So, let's look at Captain Atom a little closer......
When Ditko came back to Charlton, so did Captain Atom, albeit, first, in reprints, in Strange Suspense Stories (with his costume recolored yellow in the origin story)...
It was enough to whet the appetite and with issue #78, Strange Suspense Stories became Captain Atom...
The stories continue much as before, a mixture of alien invaders and Cold War paranoia. The first new story, by Joe Gill, sees aliens nab a professor, who they mind control, and use to build new rockets for conquering space. Captain Adam is assigned as a bodyguard and does a bad job; so, Captain Atom has to save the day.
The next issue changes things up, giving us a true-blue supervillain, Dr Spectro...
The story opens with a gang of crooks hijacking an Air Force truck, filled with top secret gear (and little in the way of security. Stupid Zoomies!) Captain Atom tracks down the crooks and breezes past steel barriers, to find a list of the gangs who were providing the stuff to the dealer who sold them to the highest bidder.
Tracking a lead on the last gang, Captain Adam is at a circus, to meet up with his sidekick, Air Force NCO Gunner. While there, he takes in the show of Dr Spectro...
The gang are in the audience and they see a way to get an edge and approach Spectro; but, he is tired of people using him (hmmmmmmm....producers and exploiters........hmmmmmmm) and lashes out; but, he gets knocked about and is hit with his own reflected ray...
Well, now the defecation hits the oscillator and the gang hits the bricks, and are spotted by Sgt Gunner. he follows and alerts CA that they are robbing a bank. CA confronts Spectro about helping mankind; but, he has had enough and zaps the flyboy. CA stops the bank robbers and faces down Spectro, who is imbalanced by his own ray. he is driving crowds into frenzies and CA engages and we get quite a battle...
the battle reaches a climax and Spectro is dispersed as pure light...
However, the door is left open to his return. It comes two issues later, after a return to the alien invader trope. This time, he is reconstituted as 5 miniature versions, each with a different color power. These mini-doctors gang up on CA and give him a pretty hard time, before he finally defeats them, reconstituting his original form, just in time for the bad doctor to be hauled away in handcuffs.
Issue 82 sees the introduction to Captain Atom's deadliest foe (of the Charlton era) and the introduction of another Action Hero: Nightshade. Dave Kaler is listed as the writer, but the plot is definitely Ditko (as were the previous ones). Captain Atom is briefed about an industrial spy, the Ghost, who may be targeting government secrets. he is then introduced to his partner for the mission...
The duo are sent off to a party, thrown by Alec Rois, a millionaire who is the Ghost. He had everything, except money, growing up and couldn't win over the girls (it's Ditko's plot alright) and used his scientific genius to create a teleportation device. Our heroes change into their identities, as Captain Adam, USAF and Eve Eden..
After much James Bondian action, they run up against the Ghost, who attempts to steal the gold in Ft Knox....
Along the way, our two heroes learn each other's identity, get bested by the Ghost, and come back for more. It's a great story and a great debut for the Nightshade. The Ghost would turn out to be a favorite and would return.
Issues 83 and 84 see a change in direction...
Captain Atom's suit is damaged and he must keep a crowd away from him, as radiation leaks out. This becomes public knowledge and society begins to wonder if Captain Atom is a menace, especially a nosy female reporter (without a pillbox hat). he is even taken prisoner and his face revealed, though hiis white hair keeps people from recognizing him (un-huh...). Eventually, a liguid metal is injected into him to create a new radiation suit, which he can transform at will, creating his new look...
This is the look carried forward until the character debuts at DC, in Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Meanwhile, those two issues also see Blue Beetle join up for back-up stories, as Ditko pulls double duty. He crafts (with Gary Friedrich) an ongoing tale of BB running afoul of the law. In the first installment, BB takes down some crooks by lifting their car with the Bug and depositing it for the police. They claim he was the mastermind who double crossed them. The next chapter ishows us the secret entrance to BB's hangout, beneath the Kord Industries building...
He foils an attempt by the Masked Marauder from infiltrating his labs (while finding his girl snooping in his files). The Marauder has an idea who BB is and makes a phone call. The police turn up at the end to talk to Ted Kord about the murder of Dan Garrett. The story carries forward, with BB defeating spies and saboteurs and Count Von Steuben, the Masked Marauder. It leads into the Blue Beetle's own series, which I got backwards, in the previous installment. Ted Kord debuts in this back-up series, then gets his own series, which progresses the story until we see his origin, in that second issue, with the death of Dan Garrett. My mistake.
While this goes on, Captain Atom and Nightshade meet up with two of my favorite Charlton supervillains, Punch and Jewelee
The story finds the duo snatching a scientist off a golf course, where Jewelee demonstrates her ability to hypnotize via gemstones. Capt. Adam and Eve Eden are frollicking in Alec Rois's pool (the still don't know he is the Ghost, as he disappeared at the end of their last adventure) and he is sudden;y captured in a giant gem and disappears under their noses. They switch into working clothes and head after him.
We find the evil duo at their Coney Island lair, deep under the park. We learn their origin, how they were carny performers who discovered a strange chest, with Punch's flying shoes and Jewelee's hypno-gem.
They use them to hypnotize a realtor into selling them the property and workers to build their lab, then embark on their career of crime, stealing scientific discoveries. They nab Captain Atom after he has been weakened by tests of his powers, but he is able to get a call to nightshade, who follows in her nifty hovercraft...
Nightshade arrives in time to save Captain Atom from having his secrets revealed and from unknowingly being ambushed by the Ghost...
Punch goes down but Jewelee escapes, and the Ghost steals some scientific devices. This sets up the next issue, when the Ghost returns in costume. He battles our pair of Action heroes, until a
deus ex machina ending, where aliens appear to bring the Ghost back to his people.
With issue 87, Nightshade gets the back-up feature, with stunning art from Jim Aparo; but, only two installments, as Captain Atom ends with issue #89. That issue sees the Ghost on his home planet, where he is a kind of god. In actual fact, Alec Rois has been using the technology of the original "Faceless One," this planet's evil god. He wants to get back home and get even with Captain Atom, using their technology. he is able to convince the alien women into letting him return, where he is warned off by another villain, 13, who wants to nab a missile. Well, that leads to a three-way match, with CA vs the two villains, that ends with a cliffhanger, with CA prisoner on the alien planet. Issue 90 would see the conclusion; but, issue 90 would not be published, as the series was cancelled and Ditko had headed off to DC. Dick Giordano would soon follow and the entire Action Hero line would be put to sleep.
That lost Ditko story would eventually see the light of day in the Charlton Bullseye fanzine first issue, in the story "Showdown in Sunuria." The issue was not inked and it was finished by the CPL Gang and their member, one John Byrne.
The nuclear hero would make one more Charlton appearance, in the Charlton Bullseye comic, in issue 7. However, this was not Ditko; it was Dan Reed, one of the young fans who hoped to break into comics via the Charlton bullseye comic, which was a showcase for new talent. Reed returns Captain Atom to the yellow costume and battling an alien invader. he also gives him the name of
John Adam, Capt., USAF, instead of Allen. The issue also sees a final Nightshade story, written and drawn by Bill Black (the publisher of AC Comics). She faces off against the Ghost.
Beyond that, the gang would only be seen in the CPL Portfolio, which featured unused art for several of the Action heroes, as well as new pin-up art. More on that later.
Captain Atom would lie dormant for a bit, at DC, while they put their plans together. Blue Beetle and the Question would already be running around in BB's comic, for a year before Captain Atom was reintroduced to the post-Crisis DC Universe. There, he is Nathaniel Adam, Capt., USAF, who is part of a nuclear experiment, which sends him several years into the future, reintroducing him as the nuclear hero, with the villains to follow...
That series, from Cary Bates and Pat Broderick would soon prove to be one of my favorites, of the late 80s (along with Denny O'Neil and Denys Cowan's Question) and lead me to seek out some of the Charlton issues (including #85). Both series were fantastic, even as they approached the hero differently.
Captain Atom ended up being a major success for DC and a major player in the DCU, joining the JLI, as well as providing key moments in Invasion and Armageddon 2000, where he was supposed to be revealed as the future Monarch, until word got out and DC made a last minute change to the thoroughly unbelievable choice of Hank "Hawk" Hall, thereby killing that villain for any real potential. Cap eventually made it into the Justice League animated series, during the Justice League Unlimited phase, where he is put at odds with Superman, due to his status as a government agent. That series also made great use of the Question, sparking the character's renaissance at DC (while they were murdering Ted Kord). The Charlton Action Heroes got a sort of curtain call in the final episode of the series, as part of the Ditko character grouping...
Next, we look at Ditko's more defined expression of Ayn Rand's philosophy, The Question.