COLD WAR 105
the Russians were just like them, allies to be trusted. Th is was important as much of the
aid sent overseas was being directed towards the Russian front. Several comics, notably
an issue of Boy Commandoes, published by National (the forerunner of DC), written
by Joe Simon and drawn by Jack Kirby, celebrated the bravery of the Russian people,
drawing parallels between them and ordinary Americans, When the war was over there
was no longer the imperative to attack the Nazis and the Japanese, which was one of
the reasons that superhero comics fl oundered in the immediate post-war years—there
was no credible enemy to fi ght. Th ere was also no reason to persist with the fantasy that
the Russians had the same goals and aspirations as the Americans. However, tensions
between the United States and the Soviet Union, the only superpowers to emerge from
the war, soon started to emerge, as both began to defi ne their spheres of infl uence in
Europe and South East Asia. In response to this, popular culture returned to the theme
of the communist threat (which had been a popular theme in the 1920s and 1930s).
Th e revelation that the United States had successfully developed atomic weapons, and
indeed, had dared to use them in the closing stages of the war against two Japanese cities,
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, made the emerging competition between the United States
and the Soviet Union all the more terrifying. When the Soviet Union tested their fi rst
atomic device in 1949, partly aided by espionage by those involved in the Manhattan
Project, the Cold War truly began. Over the next four decades popular culture would
dramatize the Cold War in fi lms, novels, television shows and comics, focusing primar-
ily on the threat of communist domination, the infi ltration of U.S. industry, culture, and
politics by communist spies, the dangers of liberalism in promoting communism, and,
most notably, the widespread fear of nuclear war.
Th e Cold War’s representation in comics was typically sensationalistic. Following
the decline in the popularity of superhero comics in the postwar years other genres took
their place, such as romance, the We s t e r n, and crime comics. None of these genres
were particularly well-suited to dealing with Cold War themes, but there were occa-
sional exceptions, such as romance comics that featured stories such as “I fell in love
with a communist!” In the late 1940s, adventure comics such as Calling All Boys, which
featured stories that addressed the supposed communist menace, in one instance fea-
turing FBI director J. Edgar Hoover on the front cover, labeling him “Crimebuster no.1.”
In 1961 Hoover would again appear in comics, this time in Treasure Chest, in a story
entitled “Th is Godless Communism” in which he outlined the dangers of communism
for young readers. From 1951 to 1956, Quality Comics produced T-Man, a comic
about a U.S. Treasury agent who fought communism, which was somewhat similar to a
comic from Atlas (the forerunner of Marvel), Kent Blake of the Secret Service, adopting
a documentary style in telling readers of the unending battle against communists waged
by the U.S. government (B. Wright, 2003, 123–26). One comic, Is Th is Tomorrow
(1947), published by the Catechetical Guild Educational Society of St. Paul, Minne-
sota, was a phenomenal success, with four million copies being published. As this comic
was produced by a church group, some copies were sold but many others were given
away, mostly to other church groups. It was hysterical in its vision of America under
