Strange Adventures #117
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeStrange Adventures #117 is the debut issue of the Atomic Knights, one of DC's most distinctive Silver Age concepts: a team of everyday survivors — a soldier, a schoolteacher, his sister, twin brothers, and a scientist — who don medieval plate armor rendered radiation-resistant by nuclear war and work to rebuild civilization in a shattered 1986. The feature was among the earliest serialized, continuity-driven backup strips in DC's science-fiction line, advancing its cast and setting in something approaching real time across four years and 15 installments, a structural ambition rare in anthology comics of the era. Arriving squarely at the peak of Cold War nuclear anxiety, it channeled the collective dread of fallout shelters and duck-and-cover drills into a heroic, hopeful narrative about human resilience rather than doom — making it a culturally significant artifact of early-1960s America as much as a comic-book adventure. The characters introduced here have persisted across six decades of DC continuity, appearing in Bronze Age crossovers, post-Crisis reimaginings, and live-action television.
In the scorched aftermath of nuclear war, ex-soldier Gardner Grayle stumbles upon a town ruled by the tyrannical Black Baron, who hoards canned food and enslaves the survivors. When Grayle confronts the Baron’s enforcers, he discovers that an ancient suit of armor in the local museum can protect him from the Baron’s deadly radiation weapons.
In "The Atomic Knights, Part II," Gardner and his five companions, united as the atomic knights, don armor of unknown origin and take on the responsibility of defending a struggling community. As they stand against hunger and unrest, they demand that the town’s food supply be shared equally—testing their resolve and their faith in justice.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
The Atomic Knights were produced under the editorial stewardship of Julius Schwartz, whose long personal passion for science fiction shaped Strange Adventures from its inception as DC's flagship SF anthology title. Writer John Broome — already the architect of key Silver Age Flash and Green Lantern characters — crafted the inaugural story, 'The Rise of the Atomic Knights,' with artist Murphy Anderson, who rendered the post-apocalyptic landscapes and radiation-proof armored figures in a clean, classically illustrative style drawing comparisons to the great adventure newspaper strips. The feature was originally conceived as a standalone story but proved popular enough to become a rotating quarterly backup, cycling every third issue alongside 'Space Museum' and 'Star Hawkins.' Letters-column credits in the Grand Comics Database note that the issue's usual 'Spotlight on Science' masthead was absent, one of a handful of minor production anomalies documented in the original printing.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance and origin of the Atomic Knights as a team — Gardner Grayle (leader), Douglas Herald, Marene Herald, Hollis Hobard, Wayne Hobard, and Bryndon Smith — all debuting simultaneously in a single story titled 'The Rise of the Atomic Knights.'
- First appearance of the Black Baron, the primary antagonist of the debut story, a warlord hoarding food and ruling the ruined Midwestern town of Durvale by force.
- Created by writer John Broome and artist Murphy Anderson, under the editorship of Julius Schwartz, with lettering by Gaspar Saladino.
- The story is set in a post-apocalyptic 1986 following a devastating 20-day hydrogen war that began October 9, 1986; the opening installment establishes the team's fictional timeline, which advances in approximate real time across the run's subsequent 14 entries through Strange Adventures #160 (January 1964).
- The Atomic Knights feature rotated every third issue of Strange Adventures alongside 'Space Museum' and 'Star Hawkins,' making #117 the anchor of a structured anthology rotation unusual for the era.
- The debut story was reprinted multiple times: in Strange Adventures #217–218 (1969, part of a full reprint run spanning #217–231), in DC Super Stars #2 (April 1976), in Mysteries in Space: The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics (Simon & Schuster, 1980), in the DC hardcover The Atomic Knights (July 2010, collecting all 15 original stories), and in Showcase Presents: The Great Disaster Featuring the Atomic Knights (DC, August 2014). International reprints appeared in Australia (Century Plus Comic #52, September 1960) and France (Sidéral #38, 1961).
- Gardner Grayle was later adapted for live-action television, portrayed by Boone Platt as a recurring character in the Arrowverse series Black Lightning (Season 3).
- In DC Comics Presents #57 (May 1983), the original Atomic Knights stories were retroactively explained as a sensory-deprivation simulation experienced by Grayle — a retcon broadly considered non-canonical with respect to the original Earth of the Great Disaster continuity.
Cast · 7 characters
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↩ Reprints Green Lantern #38 (1949)
Reprinted in Century Plus Comic #52 (1960), Sidéral #38 (1961), Metal Men #20 (1966), Strange Adventures #217 (1969), Strange Adventures #218 (1969), Monde Futur #4 (1971), Monde Futur #5 (1971), DC Super Stars #2 (1976), Mundo de Aventuras #186 (1977), The Rocket's Blast Comicollector #146 (1978), Mysteries in Space: The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics #[nn] (1980), The Atomic Knights #[nn] (2010), Showcase Presents: The Great Disaster Featuring the Atomic Knights #[nn] (2014), Mighty Comic #19, Titanes Planetarios #112
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