POST-APOCALYPTIC NARRATIVES 481
warlords and villains who prey upon the innocent. In the United States, Epic Comics
began publishing Akira in 1988, and Viz Communications started Fist of the North
Star in 1989. However, one of the earliest English translations of Japanese manga also
off ered what could be considered a real-world account of a post-apocalyptic situation.
Originally serialized in 1973, the series Barefoot Gen fi rst appeared to U.S. audiences
in 1976. Th e story tells the story of Gen, a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing and his
attempts to rebuild life among the ruins of Hiroshima with most of his family dead.
Th e series refl ects many of the experiences that the author, Keiji Nakazawa experienced
as a survivor of the event.
Both Marvel and DC Comics have played around with the idea of post-apocalyptic
futures for their continuity-based characters. Despite the many “Crisis” series that DC
has published over the years, their real attempt at depicting a world in the aftermath
of civilization’s destruction and its ultimate revival came in 1996 with Mark Waid and
Alex Ross’s miniseries Kingdom Come. Here, after many of Earth’s original superheroes
have retired or died, a new generation of super-powered people proves less responsible
than their predecessors, generating widespread chaos. Eventually, Superman is coaxed
out of retirement and joins up with others in an attempt to reestablish order, but with
so many fronts and factions, he, Batman , Wonder Woman , and others are barely able
to hold off nuclear destruction.
By contrast, Marvel has tread rather deeply into post-apocalyptic stories over the
years and done so in such a way as to keep it relevant to mainstream continuity. One
of the earliest storylines to do this was “Days of Our Future Past” in Uncanny X-Men
#141–42 (1981). Th ough this story is initially set in a dystopian future where mutants
were killed or herded into internment camps, it gives birth to a variety of future post-
apocalyptic narratives taking place over the following three decades in which numerous
time travelers visit their past (the X-Men’s present) to prevent the future disruption.
Th ere, events were often focused around the assassination of Professor Charles Xavier
as well as Senator Robert Kelly. Th e assassination of Charles Xavier also triggers the
major crossover storyline known as “Age of the Apocalypse” (1995). Th rough the use of
time travel, Xavier is killed even before he creates the X-Men. Th e world is reformed
through the machinations of the evil immortal mutant, Apocalypse, who privileges
mutants while also letting the world decay and fracture.
Building off the success of Kingdom Come , Ross and Jim Krueger created the Earth X
series, a 42 comic series in which Earth becomes a central battleground for god-like
beings. In the wake of the battle, the heroes, villains, and humans of Earth further
mutate and eventually even defeat death. Marvel’s most recent post-apocalyptic series,
Marvel Zombies (2005), explores the concept of superhero zombies ravaging the known
universe (and eventually multiverse) in search of more living beings to eat.
For most of its history, the post-apocalyptic narrative has fallen primarily into the
genre of science fi ction , but increasingly, in the second half of the 20th century, horror
has also featured its share of post-apocalyptic titles infl uenced by Richard Matheson’s
novel I Am Legend (1954), and George Romero’s Living Dead fi lm series (beginning
