POST-APOCALYPTIC NARRATIVES 479
Th e Last Man on Earth (1964), Planet of the Apes (1968), and Th e Omega Man (1971)
all started as novels but eventually made their way into comics.
Th e comics industry was still capable of creating its own original material in this
genre as well. DC Comics began the story of the Atomic Knights starting in Strange
Adventures #117 (1960). After civilization’s demise in the Hydrogen War of 1986,
the Atomic Knights, under Sergeant Gardner Grayle, fi ght against the Black Baron, the
ruler of a small Midwest fi efdom. Th ese characters were featured in 15 stories and then
occasionally appeared in the Hercules Unbound series (1977). DC Comics also launched
Kamandi: Th e Last Boy on Earth (1972), which centers on a youth who lives in a world
where anthropomorphic animals dominate the world, often stalking him as prey. Th e
story had grown out of the story, “Th e Last Enemy,” in the anthology comic Alarming
Ta l e s #1 (1957). In 1964, Gold Key Comics launched Mighty Samson , a series following
a hide-clad warrior wandering the northeast region of the United States after a nuclear
war. Th e series ran intermittently and barely made it to issue #32 (1982). Marvel
Comics also played with post-apocalyptic themes in the 1970s with its creation of the
character Deathlok in Astonishing Tales #25 (1974). After a fatal wound, Luther Man-
ning is resurrected into the cyborgnetic body, Deathlok, in a future where the United
States has all but been destroyed by factions. Eventually, Manning returns to his original
time, but for a while he attempts to right the wrongs of the disheveled future. In 1975,
Charlton Comics ran Doomsday +1 , a 12 issue series in which a nuclear war results in
the near annihilation of mankind; the crew of a returning space shuttle fi nds themselves
in a very diff erent world than the one they left.
From the 1980s to the 2000s, the standard triggers for an apocalypse continued to be
ecological or environmental disaster, war (nuclear or otherwise), plague, or, particularly
in the 2000s, zombies. Ironically, this range represented the Biblical Four Horsemen of
the Apocalypse: Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death. Th e other major theme to emerge
at this time, almost never addressed or referenced previously in comics, was post-
apocalyptic worlds based upon religious or spiritual beliefs. Series such as Curse of the
Spawn (1996), Just a Pilgrim (2000), Ascend (2004), and Th erefore Repent (2008) all
rely heavily on specifi c Christian elements of the build up to and aftermath of the Apo-
calypse. Th is was in part fueled by the rise in popularity of Christian fi ction, particularly
apocalyptic fi ction, including Th e New York Times best-selling series Left Behind , by Tim
LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Other series have spoofed the religious-oriented apocalypse,
including Jesus Hates Zombies (2007) from Alterna Comics. Th is collection of shorts
features the second coming of Jesus, a bat-wielding, jeans-wearing wanderer of a nearly
abandoned Earth dishing out death to zombie horders.
Xenozoic Tales (1987) best represents the ecological disaster narrative. Environmental
devastation and a series of cataclysmic natural disasters force humanity to resorts to
underground cities for nearly six centuries. Upon reemerging, they discover that the
world has been reclaimed by dinosaurs and other life forms, leaving humanity to
attempt to recreate civilization. Th e war motif can be found in Ex- Mutants (1986),
a series that takes place in the future after war has destroyed civilization and mutated
