On August 6, 1945 the world officially entered the nuclear age. With the
dropping of the atomic bomb, nicknamed "Little Boy," on the Japanese city of
Hiroshima, America displayed its might and willingness to end World War II at
any cost. Sixteen hours later with Truman's announcement, America slowly
began to learn about the secret massive effort that went into developing the
atomic bomb, a program known as "The Manhattan Project." This six year,
two billion dollar project was kept secret from the American public from 1939
until 1945. That is, if the writers of the Superman newspaper strip didn't reveal it first.
In an odd set of circumstances, a 1945 storyline in the Superman comic strip
threatened to expose this atomic program ahead of schedule. In "Episode 34:
The Science of Superman," a science professor attempted to test Superman's
powers using a cyclotron, or as he called it, an "atom-smasher." This was
April 14, 1945. The scientist described that the device was capable of
bombarding "electrons at a speed of 100 million miles per hour and [was]
charged with three million volts" of electricity. Granted, this strip did not give
away the detailed plans of the atomic program. However, in a period where
anything atomic-related was censored, the Superman strip created a story
that blazened atomic power across the country in hundreds of newspapers.
The governmental reaction was swift, but too late. When it came to their
attention, the secret service stepped in to pressure DC to pull the story.
However, the censorship came too late, and most papers had already
published the strip. The FBI then contacted Jerry Siegel, who they believed
had written the story. However, it was not Siegel, but his ghostwriter Alvin
Schwartz, who had penned the tale. Schwartz had no knowledge of the
atomic program, but had learned of cyclotrons from reading Popular
Mechanics. The War Department asked the McClure Newspaper
Syndicate, which published the Superman strip, to drop stories related to
atomic energy, and requested that DC Comics monitor their own
comic stories as well
Months afterwards, once the atomic secret was fully out, Newsweek,
Time, and the Independent Newsran stories about how Superman managed to scare
the Office of Censorship.
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