In France after World War II, superheroes became problematic.
Characters like Tarzan and the Batman-like French character Fantax were heavily criticized and finally censored from comic books for children, at least in part because of their American origins.
“Although the strident anti-American sentiment was led by the Communist Party and its fellow travelers who viewed American comics, with their exoneration of the violent individual superhero, as promoting ‘fascistic themes,’ centrists … also hoped that France would maintain an independent national policy free from American domination,” observed Richard I. Jobs in Tarzan under Attack: Youth, Comics, and Cultural Reconstruction in Postwar France.
Still, in the 1950s, a French superhero or two managed to slip by, particularly those resembling Buck Rogers or Adam Strange. Perhaps French censors thought that rocket belts and ray guns were somehow less objectionable than superpowers, reflecting as they did the spirit of the jet age.
One such creation was the Spanish/French character Atome Kid, who fought criminals and would-be world conquerors from 1956 to 1959.
Astrophysicist Professor Stuart’s white hood and thick glasses disguised his identity as he used his self-designed rocket belt and stun gun to right wrongs. Like Adam Strange, Atome Kid relied more on brains than brawn. He was aided by his wife Pamela, who sometimes donned another space suit to fight at his side.
“Regardez! Le célèbre Atome Kid,” exclaimed onlookers. It’s the French way of saying, “Look! Up in the sky…”
Atome Kid may have vanished in 1959, but French readers already had a suitable replacement.
In 1958, Super Boy became a caped superhero resembling someone you might find on the planet Rann, not on the planet Krypton.
“Super Boy is a resourceful, brilliant young man who uses super-science to solve the mysteries he encounters, or defeat the aliens who invariably threaten the planet,” wrote Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier in their fascinating book on French fantastic literature Shadowmen 2. “He has no specific super powers and his exploits are reminiscent of those of the DC character Adam Strange, a comparison bolstered by his helmet (sporting an antenna instead of a fin) and the two belt rockets enabling him to fly.”
“The ever-present threat of censorship prevented the creation of a rogues’ gallery worthy of fighting the hero,” the Lofficiers noted. “The villains (The Harlequin, Mister Cat, Delta, Earth-II) rarely, if ever, return.”
Super Boy kept France safe from such miscreants until 1970.
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