Posted By Dan Greenfield on Apr 28, 2025 | 2 comments

MORRISON MONDAYS!

By BILL MORRISON

In observance of National Superhero Day (Yes, that’s today!) I’m honoring the tights-clad titan that I’m most associated with, Radioactive Man!

Although the Irradiated Crusader first appeared on The Simpsons TV show, Matt Groening’s Bongo Comics really wrote the book on Bart Simpson’s favorite superhero, both figuratively and literally. In 2012, Bongo published a book that I redundantly titled, Radioactive Man: Radioactive Repository Volume One. As editor of this collection of classic RM comics, I admit a better title might have been something like “The Radioactive Man Irradiated Repository Volume One.” One of the pitfalls of writing about my past work is being hit between the eyes with its flaws. But I digress.

Title aside, I love this atomic tome, (see, even THAT would have been better!) and one of the coolest things about it is the foreword, titled “Radioactive Man: A Glowing Appreciation,” by celebrated comics and TV writer, and Harley Quinn co-creator, Paul Dini!

But before I examine Paul’s foreword, a little background on the Nuclear Knight. Radioactive Man first appeared on The Simpsons Season 1 episode, “Bart the Genius,” on the cover of a Radioactive Man comic book, but he bore very little resemblance to the Irradiated Crusader of today. His second appearance, this time with his sidekick Fallout Boy, came in the Season 2 episode, “Three Men and a Comic Book” in which Bart and his friends, Milhouse and Martin, pool their money to buy a copy of Radioactive Man #1 and proceed to fight over who gets to take custody of the vintage comic book.

In this episode, we see a bit of the hero’s Hulk-inspired origin and get a glimpse of the 1950s TV show in which the actors playing Radioactive Man and Fallout Boy hawk Laramie cigarettes (a hilarious sendup of the infamous Flintstones commercial for Winston smokes.) In this incarnation of the character, his costume is more or less set, including the fallout symbol on his chest, and the decorative lightning bolt that juts from the top of his head.

When Matt Groening, Steve Vance, Cindy Vance, and I were crafting the first Simpsons comic book, Simpsons Comics and Stories, Steve decided to feature Radioactive Man in the very first Bartman story. In this tale, Bart meets Radioactive Man’s creator Morty Mann, and, as Bartman, challenges evil publisher Arnold Leach to come clean for decades of unjust treatment toward Mann. This comic also features Radioactive Man in a vignette on the cover, and came polybagged with a Batman and Robin-inspired poster of Bartman and Radioactive Man by yours truly!

Sales of the issue were phenomenal, and sparked the creation of Bongo Comics, so when Matt as publisher, and Steve as editor, were planning the titles with which we would launch the company, a solo Radioactive Man book was a no-brainer. We did a six-issue limited series that presented every issue as if it were created in a specific year and with numbering to match, from Issue #1 circa 1952 to Issue #1000 dated 1994, creating a four decade-long fictional history of the Atomic Avenger!

In order to do this, we expanded on what little information we had about the character’s powers and origin from the show, and went on to create a Radioactive Man universe. This included giving him a secret identity, a more fleshed-out origin, secondary characters like his girlfriend, Gloria Grand, and fellow hero Purple Heart, a rogues gallery of evil adversaries, and an origin for Fallout Boy that parodied the Amazing Spider-Man! Oh, and that decorative lightning bolt atop his cowl became an unremovable shard of jagged metal, embedded in his skull as a result of the nuclear explosion that gave him his powers. After Steve passed the editor’s hat to me, the Bongo crew and I went on to revisit the Atomic Avenger with a parody of DC’s 80-Page Giants, and a four-part back-up story in Simpsons Comics.

The original miniseries, the 80-Page Colossal, and the four-parter are all reprinted in Radioactive Man: Radioactive Repository Volume One, which brings me back to Paul Dini’s foreword. Paul loved the idea of a phony Radioactive Man history dating back to 1952, and he played along beautifully, expanding upon it by writing a remembrance of his childhood love for the character and his self-proclaimed status as “THE world’s greatest Radioactive Man fan.”

In his foreword, he talks about the 1950s TV series, the infamous I Love Lucy guest appearance that gave Lucy Ricardo cancer, the Radioactive Man newspaper strip, the wave of toys that fueled Radioactive-Mania in the ’60s, and “Radioactive Man: The Animated Series” which Paul fondly recalls working on as writer and story editor in the early 1990s.

Here’s a snippet where Paul talks about his work on RMTAS: “My creation of Dr. Crab’s long-suffering lab assistant/girlfriend Hallie Claw brought a much-needed shot of humor to the series while also adding a new dimension to Dr. Crab’s life, as he had to deal with the demands of a whiney love interest in addition to keeping Radioactive Man and Fallout Boy at bay. Sadly, Hallie was killed and retconned out of existence during the last Calamity on Infinite Bongos crossover event (swallowed whole by Nibbler from “Futurama” – really Matt?!), leaving only a handful of animated and print appearances to mark her existence, along with a few broken-hearted cosplayers who still make the convention rounds dressed in their versions of Hallie’s trademark labcoat and fishnet stockings.”

Paul’s “remembrance” flawlessly conjures the illusion of a Radioactive Man that existed as a pop-culture icon, years before his initial appearance on The Simpsons and Bongo’s subsequent run of comic books.

As the book’s editor, I assigned myself the fun job of illustrating Paul’s text, though the Krusty Burger Hey Hey Meals premium action figures and RMTAS model sheets are by Bongo stalwart Jason Ho.

I like to think that perhaps somewhere in the multiverse there is a version of Earth where the Atomic Avenger really did have a comic book series dating back to the ’50s, one that spawned a TV show, movies, an animated series, a newspaper strip, and tons of toys and other merchandise!

Until such a universe is discovered, I recommend getting your hands on a copy of Radioactive Man: Radioactive Repository Volume One. There are two versions of the hardcover collection, one with a full dust jacket over a black, embossed cover, and another with a belly band over a green glow-in-the-dark cover. It’s out of print and a bit spendy, but in my opinion well worth the hunt and the price. I know Bart would agree, and would avoid sharing it with Milhouse and Martin at all costs!

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