Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Captain Atom, Charlton Comics

Captain Atom's Early Space Adventures Issues, Up for Auction

Captain Atom debuted in Space Adventures #33 by Steve Ditko and Joe Gill in a Charlton Comics release full of Cold War history.

A scientist gets caught in the wrong place at the wrong time during a military bomb test. Instead of killing him, the radiation blast transforms the man into a being of unimaginable power. Sounds like a lot of Marvel superhero origins in general, and the creation story of the Incredible Hulk in particular.  But over a year before Marvel would use variations on this theme repeatedly, creators Steve Ditko and Joe Gill would use it to excellent effect in Space Adventures #33, cover-dated March 1960 from Charlton Comics.  There is a group of Captain Atom's earliest appearances in Space Adventures up for auction in the 2024 July 14-16 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122429 at Heritage Auctions.

Steve Ditko's talent and career on such comics has become deservedly well known, but it's Joe Gill's part in this tale that interests me in the case of Captain Atom's origin story and early saga.  Through a wide-ranging career at Charlton and elsewhere — and as noted in regards to the first appearance of Peacemaker in Fightin' Five #40 — Gill had a knack for weaving specific military hardware and events into the fabric of his stories.

The Space Adventures #33 Captain Atom story is full of such details.  The fateful rocket mishap is referenced as taking place on an Atlas rocket, and identifiable as such as drawn by Ditko. Atlas rockets had by then already become famous as part of Project Mercury, and as part of the United States' first ICBM program. A Jupiter rocket is also identified as a part of the story involving a sabotage plot foiled by Captain Atom.

But the most fascinating aspect of the story which borrows from real-life involves Captain Atom's origin moment itself.  USAF Captain Adam, the man who would become Captain Atom, was caught inside a missile preparing to launch an atomic warhead test "preset to explode in space."  This is almost certainly a reference to Operation Argus, a series of high-altitude 1.5 kiloton nuclear detonation tests of up to nearly 500 miles above Earth.  The secret tests were conducted in August-September 1958 and uncovered by the New York Times in a March 19, 1959 story — likely just a few months before this Captain Atom story was being created.

Likewise, the Captain Atom story in Space Adventures #34 closely tracked recent events in the space exploration from the perspective of 1960.  In the story, Russia has gotten a cosmonaut into space, but has faked radio communications to hide the fact that he is critically injured and near death.  Captain Atom takes flight into space to find the truth of the matter.  This story is inspired by the early days of what we now call the Lost Cosmonaut conspiracies, particularly the mix of rumor and fake radio broadcast that resulted in late 1950s-era news stories (later known to be incorrect) about a cosmonaut named Alexei Ledovskiy having died while on board an R-5 rocket.  The uncertainty surrounding these matters in the news media of the day is palpable in the Space Adventures #34 story.

Interestingly, Captain Atom's origin was given a reboot when it was retold in Captain Atom #36.  In this version, Captain Adam was a USAF pilot taking part in the X-plane testing when it exploded in space due to sabotage, to be repaired after Adam transformed to Captain Atom. Notably, the X-plane depicted in this issue is clearly the famous Douglas X-3 Stilletto. Writer Joe Gill would also make the X-plane program a part of Peacemaker's origin in 1966.

The combination of Steve Ditko's storytelling prowess and Joe Gill's attention to real-life detail makes these Space Adventures issues a fascinating artifact of the Cold War era and the Silver Age.  An enduring and influencial superhero whose early issues are often overlooked, there is a group of Captain Atom's earliest appearances in Space Adventures up for auction in the 2024 July 14-16 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122429 at Heritage Auctions.

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