Captain Atom
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Captain Atom is a fictional character, an American comic book superhero. Created by writer Joe Gill and artist/co-writer Steve Ditko, he first appeared in Space Adventures # 33 (March 1960).
Captain Atom was created for Charlton Comics but was later acquired by DC Comics and revised for DC’s post-Crisis continuity.
In both incarnations, the character was a military official—scientist Allen Adam in the Charlton version, Air Force pilot Nathaniel Adam in the DC version—who was caught in a scientific experiment and “atomized.” He was able to reform, however, with superhuman strength and endurance, the ability to fly and to project energy blasts.
Throughout the years, the character has been featured in several moderate-to-short lived eponymous series and has been a member of DC’s all-star Justice League.
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[edit] Character and publishing history
[edit] Charlton Comics (Silver Age)
The Charlton Comics version of Captain Atom was Allen Adam. The character's origin posited Adam working in a special experimental rocket when it accidentally launched with him trapped inside. Entering the upper atmosphere, the rocket exploded and Adam was atomized. However, he somehow gained superpowers that included the ability to reform his body safely on the ground.
He would be outfitted in a red and yellow costume that apparently acted to shield people from his nuclear powers. When he "powered up", his hair changed to silver-white. Later, in his own title, he replaced this costume with a liquid-metal outfit that was under his skin, and transformed when he powered up. Captain Atom's powers were similar to such other nuclear-powered superheroes as Gold Key's Doctor Solar and Dell Comics' Nukla.
Captain Atom was first published in a series of short stories in the anthology series Space Adventures # 33-40 (March 1960-June 1961) and # 42 (October 1961).
Charlton began reprinting his short adventures in the anthology Strange Suspense Stories beginning with #75 (June 1965), renaming the title Captain Atom with #78 (Dec. 1965) and giving the hero full-length stories and supervillain antagonists (previous stories involved Cold War anti-Communist missions or dealing with aliens.) Captain Atom later teamed with the superhero Nightshade. The superhero Blue Beetle starred in the initial backup feature, later replaced by a Nightshade backup series.
Captain Atom was cancelled with issue #89 (Dec. 1967). In 1975, the unfinished Ditko art for issue #90 was inked by John Byrne and published in the first two issues of the official Charlton fanzine, Charleton Bullseye, as the 10-page "Showdown In Sunuria" (writer: Jon G. Michels) and the 11-page "Two Against Sunuria" (writer: Roger Stern).
Captain Atom next appeared in issue #7 (May 1982) of the new-talent showcase comic also called Charlton Bullseye, in a story by writer Benjamin Smith and artist/co-writer Dan Reed, which for some reason returned him to his original red-yellow outfit.
The character's last pre-DC appearance was in AC Comics' one-shot Americomics Special #1 (Aug. 1983), in a story teaming the Charlton "Action Heroes" Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Nightshade and The Question as the Sentinels of Justice. This last story had originally been done for Charlton before the company folded.
The actual Charlton characters made their re-appearance in the DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, which introduced Earth-Four as the native reality of Captain Atom on which he had had all his Charlton era adventures. By the series end, Earth-Four (and the Charlton characters) was incorporated into the Post-Crisis DC reality. The last appearance of this Charlton-era Captain Atom was in DC Comics Presents #90 (February 1986).
[edit] DC Comics (Post-Crisis) History
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A new, post-Crisis version of the character was introduced in 1986 with the launch of a monthly comic written by Cary Bates (a long-time writer of The Flash and Superman), co-written by Greg Weisman and drawn by Pat Broderick.
This modern captain's name was established as Nathaniel Christopher Adam, a United States Air Force soldier in the Vietnam War framed for a crime he didn't commit and sentenced to death under the watch of Col. Wade Eiling in 1968. As an alternative to execution, he was invited to participate in a military experiment with little chance of survival, in exchange for a presidential pardon. The experiment involved testing the hull of a crashed alien ship's durability by exploding a super nuclear bomb under it. Adam survived as the metal melted into his body and the excess energy threw him forward in time nearly twenty years (not incidentally, this coating with alien metal gave the revised character a full-body silvered metal look distinctly different from his previous incarnations.)
Regaining coherence in 1986, Adam found himself a man out of his time and in the hands of Eiling, now a general and the second husband of Adam's now-deceased wife. Everyone had assumed that Nathaniel Adam had died on the day of the experiment, so his presidential pardon was never issued and the current government refused to acknowledge the previous administration's promised pardon. Seizing the opportunity at hand, the government used the outstanding murder/treason charges against Adam to blackmail him into being a government-controlled superhero (codenamed Captain Atom). The events of the Charlton stories were established as simply the cover story for Adam, who also was assigned the alias of Cameron Scott, an Air Force intelligence operative. It was during this time he met the superpowered terrorist, Plastique, who would become a recurring part of Nathaniel's life.
Atom/Adam served under Eiling reluctantly, while succeeding in clearing his name. Eventually, Atom rebelled against Eiling completely, resigned from the Air Force and found some fulfillment as an actual superhero. Captain Atom joined the Justice League at the request of the U.S. government, eventually serving as leader of Justice League Europe. During his career he developed a friendly "rivalry" with Firestorm, become involved with and eventually married Plastique (ironically, a one-time Firestorm foe), battled Major Force (his would-be successor), learned basic heroics from Batman when he briefly lost access to the Quantum Field, and commanded the metahuman forces during the Invasion storyline.
In 1991, Captain Atom was cancelled with #57, as Atom was slated to become the hero-turned-villain Monarch in DC's Armageddon 2001 crossover event; however, when word of this leaked out, DC changed the ending at the last minute. Atom and the Monarch character continued battling through time in Armageddon: The Alien Agenda limited series, until he was returned to his own time at the conclusion.
Captain Atom then returned to the League, founding an offshoot team, Extreme Justice in 1995. Whilst leading Extreme Justice, Captain Atom came across another version of Monarch, this one claiming to be the real Nathaniel Adam.
Later in 1999, he was a member of the poorly-received all-Charlton-character group L.A.W.. In 2003, he again teamed up with several former members of the Justice League as the "Super Buddies" in the humorous limited series Formerly Known as the Justice League.
Also in 2003, writer Jeph Loeb returned Captain Atom to his roots as he went back to work for the government, this time for President Lex Luthor in the first story arc of the Superman/Batman series. Atom seemingly sacrificed his life to save Superman and Earth by piloting a starship to destroy a kryptonite meteor, but as it had previously been established that this type of accident could not kill him, he soon returned to life and to the background of the DC Universe.
In a 2005 issue of Superman/Batman it was made clear that Captain Atom survived the collision with the kryptonite meteor, but after absorbing massive amounts of radiation and becoming a super villain described as a "Kryptonite Man", the radiation was siphoned out of Captain Atom by a device made by Hiro Okamura (the new Toyman) which returned Captain Atom to his usual self (if somewhat confused).
In 2005/2006, Captain Atom appeared in a nine-part limited series entitled Captain Atom: Armageddon under the DC imprint WildStorm. Captain Atom's sacrifice in Superman/Batman sent him to the WildStorm universe for a certain amount of time in which this series took place. In this title, he wore the yellow/red outfit seen in the Kingdom Come series.
At the moment of his apparent death, Captain Atom experienced a time-shift coinciding with his 2005 appearance in Superman/Batman, resulting in his arrival in the WildStorm Universe. He quickly gets into a fight with an overzealous Mr. Majestic and the fight ended with Majestic soundly defeated. Seeing the frightened reactions of onlookers, and puzzling over his own altered appearance, he realizes that he has somehow become trapped on an alternate Earth, one where super-heroes are feared by the general populace. Mistakenly recognized by the local super-heroes as the force destined to destroy their universe, was in fact an instrument used ultimately by Nikola Hanssen, new host for half the essence of the Void, to reclaim her whole power (partially lodged in his own body, and cause of his altered appearance) and use it to trigger the reboot of the WildStorm universe, in the WorldStorm event.
Captain Atom was returned to the DC Universe in Infinite Crisis #7 when Superboy-Prime punctured his Earth-8 counterpart Breach. One Year Later, Captain Atom is revealed to be contained inside Blüdhaven and used to administer radiation treatments to metahumans. Apparently Void, able to finally let him go home, was unable to ensure his safety, and multiple damages on his radiation-shielding skin had left him comatose and unable to keep down his body radiations to safe levels, forcing the Atomic Knights to keep him constantly contained.
After being fitted with an updated version of the Monarch armor (Armageddon 2001) to contain his radiation, the Captain awakens. Seeming to be mentally unstable, he breaks free, apparently kills the rampaging Major Force, and then releases a vast amount of energy, completely obliterating what was left of Blüdhaven. It is unknown what his condition is.
[edit] Characterization
Upon his initial return from the Quantum Field, Nathaniel Adam was portrayed as the classic "man out of his time". Early conflicts involved him coming to terms with his lost time with his children (who were now close to his current age as a result of the time jump), the death of his wife (who had married his nemesis Eiling prior to dying), and the overall ramifications of his newly acquired powers. Over the years, he managed to become an experienced leader and strategist due to his military background. At times, his confidence wavered, causing him to display his habit of telling bad jokes when nervous, but he would inevitably rise to the challenge. Overall, he gradually progressed from reluctant hero to reliable ally.
Recent stories have reintroduced Atom's conflict between his role in the superhero community and his responsibilities as a government agent. Recently, writers and editors have introduced a radioactive aspect of Captain Atom's physical makeup. This seems to contradict the quantum nature of Atom's powers as originally introduced as he didn't emit radiation when his skin was cut open. Towards the end of his series' run, Captain Atom was speculated as being an Elemental (Quantum Elemental) along with Swamp Thing (Earth), Red Tornado (Air), Firestorm (Fire), and Naiad (Water). The possibilities of this were only briefly explored.
[edit] Other versions
- Captain Atom was briefly shown in flashbacks in Alex Ross and Mark Waid's comic Kingdom Come as a member of Magog's Justice Battalion, along with the rest of the Charlton "Action Heroes". His death/detonation at the hands of the villain Parasite, and the irradiation of Kansas this caused, was what made Superman return to action. His outfit in this comic was a combination of his original Charlton uniform and his later DC costume.
- In 2004, DC launched a limited series called "Breach". Reportedly the series was originally planned as a revamp of the Captain Atom concept, but subsequently was reconceived as a completely new character. With the release of Infinite Crisis #5 in 2006, it was revealed by Alexander Luthor that Breach was in fact the Earth-Eight version of Captain Atom. Furthermore, if the Multiverse continued to exist after the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline, many of the characters that were created later, such as Kyle Rayner, Helena Bertinelli and Jason Rusch, would have existed on Earth-8.
- A new character named Bombshell shares his powers, although this character is a villainess.
[edit] Powers and abilities
- Captain Atom's metal skin is tied into the Quantum Field, which enables him to absorb and manipulate theoretically infinite amounts of energy, the amount of which he can use is, of course, limited by his will power. If Atom absorbs too much energy at once, he is sent hurling through time. Depending on the type of energy absorbed, he either goes forward or backward in time.
- This energy can be used for flight which is generally up to half-light speed, super strength (shown at times to be on par with Superman or Martian Manhunter), self sustenance and life support allowing him to live and even speak in space, fire and control energy of any form. He commonly manipulates his energy into force field bubbles, or explosive 'bombs', but the most common form is a simple blast.
- Over the years, Captain Atom has become an expert at his energy manipulation and he can fire from any point on his body, although he usually uses his hands for ease of aiming. He can fire in multiple directions at once or from every point of his body at once. Several times he has "detonated", releasing a massive amount of energy at once, destroying objects within a certain radius. Most recently, he used this ability to destroy the city of Blüdhaven. On more than one occasion, he has used his ability to manipulate all forms of energy to prevent a foe using their own powers, such as the Ray and Firestorm.
- Captain Atom can also create matter in the same manner he creates energy. Originally, he needed a pair of gloves invented by Blue Beetle to do so, but he later learned to do so without them. In the same way, he learned to access weak force energy.
- With focus and effort, Captain Atom can increase any of his abilities to the match the amount of will power he uses to gain it.
- As of Captain Atom: Armageddon #4, Captain Atom has demonstrated minor atomic transmutation powers, as he was able to turn both Maul and Engineer back to their human forms. This power can be used instinctively or through concentration. He has also shown the ability to telepathically interface with computer networks in addition to those listed above.
- In Captain Atom: Armageddon #7, Captain Atom has shown time-travelling capabilities without quantum jumping. Captain Atom states that through concentration, he can briefly travel ahead in time ("about a week or so"). The process is exhausting and the period he can interact in the future appears to be limited to a few minutes before he returns to the present.
- Captain Atom's metallic shell, or "skin", is composed of a portion of the alien being known as Silver Shield, and is called Dilustel. Pieces of the alien's metal body were used in the Captain Atom Project, Project Major Force and similar projects thereafter. Nathaniel is able to coat himself with the metal, either partially or totally. Atom's symbiosis with the metal is such that even partially armored he is able to access the Quantum Field.
- The metal is almost totally invulnerable, resistant to various degrees of damage from energy, physical, heat, lasers, etc. Only X-Ionizer technology can cut the metal because that is what the Captain Atom Project used to remove the Silver Shield's skin. The katana wielded by the Cambodian that once sliced through Atom's side was also X-Ionized, his armor was also X-Ionized.
[edit] Other media
The character appears in the animated television series, Justice League Unlimited. In that series, his premise is actually closer to that of Wildfire of the Legion of Super Heroes, in that Atom is a disembodied mass of sentient energy that is contained in a special suit. In this new form, he bears a similar appearance to that of Dr. Manhattan from the comic book Watchmen, who is, incidentally, based off of Captain Atom. He serves as a mild antagonistic foil for Green Arrow in much the same way the Silver Age Hawkman did in the comics; that is, they pursue bickering conflict between the military officer and the former peace activist, although this type of conflict has not been developed since the pair made peace in their first mission together.
However, in later episodes, Captain Atom is seen fulfilling the role of an all-around powerhouse with severely conflicted loyalties; examples of this role include controlling a nuclear reactor (Task Force X), then later being coerced into fighting Superman by his superiors in the Air Force, who at the time were acting on instructions from Project Cadmus (Question Authority). His first appearance (Initiation) was voiced by CSI's George Eads while his later appearances were voiced by Chris Cox. The JLU version of the character speaks with a slightly noticeable Texas accent.
[edit] Trivia
- The rights to Captain Atom and most other Charlton characters were purchased by DC Comics in the early 1980s. Originally, these Charlton characters were to be reintroduced in writer Alan Moore's limited series Watchmen; however, this was deemed to render the characters unusable for future stories, and characters inspired by the Charlton originals were used instead. For Captain Atom, the stand-in was Doctor Manhattan.
- Bizarrely, the post-Crisis version of Captain Atom is reminiscent of "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath. In the song, the main character's skin was turned to steel and sent into the future.
- Nathanial Adam (Captain Atom), Hal Jordan (Green Lantern), and Celia Forrestal (Skyrocket) are all pilots from different branches of the US. armed forces.
- It was in the Cary Bates series that X-Ionizer technology was introduced to the DCU, basically technology that could render any metal superdense and sharp enough to cut anything even invulnerable Metas.
[edit] Collections
- Captain Atom: Armageddon (by Will Pfeifer and Giuseppe Camuncoli, Wildstorm, 192 pages, November 2006, ISBN 1-4012-1106-2)
- "Action Heroes Archive Volume 1" reprints the Captain Atom stories from "Space Adventures" and "Captain Atom" issues #78-82 (ISBN 1-4012-0302-7).
[edit] References
- DCDP: Captain Atom
- Captain Atom (DC Comics) at the Big Comic Book DataBase
- Toonopedia entry for the Charlton Captain Atom
- Toonopedia entry for the DC Captain Atom
- International Catalogue of Superheroes entry for Captain Atom
- Index to the Earth-4 adventures of the Charlton Action Heroes
- SBC Nov. 23, 2003: Interview with AC Comics' Bill Black
- The Grand Comics Database
Categories: Articles with large trivia sections | Fictional characters who can move at superhuman speeds | L.A.W. members | Charlton Comics superheroes | DC Comics titles | Wildstorm Comics superheroes | Fictional Americans in DC Comics | DC Comics characters who can fly | Fictional captains | DC Comics characters with superhuman strength | Charlton Comics titles
