WHO COUNTS IN COUNTDOWN to INFINITE CRISIS? – Episode #25 – The Atomic Knights by BRUCE! MaCINTOSH
Who are these guys wearing suits of armor in Countdown #25, and why are Karate Kid and Firestorm beating up on them? These are the Atomic Knights, and they've been around for almost 50 years… since the great and future Hydrogen war of 1986. Read on for the tale of irradiated armor, Outsiders and cities getting blown up … and giant dogs you can ride on!
The Atomic Knights were a band of armored heroes living in of 1992, six years after the Hydrogen War of 1986 (also called World War III, at various times) was to have wiped out (or mutated ) much of civilization. They originally appeared in 15 issues of Strange Adventures, between #117 (Jun 1960) and #160 (Jan 1964). Those stories were brought back when SA went to all-reprint format in the early-1970s (#217-231). They were created by writer John Broome and artist Murphy Anderson.
The Knights' wore medieval suits of armor that were tempered by exposure to the holocaust, and therefore withstand any lingering radiation, as well as energy blasts from mutated creatures and their enemy, the Black Baron. The Knights' leader was Sgt. Gardner Grayle the other Knights were twins Wayne and Hollis Hobard, brother and sister Douglas and Marene Herald, and Bryndon Smith, the last scientist alive on Earth.
The original 15 Atomic Knights stories in Strange Adventures centered around local holocaust recovery around their Midwest home base of Durvale. To this end, they spent their time trying to rebuild local towns, and defeating mutated menaces. Riding their only means of transportation, giant Dalmatian dogs, somehow they also managed to travel to adventures in New York, Washington, D.C., Detroit, New Orleans and Los Angeles.
Following those 15 Silver Age stories, there was not a single appearance of the Atomic Knights until a brief guest appearance in a short-lived comic called Hercules Unbound (starting in Issue #10, Apr-May 1977). Hercules, Kamandi and the Atomic Knights all dealt with the concept of a near-future post-apocalyptic world, so DC was trying to tie all those concepts together in a version that approximated Jack Kirby's vision that had been remained unrealized with the cancellation of titles like Kamandi, several years earlier. In that (Kirby) universe, the Great Disaster had taken place at some point in the near future, and Kamandi – the last boy on Earth – roamed the planet trying to figure out what had happened. Hercules had similarly been released from imprisonment by a nuclear disaster after many millennia, so the team-up was a natural.
Hercules Unbound was soon cancelled, so the concept (as well as Kamandi, Hercules and the Atomic Knights) disappeared for another six years. That is, until they guest-starred in DC Comics Presents #57 (1983). Well, not really: It turned out that that issue's race-the-clock story – as well as the Atomic Knights themselves – were merely Gardner Grayle's dream while he was trapped in suspended animation. He had, however, developed a mental power to influence Superman in his dreams to prevent Grayle from causing a nuclear war.
After Superman released him from his sensory deprivation tank, Grayle occasionally took the role of an armored superhero, the Atomic Knight, when he was not working as a scientist at S.T.A.R. Labs. His time in the sensory deprivation tank had expanded Grayle's mind so the scientific research and development lab felt he was a natural. In Wonder Woman ( v.1 #322-323, 1984), the goddess Cassandra helped him expand and utilize the precognitive visions that enabled him to see future catastrophes. Gardner used his new abilities to recreate the Shining Knight armor and then return as the Atomic Knight (Wonder Woman v.1 #325, 1984).
As the Atomic Knight, Grayle then joined the "Forgotten Heroes" for the final conflict in Crisis on Infinite Earths #11-12 (1985).
After the Crisis, Grayle focused his energies on his work with S.T.A.R. laboratories. However, he continued to have visions of a coming nuclear apocalypse and sought out the help of scientist Helga Jace to find a solution. Such was not forthcoming, but it did give him an excuse to don the Atomic Knight Armor and try to help the Outsiders against Major Disaster. Although they defeated him, neither the group nor Atomic Knight could prevent Disaster from destroying their Los Angeles base. (Outsiders v.1 #25, Nov 1987)
The Atomic Knight accompanied the Outsiders to Geo-Force's home country of Markovia (Outsiders v.1 #26] when Jace betrayed them to the Manhunters. Gardner Grayle was central to Jace's subsequent scheme, which sent the Outsiders into the Atomic Knights' reality. Although he relished his brief return to his previous fantasy world of the post-apocalyptic Atomic Knights, Gardner's unspoken feelings for the young Outsider Windfall enabled the heroes to escape from their mental imprisonment. (Outsiders v.1 #27, Jan 1988)
The Atomic Knight continued to hang around the Outsiders and help out with the Manhunters, but tragedies involving teammates Halo, Looker and Metamorpho caused the team to disband (Outsiders v.1 #28, Feb 1988). In the next Outsiders series (v.2, 1993), the team was framed for the murder of Queen Ilona of Markovia, and branded as outlaws. Because of the overwhelming evidence… (Okay, there wasn't a lot of evidence, but the accusations were really convincing)… Gardner updated his armor, polished it to a glitzy gold sheen, and set out to Markovia and points beyond to hunt down the team and find the truth. The Atomic Knight eventually quite capably faced Geo-Force. (Outsiders v.2, #5, Mar 1994) It took another six issues, but having trailed the team to Abyssia, Gardner was finally shown proof that the team was innocent, and was framed by the vampire Roderick (who had also turned Looker into a blood-sucker. A shame, really, but the new costume was every male's dream.) (Outsiders v.2 #10-11, Aug-Sep 1994).
In his final Outsiders appearance, Gardner was called in to help the team with a crisis of Eclipso proportions on the eve of Brion and Denise Howard's wedding. (Outsiders v.2 #23-24, 1995) After that, the Atomic Knight literally disappeared from comics for another decade.
Following Infinite Crisis, in the mini-series The Battle for Blüdhaven, Gardner Grayle was portrayed as the leader of an underground band of new Atomic Knights operating within the destroyed city of Blüdhaven. These Knights worked with the organization called Roundtable to help citizens harassed by the nasty group known as S.H.A.D.E. This recent series resurrected the original Atomic Knights enemy, the new Black Baron, and made him a former pimp and drug dealer who got metahuman powers after Blüdhaven was destroyed. (The golem Monolith later defeated him.)
In this new incarnation, there are about 125 Atomic Knights, including Gardner Grayle, Doug and Marene Herald, Wayne and Hollis Hobard, and Bryndon Smith. These Knights were able to go undercover by using cloaking technology to pose as refugees, and naturally they had advanced functioning armor which included the power generating nuclear blasts. The suits were grey and boring like the armor suits of the 60s, not all shiny, silver and gold like Gardner's stints with the pre-Infinite Crisis Outsiders.
At the conclusion of the series The Battle for Blüdhaven, Captain Atom obliterated what little remained of the city. On the final pages, the Atomic Knights entered an underground city though a bunker labeled "Command-D". (Command-D was/will be the bunker in which lived Kamandi and his Grandfather – Buddy Blank. (SeeThe original OMAC.)
When 52 concluded, readers learned of the existence of a new Multiverse, made up of 52 different Earths which were copies of (singular) New Earth created years earlier when Infinite Crisis concluded. Time-traveling Rip Hunter designated one of the versions Earth-17. Although it is merely one quick panel, it is clear that Earth-17 is the home of some version of the Atomic Knights similar to that of the original (1960s) group.
Since these are clearly the protectors of Blüdhaven from the The Battle for Blüdhaven series, it is unclear at this time, how all that fits in with the Atomic Knights of Earth-17.
Showcase Presents: The Great Disaster featuring the Atomic Knights and Hercules was solicited for release October 24th 2007. Without citing a reason, however, DC canceled the book's release and no future publication date has been announced. There has been discussion that the abrupt cancellation of this book, as well as other Showcase volumes (Captain Carrot, Suicide Squad, and Secret Society of Super Villains) was tied to unresolved legal issues regarding creators' rights provisions in DC's contracts starting in 1976.
NEXT WEEK IN WHO COUNTS IN COUNTDOWN to INFINITE CRISIS? If yours truly can read through dozens of the most important issues of Firestorm from the last 30 years, you'll get a story of ol' fiery head. Or… it just may be a surprise! Yippee!
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Showcase Presents: The Great Disaster featuring the Atomic Knights and Hercules was solicited for release October 24th 2007. Without citing a reason, however, DC canceled the book's release and no future publication date has been announced. There has been discussion that the abrupt cancellation of this book, as well as other Showcase volumes (Captain Carrot, Suicide Squad, and Secret Society of Super Villains) was tied to unresolved legal issues regarding creators' rights provisions in DC's contracts starting in 1976. 
