Two weeks ago, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that the famed Doomsday Clock had been set at a mere 89 seconds to midnight. Created by J. Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, and other scientists concerned by the threat of the Atomic Age, the project has long been a controversial representation of how close humanity stands on the edge of annihilation. From the beginning, people have always wondered in fear about The End, and there are few periods in history where that fear was as widespread as during the height of the Cold War.
The tangible threat of mutually assured destruction hung over the world like a mushroom cloud, and one need only look at the kinds of art that came out of the ‘70s and ‘80s to get a glimpse at how real this terror was. One example in particular stands distinct from the rest. In 1979, George Miller introduced the world to Max Rockatansky — but unlike the cinematic apocalyptic hellscape of Fury Road, the original Mad Max is noteworthy for how frightfully familiar it feels in its depiction of a world right on the brink of collapse.
