12 Shocking Real-Life Incidents That Affected Comics

4. The Bombing Of Nagasaki And Hiroshima And The Creation Of The Hulk

Whilst overtly referencing 18th century horror fiction such as Frankenstein and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the Hulk was essentially a product of post-Cuban missile crisis America, and a response to the atomic anxiety that pervaded the era. As an example of both the perceived positive and negative effects of radiation, The Hulk€™s creation can also be traced and connected to the H-Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is interesting to consider that while the victims of the bomb, the Japanese, responded culturally by creating a monstrous creature Gojira, which reflected the destructiveness of the Atomic Bomb, American culture gave us a powerful, hyper-masculine hero like the Hulk - albeit with similar destructive capabilities. Although the Hulk could be seen to be an indirect cultural response to that incident, other comic book heroes were also closely associated with the bomb, notably Superman acting as an Airborne cinematographer, documenting a Pacific test detonation, as famously depicted on the cover of Action Comics No. 101.