Born This Day: Niels Bohr – Nazi Smasher!

Oct. 7, 1885 – Nov. 18, 1962

Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist, born in Copenhagen, who was the first to apply the quantum theory, which restricts the energy of a system to certain discrete values, to the problem of atomic and molecular structure. For this work he received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922.

He developed the so-called Bohr theory of the atom and liquid model of the nucleus. Bohr was of Jewish origin and when the Nazis occupied Denmark he escaped in 1943 to Sweden on a fishing boat. From there he was flown to England where he began to work on the project to make a nuclear fission bomb. After a few months he went with the British research team to Los Alamos in the USA where they continued work on the project. From Today In Science History.

Read his story:




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From: Marvels of Science #1 (Feb. 1944). © Charlton Comics. Art by Sid Greene.

Barometer Falling by Gray Morrow

From Chilling Adventures in Sorcery #5 (February 1974) © Archie Comics comes this tale written and illustrated by Gray Morrow.

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The Suicide Squad & The Origin of Darwyn Cooke's "The New Frontier"

Anyone who’s read Darwyn Cooke’s The New Frontier knows that it is an affectionate retelling of the early Silver Age stories from DC Comics. Cooke deftly came up with a story that retroactively (for this book) melded together the significant elements from the various DC heroes earliest outings into what amounts to an(other) origin for the Justice League.

Older readers enjoyed seeing characters like The Challengers of the Unknown and The Losers in a story that does justice to the stories we remember from our youth (vs. the bland stories that many actually were).

Cooke gave The Suicide Squad and ‘Dinosaur Island (form the “The War That Time Forgot” stories in Star-Spangled War Stories) pivotal roles in The New Frontier, and revealed a keen knowledge of the early Silver Age DC Universe.

The story presented here (Raid of The Dinosaurs!) is The Suicide Squad's 4th outing in The Brave and The Bold (#37). It reveals some of the bigger plot threads for The New Frontier, e.g., the dinosaur invasion and the seemingly unified mind behind their intelligence. Read the story then check out a few of the homage-like panels that I picked out of the story.

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A few similarities between B&B #37 and TNF:



1. Prehistoric super intelligence wants to destroy the world.



2. Giant pterodactyls attack big buildings.



3. Shiny red disc plane.



4. A thoughtful Major Flagg.



5. Psychedelic adventures.



6. Watch out for those darn pterosaurs!



7. Dinos attack!



8. Shiny red space ship bites the dust.


The Suicide Squad © DC Comics.
Story by Robert Kanigher. Art by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito.


9. Actually the cover for the next issue (#38) but shows the origin of the SS's aerial battle about the Statue of Liberty.