106 COLD WAR
communism, suggesting a battle of apocalyptic proportions. Th is comic appeared at the
same time as President Truman’s address to Congress that set forth the “ Truman Doc-
trine,” which stated that the United States should oppose the spread of communism in
all its forms in order to protect capitalism and democracy. Th e underlying assumption
was that the two systems, communism and capitalism, could not co-exist in the world
and that each would always seek the destruction of the other. Th is corresponded to
the tone of Is Th is Tomorrow, which was so successful that the guild published another
such warning against communist infi ltration, Blood is the Harvest, in 1950 (Barson and
Heller 2001, 156–58). Such direct attempts to manipulate and guide the public con-
sciousness were common in magazines, pulp novels, and fi lms at this time, and it comes
as no surprise that comics were equally, if not more, blatant.
In the early 1950s, with the onset of the Korean War (1950–53), war comics had a
resurgence of popularity, with titles such as War Comics, Battlefi eld, Battle Front, Battle
Action, and Marines in Battle. Th e majority of war comics at this time were produced by
Atlas Comics, which had been Timely Comics, former publishers of Captain America.
In a sense these new war comics were similar to Captain America; they were well pro-
duced, though quite brutal and occasionally racist, but without the superheroes. Fightin’
Marines was published by St. John’s Publishing and left no doubt that the “Commies”
were a plague that had to be wiped out. National published Our Army at War, Our
Fighting Forces and Star-Spangled War Stories, which were of better quality than most
war comics of the time (N. Wright, 2000, 170–72). Th e best war comics to deal with
the Cold War were those produced by EC Comics, who published intelligent antiwar
comics such as such as Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat. Written and drawn by
Harvey Kurtzman, these war comics were sophisticated and thought provoking in a
way that no other comics on the market were. Th e same was true of other EC Comics,
such as Shock SuspenStories, which dealt with provocative themes such as murder, rape,
and prejudice. Naturally, this antiwar stance, and the popularity of these comics made
them unpopular with other publishers, and an easy target for politicians and those who
were critical of the comics industry. In time this would help bring about the undoing of
EC as a comics publisher.
In 1953 Atlas Comics saw the opportunity to bring back superheroes, no doubt
sensing that the fear of communism would give the superhero back the appeal they had
enjoyed at the height of the war. Th ey released Young Men and Men’s Adventures, which
featured Th e Human Torch, Th e Sub-Mariner, and Captain America. Th en, in 1954
each of these wartime superheroes were given back their own titles, this time fi ght-
ing the communist threat. Th e comics had slogans such as “Captain America, Commie
Smasher!” and there were supervillains such as Comrade X, and endless alien invaders,
almost always revealed to be Soviet spies in disguise, intent on stealing atomic secrets.
Th ese comics tapped into the hugely popular science fi ction fi lms of the time, which
also played on Cold War paranoia, while also reproducing the tried and tested messages
learned from wartime experience, simply replacing the Nazis and Japanese with com-
munists. Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Jr. took part in the Korean war at times, and Simon
