Ah, 1966! That year gets my vote for the peak of the American Golden Age of pop culture. And Ditko was at his craziest, most dizzingly high peak, too. In '66 he reached his zenith at Marvel with Dr. Strange and Spidey, before moving to Charlton. As prolific as Kirby, Ditko, if not The King, was at least a Prime Minister or something like that. Anyway, I have been enjoying these early issues of Capt Atom. I think you see their influence on later comics. Of course we have the Simpson's Radioactive Man, for one--haha! But it's interesting to compare this version of Capt Atom with Moore's Dr. Manhattan. I see that Moore went the opposite direction, making his omnipotent godlike hero (eventually antihero) America's "least-guarded" secret, in order to deter enemies. This early version makes the Capt known only to a lowly Sarge and the President of the US. I also want to say something about the visual appearance of the hero as rendered by Ditko. When he flies, you especially see the resemblance to Marvel Comic's Capt Marvel, with the little popped out stars in the milky white wake of the flight. I regret that the Marvel movies didn't try to pay some sort of visual homage to that effect in their version of this hero. In summary, I think that Capt Atom might be the hero behind many other heroes that came later, for good or for ill.
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