The Destroyer following Inebrio Horsefeathers, marks Bad Idea’s return from hiatus. While Horsefeathers is a great laugh out of a long wait, Destroyer arrives at the best time. In a world where nuclear fusion is getting closer to superseding fission, Oppenheimer, and conspiracies about Nuclear weapons never existing, this one-shot pushes the concept to its limit. With the parallels between fission, cancer, and human vulnerability at its core, this is one Bad Idea no one can forget.
The Destroyer… Of His World
This one-shot follows Dr. Erik Strominger, one of the scientists who worked with Dr. Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project. Much like his coworker, he is all too aware of the effects of the atomic bomb. But it looks like it has effects even he never foresaw.
Writer Mae Catt pushes the idea of how nuclear radiation works to its limit by putting it in parallel with two other concepts. One is a little obvious with cancer, the other is humanity’s disillusionment. Through the art by Alberto Ponticelli, readers witness Erik’s enthralling transformation out of the boundaries. Before Erik never really had a sustainable life as shown by his blackened eyelids, and it was only going to get worse as McCarthyism was around the corner. His later mental breakdown that gets nuclear energy into him starts a grotesque rebirth.
Not only do the tumors grow on him, the lettering reveals an awakened consciousness in Erik. It feels like a dark, parasitic echo of Erik with how it expresses thoughts. But maybe symbiotic is a better term because it wants to understand things the way Erik does. Not to replace him like how his vision is replaced to detect energy signatures. Instead it’s more like Erik’s best self is trying to integrate with his current self.
Destroyer of Bias
The Destroyer‘s rising action is an extremely relevant one that makes you think about nuclear weaponry. Today nukes and their effects seems like a memory at best and conspiracies at worst. Not that somebody is hiding a nuke, but the idea that they don’t exist and country’s with them are just bluffing. With wars and dictators making threats; why hasn’t a nuke went off? To skip the lecture and get to back to the plot, nuclear weapons made traditional wars obsolete.
Translation: non-nuclear wars are drawn out because ending things ASAP is the literal nuclear option.
As a result of having all of this power and not using it, people forgot just how small and helpless they are before it. Most of the time, people just study the effects of nuclear bombs in controlled environments. The fear of the atom bomb no longer comes from its destructive power, but the unknown surrounding it. Thanks to David Baron’s coloring, this unknown makes Erik into glorious the embodiment of Oppenheimer’s famous televised words: I have become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.
But Not The End
So there you have it, an imaginative look at the effect of nuclear fallout. One that came at just the right time! When something becomes such a part of our everyday life, we really have to ask something. Is the nuclear bomb’s power from it’s core or what it does to people? Because if people stop believing in nuclear annihilation as a threat, would it take a bomb blowing up to convince them otherwise? The threats of cancer and mental breakdowns aren’t doing it. For that reason, The Destroyer gets 8.5/10.
Thanks for coming to the end and as always, remember to look between the panels.