Welcome to the Bongo Comics Box! Today’s feature: Radioactive Man #1! The last first issue of the OG Bongo comics series. This is the one I’ve been looking forward to, the Radioactive Man origin story!
Bongo Nostalgia Corner
It took me a bit of time to discover the Radioactive Man comics at my local comic book store. They had filed them in its own section away from the rest of Bongo Comics, almost as if they thought it was a true blue superhero series? Once I found the section, I found all the existing comics. I was quite pleased.
This is the closest I ever came to reading an actual superhero comic in the ‘90s, and I always enjoyed them immensely. Maybe I should’ve taken the hint and tried to read actual Marvel and DC stories, but live and learn. Never too late, obviously.
Radioactive Man, Issue #1 [December, 1993]
Written by: Steve Vance
“The Origin of Radioactive Man”
”All is peaceful in the desert… a jackrabbit sniffs the air… a sleepy Gila monster suns itself on a big rock… a couple of baby prairie dogs romp playfully… suddenly, the ground rumbles! A bright white flash obliterates every living thing for miles around! And a dazzling, glorious fireball climbs skyward! It looks like a dawning sun – the sun of a new age – the ATOMIC AGE!! Sure, a few pesky varmints have been atomized, but that’s price we must pay in order to harness the power of the atom! And with this new atomic power comes a new hero – a new defender of American liberty – a new foe of subversion and juvenile delinquency – yes, this is THE ORIGIN OF RADIOACTIVE MAN!”
Oh man. Oh boy. I just got goosebumps, dear readers! Goosebumps! Hey, I should write about Goosebumps! That would be fun! Where was I?
The city? Zenith. The place? An orphans’ charity ball. The man? Millionaire playboy Claude Kane III. The love interest? Reporter Gloria Grand. “Gosh, Gloria, you know how I feel about you!” chirps a slightly forlorn Claude Kane III, who is dancing with his beloved at the ball. “Why won’t you go out with me?”
“*yawn!* Just because you’ll never amount to anything, Claude! You’re just a frivolous socialite!”
Well, that hurts. Right in the ribs, this jab. How Kane longs to bone this blue-haired beauty! Oh well, perhaps another time when he becomes Radioactive Man! Tee hee heh heh.
Kane’s father, an esteemed physicist, has waited up for his lousy son. When is this wretched spawn going to make something of himself instead of constantly dancing the night away?? How embarrassing, goddamnit! “Aw, Pop… I’ve only been out of school for five years! Can’t a guy live a little?”
Maybe a chunk of shrapnel in the ol’ noggin will get that mind of yours right.
The next morning, Kane stalks Gloria Grand’s radio station to ask her yet again on a date. That’s 4,000 days in a row that he has attempted to get in her pants and she is tired of all of it. She rolls her eyes, which is something of a knee-jerk reaction to Kane’s blithering, and tells him that she’ll be busy on the scene reporting Poppa Kane’s mega-bomb test! Kane is put out again! Perhaps tomorrow.
That evening, at a swanky nightclub, Claude overhears part of a suspicious conversation… A flattop man clinks glasses with a sleazy Vincent Price-type. They overtly discuss killing Dr. Kane, collecting their money from Dr. Crab, and escaping to international waters! Holy cow! “Hmmm… that man mentioned Pop – and money! Say, that reminds me, Pop hasn’t forked over my allowance this week! Maybe I’ll drive out to the lab and pick it up.”
Sounds like a fucking plan to me. While Kiddy Kane drives and gets completely, hopelessly lost, Flattop and Vincent Price bust into Dr. Kane’s lab with guns and gangster hats! “HANDS UP, EVERYBODY!” they yell, ready to do some damage! Gloria Grand is there getting the scoop, but these ruffians intend to detonate Dr. Kane’s mega-bomb, steal his top secret test data, and pass it along to the Soviets! Nah ha ha ha haaaa! Russia’s gonna build their own mega-bomb so that Putin can sit on it and stroke his dick for a bit 65 years later.
Long story short, Claude Kane III gets stuck in the middle of nowhere and leaves his car. Thinking he has found a small town in the desert, he instead walks right into the mega-bomb test site. The Soviets have started the countdown – five minutes. The lab personnel are tied up against the wall, powerless to stop them! Oh no!
Claude discovers a lone wooden tower slightly in the outskirts of the fake test site town. Intending to climb up to see the area from the top, there is exactly one minute and twenty-five seconds until bomb time.
Looks like a fake to me. *smacks it around with a hammer*
Having discovered the bomb, Claude scrambles down the tower and attempts to hide behind a pile a small boulders! Surely this shall work!
He doesn’t get that far; snagged by his pants on barbed wire, he prepares to take the full brunt of the horrible atomic explosion. Boom and whatnot. “YAARRRRRGH!!” and whatnot, also.
“As smoke from the tremendous blast begins to clear, there is no sign of life… or is there?”
Claude emerges from the smoke jacked as hell with a yellow lightning bolt-shaped piece of shrapnel embedded into his head. Feeling no pain – feeling pretty good, in fact – Claude runs to his car with the intention of getting back to his father’s lab. His car, once stuck in the sand, gets dislodged easily by lifting the whole car with one hand! Claude Kane III is a strong dude! “Well, what do you know! My body… coursing with strange power! It feels like pure, clean energy! Yikes! Have I become a… a… a radioactive man?”
Pffft. Crazy talk.
Claude discovers that he can fly. Like a filthy pigeon. “Pop’s mega-bomb! Somehow it’s given me powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men and women! Wheee! This is fun!”
The newly radioactived-man flies his ass to his father’s labs to give pops the ol’ good news. Flattop and Vincent Price hear a sound outside and investigate! Claude got his ass caught in a convertible car’s top. “Vhut ze — ?! Somevun smash our getavay car!”
Time to kill a nerd.
The gangsters shoot off their guns. The bullets bounce right off Claude. He starts punching the two of them. Just hammering them in the jaw and rendering them seven kinds of unconscious. “Say… that’s a nice hat!” he says, donning it atop his shrapnelled noggin’. Then he saves everyone and it’s time for breakfast!
All in a day’s work, m’lady!
“Eef I ever learn ze identity of zat man in black, I vill not only kill him, I vill kill his family, his friends, his dog – all of his loved ones!” mumbles a rather surly Vincent Price. He’s just salty because he’s going to jail. Cry me a fucking river.
Later that night, Claude Kane III mulls over using these powers for good instead of, of course, *checks handbook* …evil. “I’ll need a disguise – something bold – powerful – with future merchandising potential!”
This is the part where he becomes Radioactive Man now. Champion of Justice! Breakfast of Champions! Breakfast at Tiffany’s! Did I have a stroke?
Let’s jump ahead. Obviously, Claude Kane III has become a rather well-seasoned superhero. Now he faces criminals and supervillains the likes of which no rational person would ever come across accidentally, much less on purpose. Hunchbacked doctors with sinister glasses and evil noses with death rays and ugly sneers. This one is named Dr. Crab. He mutates someday, but not today.
“Ha ha ha! Radioactive Man is helpless before ze power of my atom smasher ray!” Dr. Crab cries as Radioactive Man is enshrouded in brilliant green light with a “GULP” look on his face!
He escapes, though, and busts his way into the hideout of the Notorious Red Fez Spy Ring. There, he beats up a bunch of Shriners. “Where’s your boss, Fez Boy?” he yells, crushing the barrel of the criminal’s gun right in his hands. “Where’s Dr. Crab?!”
Ah, the atom smasher ray must come later. Right now, Radioactive Man has not yet become atom-smashed.
Dumbass superheroes always knocking the grunts unconscio-gurk.
After the caped crusader makes short work of these fools and scum, he muses upon his desire to get a secret hideout like all the other cool superheroes. Like a Fortress of Aloneness! Or some sort of Cave where Bats happen to hang out. He finds a model of the geodesic dome outside of a architectural firm and steals it right under their noses. lol and, of course, lmao
Claude uses this fancy whiz-bang futuristic building model to construct his own structure atop Mount Zenith, which he dubs the Containment Dome! Now he has a place to jerk it in peace!
Playing Solitaire in his cozy Containment Dome, the radio reports upon Radioactive Man’s triumph on thwarting the Red Fez gang! Now it’s onto Gloria Grand’s own news show. Today’s featured topic: juvenile delinquency! “The cause is simple, Gloria,” asserts special guest J. J. Bellwether. “The evil comic books published by William G. Maimes! His comics are filled with crime, horror, and loose behavior. They’re undermining the morals of our children.”
Egads! It’s comic books yet again! No wonder today’s youth are sticking dynamite in cat buttholes! Bellwether advises throwing out the bad comic books and filling their shelves instead with Hartley! The bug-eyed Archie-like teenager, written and published by none other than J. J. Bellwether!
I wouldn’t let that nerd in my house.
Radioactive Man is thinking about boning Gloria Grand, who is challenging Bellwether’s opinion based on his biased position. “That Gloria – she’s such a bleeding heart!” Radioactive Man laughs. “There’s nothing wrong with today’s teens that a good prison won’t cure!”
Donning a hat, Claude shows up in his Claude clothes to try and court the young Gloria. Yet again. A reporter named Gretchen stops Claude in the hallway to swoon and get all musty in the undercarriage, but there needs to be focus here! Gloria is the prize!
“Swell broadcast, Gloria,” Claude smiles like an empty-headed loon. “How about having dinner with me tonight?”
“Oh Claude… won’t you ever give up?”
In the mic room, a reporter presents a special bulletin. Dr. Crab is challenging Radioactive Man! He will, and I quote, “humiliate the imperialist lackey” by pulling the biggest heist the town has ever seen! Muah ha ha ha ha haaaa!!
“Jeepers!” cries Claude in his little brain.
No time for that at the moment. Gloria has a project for Claude; she holds up a photograph of strapping young teenager Rod Runtledge. His parents and his twin brother Dodd were all lost in a plane crash in a South American jungle. “Just like I lost Mom,” Claude thinks, “the famous aviatrix! She disappeared on that around-the-world trip when I was a boy!”
I’m falling into the same trap. My own hair is super greasy.
This young Rod’s brains have been scrambled to high heaven like so many delicious eggs! He’s becoming a… *gasp* …juvenile delinquent! And he needs a good man to take him under his wing.
A man, you say? Claude’s a man! “Sorry, Gloria, maybe some othe time. I… er… have to iron my spats.”
And then Claude fucks out of there to go be Radioactive Man again. He thinks about Dr. Crab’s challenge and figures to go to the HOUSE OF GIANT PROPS considering it will be the “biggest” heist ever! Claude’s a genius! A real brain savant! The prop distribution establishment just bought a giant solid-gold record to commemorate some douche’s gold record sales. Dr. Crab’s gonna steal that giant record.
Radioactive Man leaps to the roof of the building and peers down the windows, where he spots Dr. Crab and his cronies being quite villainous! “Hurry up!” Dr. Crab gripes. “Vith ze pipeline in place, I can begin melting ze gold vith my atom smasher ray. Zen ve pump ze into ze tanker truck and drive away.”
Sounds like a capital plan! Who’s going to stop this ruthless act of Grand Theft Record?
KRASH! Radioactive Man bolts his ass down into the warehouse. Dr. Crab revels in the fact that Radioactive Man actually showed up! Beautiful! “Zo… ve finally meet, capitalist dolt! For ze first – and last – time.” Crab aims his atom smasher ray at “our hero” and pulls the trigger. He narrowly misses! Smashed atoms must be Radioactive Man’s kryptonite (for those who don’t get the reference, bullets to his parents’ faces is Batman’s kryptonite).
Dr. Crab hits a mirror of a giant microscope, which bounces off and zaps Radioactive Man right in his dick. “Yeow!” he is heard to scream as he glows an incandescent green. He accidentally slams into the giant gold record, which starts to topple onto Crab and his cronies. “AAIIIIEEE!”
The cronies get smashed and Dr. Crab books it. Radioactive Man loses him in the city in the dead of night, but lo’! There’s another crime in progress!
Son, that state-of-the-art television set is worth $5,500!
Radioactive Man spots Rod Runtledge stealing electronics with his greaser buddies. Mistaking the situation as Rod trying to carry a definitely-not-stolen TV home, Radioactive Man grabs both of them and flies away to help out.
Gloria Grand lives in the same apartment building as Rod. When they crash through the window, Gloria gets to see the hunky Radioactive Man being a good male influence to the little pantspisser. “Sigh, what a man!” she says later. “Why can’t I ever be asked out by someone like Radioactive Man instead of that lunkhead Claude Kane!”
I’ll lunkhead you, lady. Radioactive Man (from now on referred to as “RM” because I’m really fucking tired of writing that out) and Rod mosey over to Rod’s place where they drop off the TV and head to Rod’s bedroom. There they discover that Rod has a collection of — *gasp* — comic books!!
“This is terrible!” RM spits as he rifles through the collection. Lurid Comics. Tales of Revolting Filth. Crime Does Pay. Gore Comics. Headlight Comics. Stab Comics. “What self-respecting comic book publisher would print such ghastly images for children to see?”
RM now has a bone to pick with the publisher. He flies back into the night. “How disturbing! These comics have clearly been a bad influence on Rod! I’ve got to put a stop to this!”
The next day, Gloria has another giant nerd in the studio to talk about the root causes of juvenile delinquency. His name is Hedrick Hertzmann and he looks like he smells terrible. He claims that comic books are part of the communist conspiracy to subvert the young generation. They will weaken childrens’ minds and make them vulnerable to the red invaders! Buy his book!!
RM, listening to radio, is all like “jeepers creepers it’s worse than i thought i didn’t know that rod runtledge is now prey to the reds”. It is then purported that the head publisher, William G. Maimes, has a Moscow connection facilitated by one Dr. Crab! THE PLOT THICKENS LIKE DELICIOUS GRAVY!
Zees shreemp cocktail is ze bee’s knees.
After RM discovers Dr. Crab’s hideout, he smashes through the wall and gets immediately zapped with Dr. Crab’s ray! He’s increased the power on it! HA HA HA! Eat smashed atoms, you fool-ass honky.
As RM becomes incapacitated, he topples backward where his lightning bolt hits a metal console, shorting out the atom smasher ray and breaking it apart into three pieces. Without the ray, Dr. Crab is no match for our caped crusader. Time to flee! Bye bye!
Crab KLIKs the lever of his super secret rocket and launches out of a smoke stack. “Bevare, you costumed buffoon! I shall return!”
See, if this were Superman I’d be all like “that shit is beyond mentally challenged”, but here I’m all like “that was pretty good actually”.
With Dr. Crab thwarted, RM makes his way out of the building… but first he eyeballs a giant stack of comics…
Later, at the congressional committee hearing, Maimes tries to defend himself while Hertzmann calls him a red maniac agent of the Kremlin. And, unfortunately, the committee cannot lock up this Maimes guy without proof of comradery and/or Stalin-loving.
BUT IN BURSTS RADIOACTIVE MAN WITH ALL THE EVIDENCE THE COMMITTEE NEEDS!
“I found this stack of Maimes’ comics in the secert hideout of Dr. Crab! That clearly indicates that Maimes and crab are working together!” RM smiles devilishly.
“That’s enough evidence for me!” jubilates one of the committee members.
And so the nefarious Maimes gets taken into custody for his communist leanings! The real bad guy has been removed. Let’s all pat ourselves on the backs and return to a fulfilling evening of tugging at the ol’ pud!
Here’s the final twist! Hertzmann retires to another room and removes his mask, revealing none other than… THAN… uh, hold on… you know, the guy. The guy with the thing. J.J. Bellwether! The rival comic book publisher! And he will once again dominate the comic book market! BWAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!
*cough*
We end with RM finding Rod dumping a large box of comic books into the river. “I realized you were right,” the lad says. “Maimes’ comics are bad for me! I don’t want to turn into a dirty red, so I’m throwing them all away!
Global warming is a hoax, Rod. Don’t let any pinko commie tell you otherwise!
Final Thoughts
How’s that for the legendary, rip-roaring first issue of Radioactive Man! Boy, all that action sure has worn me out! I sure could go for a Hostess Fruit Pie, the kind only the best comic book superheroes recommend! See you next time, Radioactivophiles!
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