Note: This page is functioning in the capacity of being a comic book genre, it should detail a general overview with examples of this genre's history and trends over time around the world. There is no practical value to crediting it on individual issues except in cases where it represents a very particular issue but nothing else in that volume. For all volumes with a general science fiction focus (that should therefore not have any issues credited), click here.

Science Fiction

Pulp Sci-Fi

Pulp Sci-Fi is space opera with weird worlds, snappy dialogue, cool characters and nifty hardware. Imagine rugged heroes, hideous monsters, lost planets, galactic wars and desperate battles in seedy spaceport bars.

Pulp Sci-Fi used the same 'one episode with a twist' format as other 2000AD regulars - Future Shocks, Tales of Telguuth, Terror Tales, Time Twisters and Vector 13.

Space Opera

A form of science-fiction that is often used to describe some of the larger science-fiction franchises like Star Wars, Flash Gordon or Doctor Who.

Domed City

A city protected and/or isolated from it external environment by a huge structure, generally a translucid dome.

A domed city is a kind of theoretical or fictional structure that encloses a large urban area under a single roof. In most descriptions, the dome is airtight and pressurized, creating a habitat that can be controlled for air temperature, composition and quality, typically due to an external atmosphere (or lack thereof) that is inimical to habitation for one or more reasons. Domed cities have been a fixture of science fiction and futurology since the early 20th century, and may be situated on Earth, a moon or other planet.

In some works, the domed city represents the last stand of a human race that is either dead or dying. Where other science fiction stories emphasize the vast expanse of the universe, the domed city places limits on its inhabitants, with the subtext that chaos will ensue if they interact with the world outside.

In science fiction and comics there has been several examples of the existence of the doomed cities and its variations:

• The bottled city of Kandor in the Superman Universe. Also, Supergirl's Argo city.
• Aquaman's Atlantis.
• Logan's run.
• Legion of Superheroes' 30th century earth (the whole planet was inside a sphere).
• Convergence.

Utopia

Utopia is a tradicional sci-fi concept or trope. Ussually it means a place where every problem social, political and moral has been resolved, either by politcal means or by technological (or magical if it's set in a fantasy world) development. Can be easly a isolated human society, an alien society or a future time where all the troubles and conflicts from present society are non existent. Writers use the concept of utopia to expose their own ideas about how to solve present days problems. If something is absent in a utopia is the idea of dissent, somebody who don't believe in the positive nature of the utopia.

Stories related to the utopia concept usually revolve around the ideas of: a foreing explorer who discover the perfect place and try to stay, but is rejected by the natives; a external menace than threats to destroy the perfect place; the dark secret of the utopia, mostly based in it past, how it was reached and upon whose bones was built.

Utopia as a literary resource it was used more in past times, when the technological development still offered the illusion of being a social panacea. Modern writers instead choose use Dystopia concept. Still both concepts can coexist at the same time in a shared universe.

Also the concept of utopia could be highly subjetive. It depends a lot of the point of view from any person: a perfect society for a person can be an oppresive regime for another. For example, a crimeless society could seem a nice place to live, only if you accept the brainwashing of potential criminals.

Comic Examples of Utopia:

• Wonder woman: Paradise Island is perfect because is a society built only by women.
• Inhumans: inhuman society had banished racial discrimination among themselves
• Silver Surfer: Zenn-La was a perfect society where Norin Rad grew bored until he sacrified himself to save it from Galactus.
• Legion of Superheroes: the 30th/31st century earth is a perfect society thanks to Superman influence.
• DC 1.000.000: The Solar Sistem is a even more perfect society thanks to Superman influence.
• Star Trek comics: Technology made the mankind reach the stars and form alliances with another cultures.
• Superman: Pre crisis Krypton was a perfect society. The only reason to oppose to the rules is because you were evil. Notable exception: Jor-El.
• Multiversity: Earth-10 is seen as a nazi utopia; Earth-16 is a crimeless world thanks to the watch of the Superman Robots. Because of this, the offspring of superheroes had nothing to do.
• Magnus Robot fighter: The perfect future of Magnus is only threathened by the rebel robots.

Suspended Animation

Suspended Animation/Temporal Stasis is where the human (or some form of life) is exposed to extreme cold, stopping their life functions, without killing them.

Marvel Universe

Captain America was frozen in the North Atlantic, after being blasted into the sea by Baron Heinrich Zemo. He was later found by the Avengers in Avengers #4, where he joined the team, replacing the Hulk.

Another example is when the Russians froze Bucky Barnes in suspended animation to be used as the assassin Winter Soldier.

Other Universes

In the TV Series, Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend of Aang, Aang and Appa were frozen in an iceberg for one hundred years, after they fell into the sea, and Aang accessed the The Avatar State and froze the water around them.

In the TV Series of Futurama, Fry was cryogenically frozen for a thousand years.

Atomic Age of Comics

After the early rise of superheroes as a dominant theme in the medium of comics during the Golden Age of Comics, the outlook of the medium changed its dominant themes in the 1950s. While the major heroes maintained a degree of popularity, their widespread exposure over the medium changed, as different themes became more relevant and became better-selling than the heroes who had helped to popularize the medium.

The rise of this so-called "Atomic Age" was due to many factors. Primary among them was the development of the knowledge concerning nuclear fission, the use of atomic weapons at the close of the Second World War in Japan, and the inception of the nuclear arms race (also known as atomic weapons) between the USA and the USSR. With its vast potential for destruction as well as a poor understanding of the energies released during fission, nuclear (or atomic) energy came to the forefront of the public's interest, both in awe and in fear of its potential.

The decline of the superhero can be tied to other factors as well. While many other heroes were introduced in the Golden Age, the primary five could be said to be Superman, Batman, Captain America, Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel. A common theme among these early heroes was the their opposition to the forces of the Axis in the Second World War. Reading these comics thus served as a form of patriotism, and without this interest, the medium adapted to new concerns in society.

The introduction of the 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent, also helped to dissuade the general populace from reading superhero comics. This book raised many tenuous critiscims regarding the medium, many of which were tied very loosely to fears over the spread of homosexuality through its normalization in the actions of characters, and resulted in a moral panic about the effects of the medium. The Comics Code Authority subsequently assuaged the fears of parents over the medium, but also curtailed many of the common themes previously seen in comics, which helped science fiction replace horror as a dominant feature in the medium.

An additional development was the use of the long range rockets during the Second World War. Originally developed by Wernher Von Braun, it quickly became apparent after the end of the Second World War that such technology could be used for space exploration. While space exploration had been a stapled of earlier science fiction, for the first time there existed a means by which man might legitimately be able to explore the cosmos.

A dominant factor inside of the medium of comics in these years were the space serials. With such titles as Mystery in Space or Strange Adventures, the medium began to explore themes dealing with science fiction, many of them dealing with mankind visiting the planets, or with some form of first contact occurring between man and aliens. Long running series such as Journey Into Mystery (from Atlas Comics, a precursor to Marvel Comics), which had started off as a horror anthology later changed its content to mirror those of other comics, and focused instead on these same science fiction concepts. The few new major superheroes of this period often had a science fiction element, and highlighted these same themes. Adam Strange and Captain Comet were regular men who were taken to space and who partook in adventures. The Martian Manhunter was a martian living among humans, similar in a sense to many alien invasion plots, where the aliens were already among us. The Legion of Super Heroes represented the effects of the change of the medium on the mainstream superheroes as Superboy traveled to the future to meet humans who had explored the cosmos.

The era also directly influenced the language used in the creation of comics. As author Alan Sillitoe described in his novel "Saturday Night, Sunday Morning" people in this era were living under the "long shadow of the bomb" and this same focus was used in comics. For instance, a common word used across many titles at the time was "Doom" which would provide an easy way to catch the eye for people who were living in the 1950s under the constant threat of nuclear war in a renewed World War.

The Atomic Age of Comics is one which is still argued about among comic historians. Some see it as nothing more than exhibiting trends among readers in the golden age, but others regard it as an age unto itself, distinctly different from golden age comics, but not yet quite to the Silver Age. Indeed there are many ties to the Silver Age within the Atomic Age. A few of DC's silver age heroes (Barry Allen and Hal Jordan) were rebooted versions of older heroes with a more modern science spin. Also a few of the early silver age characters utilized common words to the Atomic such as "Doom" in the case of the Doom Patrol and Doctor Doom.

The end of the Atomic Age of Comics can be tied primarily to the rise of Silver Age heroes. It eventually came to be that those wanting to write superhero stories learned the lessons of the changing medium and incorporated in a more scientific approach to their characters. New characters such as Spider-Man, Iron Man and the Fantastic Four exhibited a new focus on science for the superheroes, and other heroes such as Hawkman were relaunched with a science fiction and space based background. Additionally the Space Race between the USA and the USSR gave comic readers real life heroes to watch as opposed to the heroes of science fiction, and thus as real life imitated art, there became less interest in the fictional exploits of spacemen as opposed to the real life heroes.