet thousands of light years away, so they build a Spaceship that uses a Space Warp powered by Captain Atom which will get him to the planet just after the SOS was sent (see Time Travel). He arrives to find the cities attacked by giant insects, but otherwise empty: an AI informs him the civilization had been one of "stifling perfection" (see Dystopia; Utopia). The people built giant spaceships and left, leaving the city of Ronthor as a memorial and warning to others about the dangers of life without challenges (the SOS was sent so this function could continue). In #89 The Ghost reappears, having been taken to another Dimension by "warrior women" to be revered as an "evil deity" named "The Faceless One" (a reference to his mask). Bored, he is allowed to return to Earth to fight Captain Atom but both are interrupted by 13 and Faustus, his Cat familiar, who seemingly use Magic to steal a missile full of weapons that had appeared on Earth via a space warp. It turns out the pair are agents from the Far Future sent to stop the advanced technology getting into present day hands: the presumably Uplifted cat remarks "it was fun to use our modern science in the past and making it look like magic" (see Clarke's Laws).
#83's cover refers to the "All New Adventures of the All New Blue Beetle" within. The original Blue Beetle had been Dan Garret(t), a 1940s superhero with his own comic Blue Beetle (60 issues, 1940-1950) who had superpowers. In Ditko's version Ted Kord, a former student of Garrett's, follows in his footsteps: he has no powers but uses advanced science and technology instead, including a beetle-shaped flying vehicle. This Blue Beetle would quickly get his own comic (5 issues, 1967-1968); his stories in Captain Atom, though well illustrated, are unremarkable and appear mainly to be a set up for the comic. In #87 and #88 the Nightshade strip that replaced Blue Beetle has her combatting The Image, an "agent of foreign powers" who uses "powers developed by foreign scientists" – including the ability to travel through mirrors – to kidnap Eve so he can blackmail her father. In #89 her antagonist is the returning Jewelee. Nightshade is Eve Eden, an apparently spoilt daughter of a senator; the strips also begins to fill in her tragic backstory, such as her mother having been "a princess in the land of Nightshades" who had to flee to Earth's Dimension, thus Eve's shadow powers, which in #85 seem to derive from science, but here from Magic.
This comic and its title character should not be confused with the earlier Captain Atom (1950-1951) from Nation-Wide Publishing. [SP]
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