Captain Atom
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Captain Atom is a fictional character, a comic book superhero. He was created by Steve Ditko for Charlton Comics, and was later acquired and revised by DC Comics.
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Charlton Comics
The Charlton Comics version of Captain Atom first appeared in 1960 and focused upon the adventures of Captain Allen Adam. He was created by writer Joe Gill and artist Steve Ditko. The character's origin was that Captain Adam was working in a special experimental rocket when it accidentally launched with himself trapped inside. Entering the upper atmosphere, the rocket exploded and Capt. Adam was atomized. However, Adam somehow gained superpowers which included the ability to reform his body safely on the ground. Realizing what his other abilities were, like the ability to fly and fire powerful blasts, Adam decided to fight the forces of evil as Captain Atom.
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 on 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 very similar to other nuclear-powered superheroes such as Gold Key's Doctor Solar and Dell Comics' Nukla.
Captain Atom was first published in a series of short stories published in Space Adventures #33 thru #40 and #42 in 1960-61. They later started to reprint the stories in Strange Suspense Stories (starting with #75) in 1965, renaming it Captain Atom with issue 78 and giving him full length stories and 'real' supervillians (previous stories were more Cold War style anti-communist missions or dealing with aliens). He would also soon be teamed up with Nightshade. Blue Beetle would first appear as a backup series, later replaced by a Nightshade backup series. The title would be cancelled with issue #89 in 1967. In the 70s, the unfinished issue #90 would be inked by John Byrne and be published in the first two issues of the CPL Gang published (and Charlton approved) fanzine, Charlton Bullseye. In 1981, Captain Atom would appear in issue #7 of the new Charlton Bullseye comic. His last "Charlton" appearance would be in a story that teamed up all the Charlton "Action Heroes", and be published in a one-shot by AC Comics.
The rights to this, and other, Charlton characters were purchased by DC Comics and became the basis for Alan Moore's Watchmen. Captain Atom was changed to Doctor Manhattan.
DC has recently issued a Action Heroes Archive, v1 (ISBN 1401203027), reprinting the Captain Atom stories from Space Adventures and Captain Atom #78-82. One can hope they will reprint the rest of the Captain Atom stories and more of Charlton's Action Heroes line.
DC Comics
Following the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths , the character was introduced into the DC Universe in 1986 in a monthly comic written by Cary Bates (a long-time writer of The Flash and Superman) and drawn by Pat Broderick. The captain's name was established as Captain Nathaniel Adam, an United States Air Force 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 an 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 triggered a strange effect which jumped him ahead to 1986.
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.
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, but when word of this leaked out, DC changed the ending, choosing to leave him lost in time and cancelling his ongoing series.
He 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 was what made Superman return to action. His outfit in this comic was a combination of his original Charlton outfit and his later DC outfit.
He returned to the present and to the League, founding an offshoot team, Extreme Justice. Later, he was a member of the all-Charlton-derived group The L.A.W. In 2003, he once again teamed up with several former members of the JL as the "Super Buddies" in the humorous mini-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 most readers expected, he soon returned to life and to the background of the DC Universe.
In 2004, DC launched a miniseries called "Breach". Apparently, the series started out as a sort of revamp of the Captain Atom concept.
In a 2005 issue of Superman/Batman it was made clear that Captain Atom survived the collision with the comet but after absorbing massive amounts of radiation and became a super villian described as a "Kryptonite Man". The radiation was siphoned out of Captain Atom by a device made by Hiro Okamura or the "Toyman" which returned Captain Atom to his usual self although a little confused.
Other Media Depiction
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 also basically fulfills the mild antagonistic role that the Pre-Crisis Hawkman was to the Green Arrow as a bickering conflict between the military officer and the peace activist. His first appearance (Initiation) was voiced by CSI's George Eads while his later appearances were voiced by Chris Cox.
External Links
- Captain Atom (DC Comics) (http://www.comics-db.com/DC_Comics/C/Captain_Atom/index.html) at the Big Comic Book DataBase
- Toonopedia entry for the Charlton Captain Atom (http://www.toonopedia.com/capatom1.htm)
- Toonopedia entry for the DC Captain Atom (http://www.toonopedia.com/capatom2.htm)
- International Catalogue of Superheroes entry for Captain Atom (http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/c/capatom2.htm)