Commander Battle and the Atomic Sub #3
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeCommander Battle and the Atomic Sub #3 (November–December 1954) is a vivid snapshot of atomic-age anxieties refracted through Cold War adventure comics, arriving in the same months that the Comics Code Authority was reshaping the industry. The issue is structurally significant within the series because it marks the first appearance of Jonnie Flint — the 'Junior Atomic Commando' — expanding the team roster that would carry the book through its remaining four issues. It is also the instalment in which ACG's writers escalated the series' genre ambitions furthest, transforming a naval-adventure title into an outright science-fiction space opera by retrofitting the atomic submarine for lunar travel, a creative leap that the Science Fiction Encyclopedia singles out as characteristic of the book's gleeful disregard for genre boundaries. As a Comics Code-approved title published at the precise moment the Code was being enforced, the series stands as evidence that Cold War militarism and pulp SF could survive the 1954 regulatory storm that swept away EC Comics and dozens of competitors.
Commander Battle and the Atomic Sub faces a threat from outer space when an H-bomb from the moon is discovered heading toward Earth. The story reveals that moon-men have infiltrated Earth's governments and are attempting to destroy humanity, having previously weakened the atomic commandos through fiendish experiments that altered their physical forms. As Commander Battle and his team work to stop the incoming weapon and the pursuing moon-creatures, they must prevent the alien invaders from completing their plot of total annihilation. The issue culminates in a desperate battle against a giant serpent-like creature as the commandos attempt to escape with their lives.
During World War II, Dr. Heinrich unveils the U-417, a revolutionary Nazi submarine that proves devastatingly effective against Allied shipping—until the democracies counter with a secret weapon of their own, the submarine Barracuda. In a tense undersea duel, the two crafts clash in a battle that will determine the fate of the Allied lifeline and reshape the course of the war.
Commander Bill Battle, chief of America's elite Atomic Commandos and captain of the atomic sub itself, faces an ordinary day that turns into a deadly encounter with enemy spies. When Battle discovers a plot to steal America's most guarded atomic secrets, he infiltrates their hideout and finds himself outnumbered and captured. Now, trapped with minutes to spare, Battle must use all his cunning and the gadgets at his disposal to signal for help before his interrogators return.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
The series was written by Richard E. Hughes, who served as editor of the American Comics Group from 1943 through the company's final issue in 1967 and functioned as the creative backbone of the entire ACG line. Interior art for issue #3 is attributed to Sheldon Moldoff, who had pencilled and inked the series from its launch, with cover art by Ogden Whitney — the same team that sustained the book's visual identity across its early run. ACG published the title through its Titan Publishing Co. imprint on a bi-monthly schedule, and the series ran to seven issues before concluding in mid-1955, a lifespan typical of ACG's more experimental genre launches of the period.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover-dated November–December 1954; published by American Comics Group (Titan Publishing Co. imprint), bi-monthly.
- Written by Richard E. Hughes; interior art by Sheldon Moldoff; cover by Ogden Whitney.
- First appearance of Jonnie Flint, the 'Junior Atomic Commando,' who joins the team and remains a recurring cast member through the end of the series.
- Lead story is a two-parter — 'Journey to the Moon' and 'Death of the H-Bomb' — in which the atomic submarine is retrofitted for space flight with 'jet propulsion and an atomic motivator' and the crew travels to the Moon to neutralize a Soviet nuclear threat.
- Starting with this issue, each instalment added a solo 5–7 page spotlight story focused on an individual Atomic Commando, a structural format retained through issue #6.
- The issue is Comics Code Authority-approved, reflecting ACG's compliance with the new regulatory regime that took effect in 1954.
- The entire seven-issue series (1954–1955) was later collected and reprinted in Gwandanaland Comics #407-A as a complete readers' collection, in both colour and economical black-and-white editions.
- The series — and this issue specifically — has been noted by the Science Fiction Encyclopedia as an example of 1950s comics that used the submarine as a pretext to shift between undersea adventure, subterranean lost-world fiction, and outer-space SF within a single short run.
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Reprinted in Commander Battle and the Atomic Sub #2, Gwandanaland Comics #407-A
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