Silver Age of Reason
Dec. 9th, 2004 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonOne of my favorites epochs of the American Comic book industry was the pre-superhero
era of the Atomic Age. Animals exposed to radioactivity didn't die a slow horrible death- they became gigantic creatures of pathos and rage; UFO's would frequently land, bitch slap the army around with some elaboratly named ray-beam("Activate the anti-neutrino cannon"), offer up a morale lesson on the perils of our current course of scientific endeavor, pick up a bunch of duty free smokes, and take back off into the depths of four color space. Even better was when some "egghead" would have to fuck around with "Superscience" and wind up with the head of an insect or build a robot that goes apeshit homocidal in under three panels of it's creation. Is it any wonder my parents generation reading this stuff between "duck & cover" drills & point blank exposure to early cathode tube techonolgy took to psychedelic drugs with a certain preternatural ease. Maybe these comics were inocculation shots to prepare them for the great space race against the Red's and the "Strange & savage science of the 21st century". Who knows really, but to me their like snapshots of the collective subconscious of a distant America that looked across the wide stretch of the night sky with not just wonder but with ambition as well.
Here's one of my favorites- "Attack of the tentacle world": It has a kind of Astronauts versus Cthulu vibe to it.
and while we're on the subject of hostile tentacle weilding planets check out the dreaded "Vampire World"
More behind the cut
era of the Atomic Age. Animals exposed to radioactivity didn't die a slow horrible death- they became gigantic creatures of pathos and rage; UFO's would frequently land, bitch slap the army around with some elaboratly named ray-beam("Activate the anti-neutrino cannon"), offer up a morale lesson on the perils of our current course of scientific endeavor, pick up a bunch of duty free smokes, and take back off into the depths of four color space. Even better was when some "egghead" would have to fuck around with "Superscience" and wind up with the head of an insect or build a robot that goes apeshit homocidal in under three panels of it's creation. Is it any wonder my parents generation reading this stuff between "duck & cover" drills & point blank exposure to early cathode tube techonolgy took to psychedelic drugs with a certain preternatural ease. Maybe these comics were inocculation shots to prepare them for the great space race against the Red's and the "Strange & savage science of the 21st century". Who knows really, but to me their like snapshots of the collective subconscious of a distant America that looked across the wide stretch of the night sky with not just wonder but with ambition as well.
Here's one of my favorites- "Attack of the tentacle world": It has a kind of Astronauts versus Cthulu vibe to it.
and while we're on the subject of hostile tentacle weilding planets check out the dreaded "Vampire World"
More behind the cut