Captain Atom
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Captain Atom is a 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.
Character and publishing history
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, Charlton 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).
DC Comics (Post-Crisis) History
A new, post-Crisis version of the character was introduced with the launch in 1986 of a monthly comic written by Cary Bates (a long-time writer of The Flash and Superman) 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. The experiment involved testing the hull of a crashed alien ship's durability by exploding a 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.
Upon arrival and regaining coherence from his experience, Adam found himself a man out of his time, in the hands of Eiling, now a general and the second husband of Adam's now-deceased wife. After an attempt to kill Adam failed, Eiling settled for assigning Adam as a spy in the superhero community under the code-name "Captain Atom". The events of the Charlton stories were established as simply the cover story for Adam, who also was assigned the alias of Air Force intelligence operative Cameron Scott. 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. 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.
Becoming a superhero, Captain Atom joined the Justice League at the request of the U.S. government, serving as leader of Justice League Europe. In 1991, 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 the "Armageddon The Alien Agenda" limited series, until he was returned to his own time at the conclusion.
His ongoing series was cancelled with issue #57 in September of 1991.
Captain Atom then returned to the League, founding an offshoot team, Extreme Justice in 1995. 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 JL 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, but as readers expected (since 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 experiences 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 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 from 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.
A year afterwards, 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.
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 is 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-Eight.
Like other Charlton Comics heroes, an alternate version of Captain Atom appeared in Alan Moore's Watchmen, appearing under the name Dr. Manhattan.
Powers
Captain Atom wields energy powers of all ranges from nuclear to x-ray to heat/light. He is able to absorb all forms of energy and either boost his own strength and powers or redirect to his enemy. 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.Captain Atom's metal is tied into the Quantum Field, which grants him access to theoretically infinte amounts of energy, the amount of which he can use is of course limited by his will power.
He also possesses superhuman strength, amazing physical durability and extreme speed when flying.
As of Captain Atom: Armageddon #4, Captain Atom has demonstrated minor atomic transmutation powers and the ability to telepathically interface with computer networks in addition to those listed above. Also, he can, apparently, breathe and survive in a hard vacuum as he spent considerable time on the moon talking with the Authority's Engineer.
In Captain Atom: Armageddon #7, Captain Atom has shown time-travelling capabilities without quantum jumping.
Other media
The character appears in the animated television series, Justice League Unlimited. In that series, his premise is actually closer to the Legionnare Wildfire, in that Atom is a disembodied mass of sentient energy that is contained in a special suit. 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 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 in (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 in (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.
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.
- DC Comics issued a Action Heroes Archive Volume 1 (ISBN 1401203027), reprinting the Captain Atom stories from Space Adventures and Captain Atom #78-82.
- Nathanial Adam (Captain Atom), Hal Jordan (Green Lantern), and Celia Forrestal (Skyrocket) are all pilots from different branches of the US armed forces.
References
- [Captain Atom (DC Comics)] at the Big Comic Book DataBase
- [JLResource.com entry for the animated Captain Atom]
- [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]
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