After entering training programs for languages, engineering, and piloting, all of which were canceled, he served as an orderly, draftsman and artist in noncombat roles. Army, where he remained until January 1946. In 1943 Lichtenstein left his study of painting and drawing at The Ohio State University to serve in the U.S. Whaam! is part of a series on war that he worked on between 19, and along with As I Opened Fire (1964) is one of his two large war-themed paintings. He depicted aerial combat in several works. Among the topics he tackled after the war were romance and war.

He practiced anti-aircraft drills during basic training, and he was sent for pilot training but the program was canceled before it started. Lichtenstein studied as an artist before and after serving in the United States Army during World War II. The painting's title is integral to the action and impact of the painting, and displayed in large onomatopoeia in the right panel. Whaam! is regarded for the temporal, spatial and psychological integration of its two panels. He transformed his primary source, a panel from a 1962 war comic book, by presenting it as a diptych while altering the relationship of the graphical and narrative elements. Lichtenstein conceived the image from several comic-book panels. The left-hand panel shows a fighter plane firing a rocket that, in the right-hand panel, hits a second plane which explodes in flames. It has been on permanent display at Tate Modern since 2006.

Whaam! was first exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City in 1963, and purchased by the Tate Gallery, London, in 1966. It is one of the best-known works of pop art, and among Lichtenstein's most important paintings. Whaam! is a 1963 diptych painting by the American artist Roy Lichtenstein. For the British pop duo, see Wham! For other uses, see Wham (disambiguation).

Bugs bunny pop art