"This story is based on the files of Central Intelligence, that new United States counter-espionage service established during World War II and told by a man whose name must be censored, though we know him as… Donovan of Central Intelligence."
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So begins the episode from Atomic Spy Cases, Volume 1, Issue 1 from 1950, a comic book that remained classified for over 50 years. As MuckRock, the premier source for FOIA related news has reported, this wouldn't be the first time that the CIA had some comic book redacted for purposes of "protecting national security."
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">So much stuff happened this year, I nearly forgot about that time Scott Adams implied that he had classified information on Dilbert and the CIA. <a href="https://t.co/TBVK22prwm">https://t.co/TBVK22prwm</a> <a href="https://t.co/SlM57oceDs">pic.twitter.com/SlM57oceDs</a></p>— JPat Brown (@resentfultweet) <a href="https://twitter.com/resentfultweet/status/946863613981216769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 29, 2017</a></blockquote>
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When the CIA released the nearly 13 million pages of files from the CREST archives, multiple comic strips were discovered. Among those included "funnies" from Soviet newspapers, a German strip joking about the CIA's role in the Bolivian coup an episode from the Steve Canyon serial that merely <i>mentions</i> the CIA. Even more inexplicable, found in the STARGATE files related to the CIA's attempts at researching psychic phenomenon is a Dilbert strip which remained classified for over a decade.
Ironically, the story featuring "Donovan" as the unnamed hero, is likely a reference to the father of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) the WWII outfit run by William "Wild Bill" Donovan that would eventually morph into the CIA after the end of the war. According to the comic book itself, it is supposedly the true, but untold, story of "Donovan" smuggling missile plans out of some Middle Eastern country.
Like the comic book character, "Wild Bill" was known for heavy drinking, near-death escapades in the desert, a load of womanizing that occasionally results in falling prey to some Mata Hari types as well as availing himself of the latest and greatest in top secret technology.
Lucky for us, since becoming declassified, it is now <a href="https://archive.org/stream/AtomicSpyCases01/Atomic_Spy_Cases_01#page/n26/mode/1up">available to read in full</a> and for free at the Internet Archive.
Source: https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2018/apr/05/cia-comic-dci/
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