Set in October 1957, immediately upon release of the Soviet artificial satellite Sputnik, Atomic Age is an ensemble seriocomedy of individuals affected by the first confirmed contact of humans and extraterrestrials.

The principal cast is: Joe Nuñez, a put-upon, twentysomething Hispanic stringer for the Los Angeles Eagle newspaper in California; his beautiful, blond girlfriend, Nan Stoddard, an ambitious and restless young woman whose feelings for him may be genuine or an attempt at being transgressive through interracial dating in that pre-civil rights movement era; U.S. Army Col. John Patrick Lear, a proud yet pathetic figure who at the end of his career has been relegated to commanding the backwater Pacific Ocean military base Charity Island; and Nimbus, a mysterious alien who has arrived on Earth confused of his origins but programmed to find and kill members of a genetically engineered slave race from his planet.

Counterpointing these personal stories are the fads, clothing, architecture, pop-culture imagery and prevailing social attitudes of the late 1950s, which inform the characters' actions and expectations.

[2] A rudimentary early version of Atomic Age, set in the present day, appeared as an eight-page initial chapter by Lovece, penciler Robb Phipps and inker Sam de la Rosa in the comics magazine Woweekazowie #4 (Fall/Winter 1978).

[5] Nuclear Texts & Contexts #6 (Spring 1991) wrote: "Atomic Age (Frank Lovece, writer, & Mike Okamoto, artist, Epic Comics) is a four-part series dealing with alien invaders set during the Sputnik era.

[9] For his painted work on Innovation's five-issue adaptation of the Piers Anthony novel On a Pale Horse in 1991, Okamoto won the Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award.