White Heat!
One of the most famous grotesque horror comics covers, Black Cat #50 is partly responsible for the Comics Code’s hateed against horror. Ironically, what it depicts is not too far off from the horrifically gruesome effects of radium (and phosphorous) poisoning, which was making headlines at the Radium Girls trial.
But the thing is… that isn’t the actual story. There is no “Radium Man,” and in fact radium does not figure into the comic at all. It’s uranium.
“White Heat” is a comic about a kind-hearted man whose wife is dying of an agonizingly painful disease. He does not make enough money for her medical bills or treatment which would save her, and he can’t even get a loan. So out of desperation, he takes some mobsters up on their offer - he works security at a place that stores uranium, you see. So he burglarizes it in the middle of the night, forced to seriously injure a fellow guard to make off with his deadly bounty (“I hope I didn’t kill him!”). After he gets his money he runs home to find that his wife is already in the hospital. He rushes over there and offers money to save her life, but it is too late. The doctor actually would have treated her for free (making the heist unnecessary), but he can’t - the only way to save her was by using uranium radiation, but somebody stole the only supply they could use. “Whoever stole the uranium murdered your wife!”
IRONIC AND BAD END.
As for the figure itself, it resembles the cover art, and nothing in the story. It’s gruesome enough for its scale, though the tiny uranium bar is easy to lose. Pretty striking if you know what it is depicting, though it is honestly more like a zombie than anything else.
White Heat!
One of the most famous grotesque horror comics covers, Black Cat #50 is partly responsible for the Comics Code’s hateed against horror. Ironically, what it depicts is not too far off from the horrifically gruesome effects of radium (and phosphorous) poisoning, which was making headlines at the Radium Girls trial.
But the thing is… that isn’t the actual story. There is no “Radium Man,” and in fact radium does not figure into the comic at all. It’s uranium.
“White Heat” is a comic about a kind-hearted man whose wife is dying of an agonizingly painful disease. He does not make enough money for her medical bills or treatment which would save her, and he can’t even get a loan. So out of desperation, he takes some mobsters up on their offer - he works security at a place that stores uranium, you see. So he burglarizes it in the middle of the night, forced to seriously injure a fellow guard to make off with his deadly bounty (“I hope I didn’t kill him!”). After he gets his money he runs home to find that his wife is already in the hospital. He rushes over there and offers money to save her life, but it is too late. The doctor actually would have treated her for free (making the heist unnecessary), but he can’t - the only way to save her was by using uranium radiation, but somebody stole the only supply they could use. “Whoever stole the uranium murdered your wife!”
IRONIC AND BAD END.
As for the figure itself, it resembles the cover art, and nothing in the story. It’s gruesome enough for its scale, though the tiny uranium bar is easy to lose. Pretty striking if you know what it is depicting, though it is honestly more like a zombie than anything else.