Cover art by C.C. Beck
In August 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in the hopes of bringing a swift end to World War II. The first fell on the city of Hiroshima, with the second targeting Nagasaki three days later. While the twin bombings did bring about the desired peace, it was at an immense cost, with an estimated 129,000 to 226,000 people killed as a result. Half of them died during the actual bombing while the rest succumbed to radiation poisoning over the next few months. Although the United States was the only country at that time who had acquired the atomic bomb, the threat of nuclear annihilation quickly consumed the nation nonetheless.
The following year, Captain Marvel – a Fawcett Comics superhero whose powers were granted to him by Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury – comes face-to-face with nuclear annihilation in Captain Marvel Adventures #66. Bill Batson, boy reporter for WHIZ radio, is telling his listeners that it’s a beautiful day outside when a news bulletin is suddenly received by the station.
“The city of Chicago was just destroyed five minutes ago by a terrific explosion,” it states. “It was thought to be an atomic bomb.” Batson transforms himself into Captain Marvel with the utterance of a single word – SHAZAM – and immediately flies to Chicago.
Captain Marvel arrives to a city in flames and at first cannot detect a single survivor. He soon hears a scream for help, however, and rescues a mother and her child from a burning house. The superhero tells them they are safe but the pair die as soon as he places them on the ground. “The blast didn’t get them but radioactive burns did,” Captain Marvel says to himself. “That’s how horrible this atomic bomb is. It’ll be the same all over. No one soul is alive in Chicago. Four million people, wiped out like flies. It’s horrible… horrible… horrible.”
After the Soviet Union acquired the atomic bomb in 1949, President Harry Truman authorized the establishment of a nuclear bomb testing site a mere 65 miles north of Las Vegas. In 1953, a “town” was constructed to gauge the effects of an atomic blast, with mannequins inside the houses as stand-ins for actual people. In his 2010 book, The Dragon’s Tail: Americans Face the Atomic Age, Robert Jacobs writes that two colonial frame homes were of particular interest, one located a half-mile from “ground zero” and the other an additional mile away. A street sign was placed in front of the former, noting the corner of Elm and Main.
The media was invited to inspect the town before and after, and photos of “House One” were featured in Time magazine. “House One looked like a match box crumbled on a table,” the accompanying article noted. Nevada Highways and Parks offered a similar assessment, captioning their own photograph with the words, “Tornadic force tears House Number One asunder like matches.”
The Las Vegas Review Journal wrote after another test, “A mannequin mother died horribly in her one-bedroom house of precast concrete slabs. Portions of her plaster and paint body were found in three different areas. A mannequin tot, perhaps the size of your three-year-old, was blown out of bed and showered with needle-sharp glass fragments.”
Nevada was considered by the military as a more ideal test site than the Pacific Ocean – it was closer to weapon labs located in New Mexico and California, was cheaper than employing navy vessels and transporting the bombs, and the blasts were easier to observe. Only smaller fission bombs were ignited in Nevada, never the more powerful thermonuclear ones, and the threat to both army personnel assigned to the tests and those living downwind – including in Las Vegas – was continually downplayed. Attempts were instead made to spin the blasts, light flashes, strong winds, and noticeable fallout as routine, with no cause for alarm.
“Simply stated, all such findings have confirmed that the Nevada test fallout has not caused illness or injured the health of anyone living near the test site,” an Atomic Tests in Nevada pamphlet reassured. “The effects of the flash of light are essentially no different from those of sunlight. Shock waves go out in all directions from the detonation. Some strike the earth and are dissipated. Some are reflected back to earth from various atmospheric layers. If they reach earth at an inhabited point, they may be felt or heard.”
Instead of fear, those who lived nearby should be proud – “You people who live near the Nevada Test Site are in a very real sense participants in the Nation’s atomic test program.”
After leaving Chicago, Captain Marvel discovers a bevy of rocket bombs flying over the United States. He tries his best to save Pittsburgh, but there are too many rockets for him to stop and the Steel City soon suffers the same fate as Chicago. It isn’t just America being targeted but other countries as well. These nations inevitably launch their own atomic weapons and within twenty-four hours the entire planet has been decimated by an atomic Armageddon. While big cities have been destroyed by the bombs themselves, those living on farms and small villages perish from the effects of the radiation.
“Everyone died in this atomic war,” Captain Marvel realizes. “I’m the only man left alive.”
While no precautions were deemed necessary for the atomic devices detonated by the United States in Nevada, the bombs being built by the Soviet Union were another matter. Immediately after the Soviets detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949, the U.S. government began assuring the American populace that they could survive a nuclear attack, albeit with proper protection.
According to Robert Jacobs in The Dragon’s Tail, twenty million copies of a survival pamphlet were distributed by the National Security Resources Board, that stated, “If you follow the pointers in this little booklet you stand far better than an even chance of surviving the bomb’s blast, heat, and radioactivity.” Additional pamphlets quickly followed, not only offering advice but suggesting that it was one’s patriotic duty to take the necessary steps for surviving an atomic bomb.
Facts About the H-Bomb listed the ways that Americans could protect themselves: “Get a civil defense disaster first aid kit. (2) Learn how to use it. (3) Practice fire-safe housekeeping. (4) Learn to fight small fires. (5) Maintain a 3-day emergency supply of food and water at all times. (6) Equip the most protected place you can find in or near your home for an air-raid shelter. (7) Know how to practice emergency sanitation measures if necessary.”
How to Survive an Atomic Bomb was more simplistic. “Always shut windows and doors,” it stated. “Always seek shelter. Always drop flat on your stomach. Always follow instructions. Never look up. Never rush outside after a bombing. Never take chances with food and water. Never start rumors.”
All of the guides primarily stressed how individuals and families could survive an atomic attack as opposed to community efforts. This emphasis on individualism inevitably led to an “every man for himself” philosophy, especially regarding fallout shelters. An April 1961 article in Time magazine entitled “Gun Thy Neighbor?” featured a photo of an armed family standing next to a four-inch-thick door accompanied by the quote, “This isn’t to keep radiation out, it’s to keep people out.” A man in Chicago, meanwhile, told Time, “When I get my shelter finished, I’m going to mount a machine gun at the hatch to keep the neighbors out.”
A man in Connecticut was more proactive, giving his neighbor early warning of his intentions to kill her and her baby if they ever tried to get into his shelter during a nuclear attack.
As an American family watches their television set, a young Billy Batson tells viewers, “Well folks, take a deep breath and relax. As you know, this is only a television broadcast from station WHIZ. We tried our best to show what an atomic war would be like, if it ever came. We were handicapped by studio limitations – the atomic war would be much worse.”
“I’m thankful station WHIZ put that television show on,” the father tells his children afterwards. “It teaches us all a lesson. The world just can’t afford to have another war because it would wipe out all civilization and human life.” One of the kids replies, “I guess we’d all better learn to live and get along together – one nation with all the other nations and one person with all other persons – so that this terrible atomic war will never occur.”
Anthony Letizia