Radioactive Man, within the world of the animated television series The Simpsons, is a comic book character who acquired superpowers after surviving an atomic bomb explosion. He looks and sounds suspiciously like Homer Simpson. A campy TV series suspiciously resembling Batman boasted the appearance of a villain called "The Scoutmaster," who sounded like Paul Lynde. Bart Simpson is a Radioactive Man fan and tried out for the part of the sidekick "Fallout Boy" in the Radioactive Man film, which went instead to his pal, Milhouse van Houten. The film was to star Ranier Wolfcastle, Springfield's answer to Arnold Schwarzenegger, but was never completed.
Radioactive Man has escaped from the fictional world of Bart Simpson to appear in a comic book intermittently published by Bongo Comics, which has also published, since 1994, a number of comics featuring Bart Simpson, the Simpson family, and other characters from the television show.
Maintaining the high standards of the television show, these comics often parody genre comic books, and the reader can follow the evolution of Radioactive Man from a 1950s irradiated hero through the politically reactionary or radical years of the 1960s and 1970s, and the dark, troubled years of the 1980s and 1990s comic book hero.
