Presented by the Atomic Sleepwalker

Hello, Sleepwalkers ! This marks the fifth and final installment of my complete history of The Atomic Knights! Next Monday will bring a different feature, so be sure to check back! And go ahead and get caught up with the previous installments! There’s Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four.

When we last left our heroes, we learned that the Atomic Knights, as we know them, were a figment of Gardner Grayle’s imagination. Trapped in a sensory-deprivation chamber and locked into a simulated post-nuclear holocaust, Gardner created the Knights as a way of coping with the horror of the radiation-soaked wasteland before him. And that was the way it stayed for a long time. The Atomic Knights were a memory, a curiosity of the Silver Age, mostly forgotten. Until Infinite Crisis, that is, they were resurrected by the team of Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti.

Perceptive Sleepwalkers might recall that I talked about Gray and Palmiotti recently, regarding the announcement that they’ll be teaming up to write a miniseries about the Phantom Lady. Now, before we get started, I want to direct your attention over to an article on Comics Alliance–in a pleasant bit of good fortune, J. Caleb Mozzocco wrote about Palmiotti and Gray’s history with the Freedom Fighters, a team that plays a pretty big role in BFB. It says a lot of the same things that I would, so instead of repeating anything, go ahead and read Mozzocco’s article to fill in any holes in the narrative.

On to the Knights!

After Infinite Crisis,the United States finally had its own radioactive playground in Blüdhaven, the former headquarters of Dick Grayson during his early Nightwing days. During the Infinite Crisis event, the Society dropped Chemo (a big, radioactive monster, not unlike the critters the original Knights fought on a daily basis) on the city, nuking it and irradiating the whole place. Battle for Blüdhaven kicks off immediately after that disaster , and things aren’t exactly sunny. Citizens have been displaced from their homes, the whole city is in shambles, and the Force of July (a patriotic, government-controlled super team that should be familiar to anyone who has read Suicide Squad) has declared themselves to be the only superhumans allowed inside the walls. It looks mighty bad–and that’s just what these guys have been waiting for:

Meet the current generation of Atomic Knights, and no, your eyes aren’t deceiving you–they’re pretty much the same as the former generation. You’ve got Gardner, Marene, Doug, Bryndon (who seems no worse for wear for someone who was murdered by an energy monster who may or may not have been Ares), and the twins, Wayne and Hollis.

Gray and Palmiotti return over and over again to the theme of atomic energy in the way they populate their little drama. There are the Knights of course, but also the Nuclear Legion:

And they’re joined by a group of androids designed to look like a 50′s family called the Nuclear Family (which is actually pretty clever):

The government-sponsored Freedom Force has the Human Bomb, whose power seems to be not looking at explosions:

He’s joined by perennial douchebag, Major Force:

Hell, even the Macguffin is famous nuclear man, inspiration for Doctor Manhattan, and star of DC’s lowest-selling title, Captain Atom:

It’s a pretty cool move; we can see that Gray and Palmiotti are doing their best to stay true to the original idea of the Knights, selfless heroes in a world gone mad with nuclear power. By returning to that well again and again, they reinforce the aspects of the Atomic Knights that made them relevant fifty years ago.

But the reimagining of the Knights doesn’t stop with carefully constructed themes. In a neat little moment, we get to see the Black Baron 2006:

So, yeah. He’s a pimp. I’m tempted to call his inclusion in the story nothing more than pointless, nostalgia-fueled fanboyism–BB doesn’t really do anything to advance the plot, and he’s killed literally one issue later–but I’ll cut Gray and Palmiotti some slack. Not only is it a nice nod to the original series, but, like everything else they’re doing with the Knights, it’s done in such a way that it fits with the world-building. We know Blüdhaven is a lawless wasteland, but it’s a clever way to show us that fact without just telling us.

The thing about Battle for Blüdhaven is that it isn’t really about the Knights–it’s about the roles and responsibilities the government has to its citizens, for the most part, and that plays out across a couple of different canvases. There are a lot of straw-man arguments that basically predict Tea Party rhetoric a few years early, and I’m not going to say that they’re poorly done–they’re not, not really–but they are dull. I get that Firebrand is meant to be, well, a Firebrand, but his anti-government polemics come off as more “entitled college student with a few too many Che t-shirts” than “untested revolutionary confronted with the realities of a war zone.” Gray and Palmiotti don’t help themselves when the representative of the US government actually is as twisted and self-serving as Firebrand says he is. It’s hard to get a balanced sense of argument when one party actively tortures people and the other does not.

But that’s neither here nor there. The important part is that Battle for Blüdhaven marks the introduction of the Atomic Knights into the modern, mainstream DC Universe. And Gray and Palmiotti carry on one last bit of tradition before they go. Remember the way the Atomic Knights were folded into the Kamandi and OMAC’s continuity back in the 70s? Well, Gray and Palmiotti do too.

That’s the Command D bunker, the place where Kamandi got his name, and the site of the Evil Factory in Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis.Final Crisis, a story preoccupied with bringing Jack Kirby’s vast mythos into the mainstream DC universe, hinges on the Command D bunker, and by the time Morrison gets to his story, the Knights are still diligently patrolling the area:

So that’s that, Sleepwalkers. We’ve seen the Knights as goofy, lighthearted adventurers in the Silver Age; we’ve seen them brutally subverted in the 80s; and we’ve seen them resurrected as a super-powered police force in the 21st century. But throughout their long and storied career, one thing has been true: the Atomic Knights have been a quiet but vital part of DC’s past, present, and future, lending their names and histories to some of the most beloved comic stories of all time. They rarely get the attention they deserve, but for the past fifty years, the presence of the Atomic Knights has meant that even when the world is blasted and blighted, there will still be heroes. There will still be Knights.

And that brings this epic to a close, Sleepwalkers! I can’t believe it’s taken this long to finish it, but hopefully now I’ll know what I’m getting into when I promise a five-part feature! Thanks for reading, and if you have any suggestions about what I should write about next week, please let me know!

Howdy, Sleepwalkers! Welcome to the penultimate entry into our five-part history of John Broome and Murphy Anderson’s 1964 masterpiece, The Atomic Knights! We’re nearing the home stretch, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get caught up! Check out parts one, two, and three!

When we last left our intrepid band of medievally-garbed heroes, they had lost one of their number but had been cemented into DC canon by way of Hercules Unbound, which connected plot threads from Atomic Knights and Jack Kirby’s Kamandi and OMAC to create a sprawling post-apocalyptic narrative. But by the 1980s, it was looking increasingly unlikely that the Great Nuclear War of 1986 (which lasted only twenty days!) would lead to a whimsical fantasy land (a la Atomic Knights) or even a dark, twisted pesudo-mythological world (like in Hercules Unbound). No, by the 80s, everyone was pretty much resigned to the fact that if those bombs ever fell, the only whimsy would be seeing who could kill the most mega-roaches before radiation sores crippled you.

That’s why, in 1983, DC published “Days of Future Past,” where the Sentinels had outlawed and executed almost all of the X-Men–

No, wait. Sorry, got my notes mixed up there. It was actually THIS:

It was called “Days of Future Past,” though, and it opens the way not enough comics do: with sweet, sweet, Superman hobo beard.

Superman doesn’t have time to stand around pondering things though, because the very next page, he sees some “armor-clad” people who explain to him that everyone in Metropolis is dead. After that cheerful comment, the lead Knight (who is, of course, Gardner Grayle) recognizes Superman and blames him for letting everyone in the world die.

Then he wakes up.

Yes, it was just a dream…or was it? (And yes, I had to get a Creative Writing degree to be able to write this well.) Unable to shake a feeling of dread, Superman goes to work (this was during the time when he was a news anchor). The big story that day is how a computer malfunction sent a false alarm to American missile bases, causing us to almost nuke Russia (which actually happened far, far more times than necessary). Feeling that there must be a connection between his dream of nuclear Armageddon and this close call, he putters off to the Fortress of Solitude to see why his Kryptonian Super-Computer wasn’t monitoring the Pentagon’s early-warning system (because apparently, when you’re Superman, a little treasonous domestic spying is expected of you). He plugs himself in to check the diagnostics, and…

BOOM! Wakes up in Durvale. From the moment Gardner and the Knights show up, there’s a constant, conscious effort on the part of the writers to tie it back to both the original series and Hercules Unbound. Herc himself even shows up and references the tragic death of Atomic Knight Bryndon:

How about this–I’ll learn PhotoShop when I get more than four views a day. Sound good?

But, like a good Atomic Knights story, trouble strikes. About thirteen seconds after Superman shows up, the Knights get a report that a giant monster is terrorizing New York City. It’s actually a pretty well-done scene, evoking the feel of the giant monster fights from the original Atomic Knights and taking the time to throw in a reference to the de-evolved Cro-Magnon folks from issue three. But what makes this scene interesting is how incredibly dubious Superman is about the whole thing.

Keep in mind, this is Superman we’re talking about. He’s a guy accustomed to doing the impossible on a regular basis, and even he’s like “Wait, Kryptonite breath? That doesn’t make any sense.” It gets worse after the fight (which ends after a single Herculean punch, so that’s cool), with Superman pretty much directly confronting Gardner Grayle about the state of the world:

Take a journey with me Sleepwalkers. Put Van Halen on the radio, grab some aviator shades, and put on the zebra-print spandex–we’re going to the 80s! The spectre of nuclear annihilation is very, very real, and every little kid knows that when the bombs drop, the lucky ones will die quickly. What better way to cope with those fears and frustrations than to resurrect a title from the 60s and shine a cold, harsh light on its quaint naivete? In many ways, Superman is the jaded reader, the kid who read Atomic Knights and Hercules Unbound and realized the real world can’t be reconciled with the one in the comics. It’s a sobering, mature realization, and actually serves to ask critical, relevant questions.

But then Superman gets thrown out of his computer, so there’s that.

For the second time in this issue, Superman wakes up, but this time he knows something’s wrong. Not knowing where to start, but recognizing Marene Herald as a S.T.A.R. Labs psychologist whom he interviewed once, Supes jets off to her office to grill her about a man named Gardner Grayle. After a bit of digging, they find out that Gardner Grayle was a physically and mentally average soldier (sound familiar?) chosen to participate in a special military psychological experiment: how would the average soldier react to a post-nuclear war situation? Apparently the personnel involved were hypnotized to forget about the project and Gardner has been hooked up to advanced computers in a state of sensory deprivation ever since.

Now Sleepwalkers, I’m sure many of you would share my feelings right now. You’re calling “cop out.” You’re calling “retcon.” You’re throwing full bottles of Icehouse at homeless people and ritualistically scarring yourself. Well, first, stop that. Second, that was me until I read this:

“Because the utter devastation of a nuclear holocaust that the simulation posited was simply too ghastly for the mind of the average person to cope with!”

You want to talk about mature, Sleepwalkers? You want to talk about sobering? This is a story that looked at the campy fantasy fun of Atomic Knights and put a bullet right between its eyes. This is a story that looked at Gardner Grayle and made him a sad, broken man so utterly devastated by a world of fire, death, and festering sores that he crafted a new world where the bad guys were never too bad, the good guys always won, and he could be a hero for once. It’s masterful, really; it preserves the fun of the original stories and does nothing to take away from their adventure and enthusiasm, but gives them a new edge, a little bit more psychology and depth. And maybe that depth is unnecessary. Maybe making a story about mole people actually a sobbing, silent cry for help is overkill. But it makes it a little bittersweet, and I don’t know about you, Sleepwalkers, but it makes me want to root for Gardner and the Knights even more.

Well, that’s about it, Sleepwalkers. We’ve seen the Knights go from a rag-tag band of protectors, to the rebuilders of civilization, to a desperate fevered dream of a lonely, isolated man. All in all, it’s a solid chunk of comic history, and too often overlooked. But–wait. Sorry. We still have one more, so come back next week to see the Atomic Knights enter the modern age!

That’s all the time we have for today, Sleepwalkers, but remember:

Hey Sleepwalkers! I’m here with the oft-promised and oft-delayed second part to my five-part history of John Broome and Murphy Anderson’s 1960 masterpiece, The Atomic Knights! For part one, click here.

When we last left our heroes, they had discovered nuke-proof armor, overthrown the local warlord, and banded together to be a force for law and order and an unlawful post-apocalyptic society. Unfortunately for the Atomic Knights, “law and order” in this context means less giving out parking tickets and more dealing with giant crystal monsters…

A band of de-evolved humans in a New York City bomb shelter…

A bunch of psychic Id monsters…

Actual, literal Atlanteans from actual, literal Atlantis…

Space invaders out to steal Earth’s metal…

Mole people intent on blacking out the sun…

A bunch of walking, telepathic plants that throw explosive berries…

Post-apocalyptic Hitler…

And my personal favorite, the King of New Orleans.

What’s actually pretty astounding about Atomic Knights is not just the sheer variety of the villains, or even the crazy, inventive ways the Knights go about fighting them: it’s also a clinic on world building. Atomic Knights has a grip on its own internal canon that other, more well-known comics could only dream of. For example, take the most iconic part of the series: the suits of armor. The suits are vital, both within the story and without. If the knights didn’t have the armor, they’re just some dudes slowly dying of radiation sickness. With them, they can be heroes. But as the series goes on, you see the Knights wearing fewer pieces of the armor. They’ve lost a greave here, or a gauntlet there. You really believe that these people are going around the country having these dangerous adventures.

Or look elsewhere. Remember those ambulatory plant people? Well, turns out they’re called the Trefoils, and this dude named Henderson decided to cultivate them, presumably because what the hell else is there to do? Anyway, Henderson shows off his floral monstrosity to Bryndon, who’s so psyched he runs back to tell Gardner. Then Gardner lays down one of my favorite moments of the entire series:

That “strange incident” that Gardner didn’t think was important? Yeah, this is it:

Walk through this one with me Sleepwalkers. Gardner Grayle, de facto leader of this little community, heard about a giant plant attacking a farmer, and DIDN’T THINK IT WAS IMPORTANT. That kills me every time. The crazy thing? Or, sorry, the crazier thing? It makes perfect sense. Earlier in the series, you’d get the Knights leaping into action at the first sign of trouble. “A note on a kite? Might be a crystal monster!” “A weird new continent? Well that bears checking out!” But by the middle of the run, they’re so much more jaded. “Walking plants? Let me know when something actually important happens.” There’s a point where one of those psychic Id monsters shoots radiation bolts at Doug Herald, and he just keeps it to himself.

But that’s only the first part of this series’ incredible consistency. Because those plants? They show up again.

And again.

What you have here are Broome and Anderson meticulously crafting a world that always, always, always follows its own rules, even if those rules are psychotic. For example, those giant Dalmatians?

Nothing in that passage is any more or less fantastic than anything in this comic, and that’s a feat. Essentially Broome and Anderson have created a comic that lays all its cards on the table from the start. If you’re willing to believe any part of the world they’ve built, you’ll be able to believe all of it. And that means they get to go nuts.

For example, a lot of the threats the Knights face aren’t exactly punchable; sure, the Atlanteans are good for a brawl or two, and those Trefoils are always down for a scrap, but the Crystal Monster? The Id monsters? Those require a more cerebral approach. Which leads to great scenes like this one, where the Knights use the CM’s greed against it:

Or you get scenes like during the episode in New Orleans, where the Knights find out a King has brainwashed a staff of doctors (doctors, obviously, having great worth in post-apocalyptic America). Imagine you’re John Broome. You have to figure out a way to get your characters to free a city full of mind-controlled surgeons. What are you going to do?

If you answered “smooth jazz,” you are either John Broome or you’re lying.

Atomic Knights might just be a curiosity now, another product of DC’s Silver Age, but trust me on this–it’s a comic that wasn’t afraid to go places that other comics wouldn’t dare to go, and it very few comics have gone  there since. And, as we’ll see in the coming weeks, it’s the fodder for some pretty classic stories in their own right.

That’s all the time we have for today, Sleepwalkers, but remember: it’s a dangerous world out there. Watch out for mole people, and remember:

They shall not pass!