104 COLD WAR
or mundane (such as a hand on a doorknob), thus giving each page a dynamic and
highly dramatic sense. Still, authenticity was not lost in his style, as he was careful to use
references to real life buildings and surroundings.
Colan’s methodology involved reading one page of script at a time and then illus-
trating that page. Th is sometimes resulted in editorial diffi culties as he might unex-
pectedly draw more panels (or pages) of something that happened to catch his interest
and he would reach the maximum number of pages before he fi nished the script. For
example, he once drew a multiple-page car chase in Captain America after seeing the
movie Bullitt.
Like many others, Colan struggled to fi nd work during the years of the decline in
comics popularity in the late 1950s and early 1960s. However, once back at DC he did a
variety of non-superhero genre titles (especially romance) and adopted the pseudonym
Adam Austin so that he could also work at Marvel.
Each time he took on a diff erent title Colan brought his creativity with him and
made the work his own. He was DC’s primary artist of Batman in the early 1980s and,
although he is known as the signature artist of Daredevil (illustrating 100 issues), his
eff orts in horror such as his 70 issues of Th e Tomb of Dracula (where he co-created
the character Blade) and mystery, for example, Nathaniel Dusk are also highly notable.
He co-created Howard the Duck with his favorite writer Steve Gerber and also drew
the ensuing newspaper strip. Colan’s cover art for Iron Man 1 was featured on a U.S.
stamp.
Jeff McLaughlin
COLD WAR. Comics, like most popular media, have often taken an extremely simplis-
tic view of the Cold War. Th is confl ict between ideologies and economic systems was
shaped by complex political and historical factors but is frequently portrayed in popu-
lar culture as a battle between insidious commies and heroic Americans, positioned as
defenders of freedom and democracy against the predations of the international com-
munist conspiracy. Th e reasons for this are clear—the products of popular culture are,
for the most part, not well suited to a sophisticated consideration of complex issues, but
rather usually work through a process of reduction and simplifi cation in order to render
entertainment from confl icts between good and evil. Th e result is something that works
much like propaganda or myth, portraying a simple, blunt ideological message. Th ere are
exceptions, or course, but for the most part, from the mid-1940s, when the Cold War
began, to the early 1990s, when it eff ectively ended, this struggle between competing
ideologies provided a stable of villains for popular heroes to confront, shaping how mass
audiences would understand the complex political issues of the day. When World War II
ended in 1945, the Soviet Union had been the ally of the United States and Britain, join-
ing the forces driving the invasion and defeat of Nazi Germany. Th e alliance had always
been an uneasy one, and throughout the war popular culture in general had tackled the
threat of the Axis powers by demonizing the enemy. Simultaneously propaganda and
popular culture worked hand-in-hand to convince the American and British public that
