FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: DC’S showcase PRESENTS: THE terrific disaster featuring THE ATOMIC KNIGHTS

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Showcase Presents: The terrific disaster featuring the Atomic Knights

by Robert Greenberger

The showcase presents program of reprints was always intended to shine an inexpensive light on series that have smaller audiences and provided DC Comics with a chance to explore the darker corners of their history. As a result, some titles were announced and were hailed with terrific fanfare then never appeared. Finally, one of those, showcase Presents: The terrific disaster featuring the Atomic Knights is coming this summer. This volume is said to contain material from strange Adventures, 1st issue special #1, Hercules Unbound #1-10, DC Comics presents #57, Kamandi #43-46, lots from weird war Tales #22-23, 30, 32, 40, 42-44, 46-49, 51-53, 64, 68-69, 123, house of mystery #318, Superman #295, house of secrets #86, 95, and 97, and The unexpected #215 and 221.

Earth-1 (remember when Earth-1 featured the main DC super-heroes?), had several interesting and conflicting potential futures, usually culminating by the 30th Century with the legion of Super-Heroes. getting there, though, proved problematic with differing interpretations, especially after the Atomic Knights were affixed to the core continuity.

Strange Adventures #144

In the wake of the popularity of earth disaster movies of the 1950s, editor Julie Schwartz and writer John Broome took their own stab at such a story. most of those movies showed mutated, gigantic insects or animals set against a civilization bereft of electricity. As a result, they thought of that without power, people would resort to what worked in olden times so a handful of people donned suits of armor, mounted gigantic Dalmatians and surveyed a wrecked America, trying to restore justice to a ravaged nation. With Broome’s imaginative writing and Murphy Anderson’s clean, wonderful artwork, the series debuted in strange Adventures #117 (June 1960) and rotated with the other new series Schwartz was populating his science fiction anthologies with. The series appeared quarterly until a final story ran in issue #160, January 1964 – when Schwartz handed off the editing to Jack Schiff to take over Batman and Detective Comics, the series were dumped.

Across these fifteen stories, we’re in the aftermath of a Hydrogen War, fought in the future of 1986. Sgt. Gardner Grayle, Wayne and Hollis Hobard, Bryndon Smith, and siblings Douglas and Marene Herald banded together to oppose the evil fist of a villain known only as the Black Baron. As they traveled from Washington D.C. to Los Angeles, they battled an assortment of foes while trying to bring hope to a forlorn people. Interestingly, the three-month gap between stories was worked into the series.

Hercules Unbound #1

They weren’t woven into the fabric of the DC universe until years later when fan turned writer Cary Bates reintroduced these players into Hercules Unbound. For those unfamiliar, that series debuted in 1975 and featured the demigod in a post-apocalyptic DC Universe. The series from writer/editor Gerry Conway was initially illustrated by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Wally wood so it was, and still is, gorgeous to look at. We open with Hercules literally becoming unbound from chains that held him for centuries. He vows vengeance against Ares who entrapped him and befriended young blind Kevin and his dog Basil. The unlikely trio explored a war-torn world, adding Jennifer Monroe and David Rigg to the ensemble. By issue four, animal-men arrive beginning the connections to Kamandi. Conway left DC and made way for writer David Michelinie with Walter Simonson drawing issues #7-9, making for an odd combination with Wood’s strong inks. wood was gone with #9 and Bob Layton made one of his earliest solo inking appearances here. Bates arrived as new writer, bringing the Atomic Knights with him, with #10 and Simonson began inking himself, changing the look and feel of the series for the remainder of its run.

Weird war Tales #51 features a “Tales of the terrific Disaster” story by Paul Levitz, Jack C. Harris, Marshall Rogers & Terry Austin.

By issue #10, Bates introduced the Atomic Knights and soon it became clear this was the same terrific disaster that was depicted in Jack Kirby’s Kamandi series (still running at the time although the King was returning to marvel at this point). The stories from that title are a backup series, “Tales of the terrific Disaster” written by incoming writer/editor Gerry Conway, David Anthony Kraft, Paul Levitz, with art by Pablo Marcos, Bob Smith, Steve Mitchell, Michael Netzer, and Joe Rubinstein. and once the Atomic Knights were in the DCU, it was inevitable they’d crossover with the more familiar heroes such as Superman in DC Comics Presents.

DC Comics presents #57

The man of Steel is also here in a story featuring a futuristic green lantern explaining he had time traveled to ensure parallel futures would survive intact, introducing the notion of alternate timelines from a core continuity. To make sense of it all, DC’s house fanzine The incredible world of DC Comics, began a series of columns trying to explain confusing continuity. part two, in issue #12, is from Paul Levitz and he tries to clearly delineate how the bright shiny future that gives the legion and the one featuring a terrific disaster could possibly both happen. He claimed the pivotal dividing point came with Kirby’s OMAC series. “This is the society which may fall in world war Three, and whose descendants will suffer the terrific Disaster. If world war three does not take place at that time, then generations later the legion will appear,” he wrote. Thankfully, in a break from precedent, the article is reprinted here.

1st issue special #1

The remainder of the stories contained in this collection are divorced from the DC universe continuity but explore the title’s theme. first up there is Atlas. Kirby gave us his take on the legend with 1st issue special #1, a character that James Robinson resurrected in Superman during the last days of the old DC Universe. This featured yet another apocalyptic future that saw his family dead at the hands of Hyssa the Lizard King. He had superhuman strength and carried a powerful crystal said to come from the fabled Crystal Mountains.

The house of secrets #95 features a “Day After Doomsday…” story by Len Wein & Jack Sparling.

All the stories from the horror anthologies were unrelated one-offs under the umbrella title of “The Day After Doomsday…” so is an interesting collection of veterans and rookies all taking the title and running with it in one, two, and three page shorts. having them all in one place will certainly make for interesting reading.

With the new 52’s future somewhat cloudy, this is a good opportunity to review the rich content that existed as mankind struggled to survive as a species. In the hands of these creators the stories make for hours of fun reading when things were both simpler and more complex, a paradox celebrated within these pages.

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Showcase Presents: The terrific disaster featuring the Atomic Knights

Classic covers from the Grand Comics Database.