CAPTAIN ATOM (post-Flashpoint)

Real Name: Captain Allen Adam

Class: Parallel Earth (Earth-4) human mutate

Occupation: Superhero

Group Affiliation: Pax Americana

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Washington, D.C. (Earth-4)

First Appearance: Space Adventures (Charlton) #33 (March, 1960)

Powers: Captain Atom possessed quantum senses that gave him godlike powers. He saw all of time and space, could travel through time, rearrange atoms to transmute, deconstruct or construct virtually anything, and teleport.

History: (The Multiversity: Pax Americana #1) -In a government attempt to create a superhero, directed by Governor Harley, Captain Allen Adam was suited with the met material Dilustel, and exposed to the unstable element U-235. The scientists in charge of the experiment also secretly placed an artificial black hole in Adam’s head, at the orders of Sarge Steel‘s superiors. He gained godlike powers over which he had little control, and was driven near madness by his ability to see into all of spacetime. Harley was overjoyed and requested a meeting, despite Adam turning government men that approached him into metal. The scientists that created him brought his pet dog Brutus to him, hoping to jar some memories. He saw Brutus from a purely materialistic point of view and separated the animal’s anatomy. He felt remorse, and created another Brutus, but said it wasn’t the same. Harley took him for a walk, telling him that he’d found Algorithm 8, the mathematical solution that would bring peace to the world, and explain the structure underlying the universe. He’d seen the unavoidable future of a world in chaos, with death camps at the end of history, and he knew Adam saw it too. He’d come up with a plan to save humanity, but knew it was impossible without a real superhero, Adam, who he rechristened Captain Atom. He needed the ultimate sacrifice and redemption of the unredeemable tp restore the symmetry of the universe. Harley knew that he would have to ascend to President, die, and be raised from the dead by Atom. He gave Atom a stack of comic books so he could understand the gravity of the situation. Atom traveled back in time to inspire the young Harley, and teach him the secret of Algorithm 8. In 2008 Atom joined a number of costumed heroes, who, unlike him, had no powers, as President Harley’s Pax Americana. They made their public debut in NYC, where Captain Atom constructed three towers to replace the fallen Twin Towers at Ground Zero. In 2014 the scientists that created Captain Atom were tasked with destroying him. They convinced him to test a particle accelerator they intended to discorporate him. He read the DC comic Ultra Comics, and pondered how higher planes of existence saw their world. He revealed that he read the scientists thoughts like word balloons, and disappeared from the universe.

Comments: Created by Joe Gill & Steve Ditko.

Captain Atom and Pax Americana were featured in the Earth-4 entry in The Multiversity: Guidebook #1

The characters of Watchmen were originally intended to be the Charlton Comics heroes, recently acquired by DC. When Alan Moore was unable to use them due to editorial decree, he created analogs. The story of Pax Americana is a homage to Moore’s work, with the cast of Watchmen now replaced by the aforementioned Charlton characters.

CAPTAIN ATOM

Real Name: Nathaniel Christopher Adam

Class: Human mutate

Occupation: U.S. air force officer, superhero

Group Affiliation: formerly Justice League, Justice League Europe, Extreme Justice, Justice League of Air, Super Buddies, L.A.W.

Known Relatives: Angela Adam Eiling (wife, deceased), Peggy Eiling (daughter), Randy Eiling (son), Bette Sans Souci (Plastique, ex-wife)

Aliases: Monarch

Base of Operations: San Francisco

First Appearance: Space Adventures (Charlton) #33 (March, 1960)

Powers: Atom's body was bonded to an alien metal alloy that could coat his body, allowing him to tap into the quantum field. His access to the quantum field gave him superhuman strength, durability, flight, and the ability to project nuclear blasts. He could absorb nuclear energy, but if he overtaxed himself he would inadvertently quantum leap into the future,

History: Nathaniel Adam was a young air force captain court-martialed for murder and treason in 1968. The government told him he had two choices, life imprisonment or a chance to partake in the top-secret "Captain Atom" project. They warned him that he could die in the experiment, but if he survived he'd be pardoned. He accepted because he was eager to prove his innocence to his family. The government recently recovered a UFO constructed of a unique alien alloy. Adam was put inside a shell made of the metal, and placed on an atomic bomb. The shell contained the blast, but Adam seemingly died. In truth his body bonded to the alloy, letting him tap into the quantum field, and he'd quantum leaped into the future. His pardon was considered null and void, so the government worked out a deal where he'd be their superhero Captain Atom in return for a future pardon.

(Guy Gardner: Warrior #20, 21) - Guy Gardner and Green Lantern Alan Scott wanted to learn why Green Lanterns were turning up dead and stripped of their power rings, so Guy recruited Captain Atom and his Justice League America teammates to travel to Oa. Approaching Oa they spotted several dead Green Lanterns, and on Oa the heroes were attacked by power constructs and confronted by the source of the carnage, the power-mad Hal Jordan. Hal told them they should never have come after him, because all he wanted was to resurrect Coast City, but the Guardians and GLC got in his way. He defeated the heroes and destroyed Guy Gardner’s power ring.

(Green Lantern III #81) - Coast City; Atom was among the heroes who attended a memorial service for Green Lantern Hal Jordan.

(Superman: The Man of Steel #117, Action Comics #782) - Superman, Captain Atom, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman and the Alien Alliance led an assault on Warworld and Brainiac-13's forces. The resurrected Steel severed the energy tendril connecting Warworld to Apokolips, and Wonder Woman temporarily stopped a tendril from reaching Earth by blocking it with Paradise Island, but the battle with Warworld was still at a stalemate. The war ended when Superman created a Boom Tube that opened up to the beginning of time, which swallowed Warworld and scattering B-13's consciousness across all spacetime after the Big Bang.

(Final Night #1, 3) - Superman organized a summit of superheroes, including Atom and Extreme Justice, to listen to an alien named Dusk. She'd seen the Sun-Eater snuff out the sun of countless planets, and she was there to warn the heroes that the Sun-Eater was headed towards Earth. Atom and a team of heroes opened up a Boom Tube to transport the Sun-Eater to the Source, but it overloaded and failed because the Sun-Eater only partially existed in their dimension. The Eater engulfed the sun, causing worldwide freezing, and at S.T.A.R. Labs Atom and the heroes learned that the Eater would cause the sun to go hyper-nova in under 24 hours.

(JLA #27) - Captain Atom was called in as a JLA reservist to battle Amazo. Amazo was programmed to acquire the powers of the JLA, so when Atom and a number of other heroes temporarily joined the JLA to battle him it just made Amazo more powerful. Amazo decimated the JLA reservists, and was only defeated when Superman officially disbanded the JLA, leaving Amazo powerless.

(Justice Leagues: Justice League of Aliens #1, Justice Leagues: JLA #1) - When the Advance Man made the world forgot that the JLA ever existed the individual members still had a vague memory of the team and formed their own Justice Leagues. Captain Atom was recruited to be in Green Lantern IV’s Justice League of Air. The League of Air aided Martian Manhunter’s Justice League of Aliens quell an outbreak of human mutation in California that was caused by the Advance Man. Advance Man’s client, Plura, arrived on Earth and prepared to ravage it, but she was temporarily thwarted by the Justice Leagues of Air and Aliens. The Justice League of Air disbanded following the reformation of the Justice League of America.

(JLA #39, 40) - Atom was among the legion of heroes summoned by the JLA to quell worldwide outbreaks of warfare that were incited by Mageddon.

(JSA #33-35) - The Ultra-Humanite used Johnny Thunder’s Thunderbolt to conquer the world, and imprisoned Atom and virtually every superhuman on Earth in stasis tubes, only reviving them when he needed mind-controlled slaves to serve in his personal guard the Thunderfront. Atom served as a member of the Thunderfront when they attacked the JSA, the only heroes not under the Humanite’s control. During the fight Captain Atom’s shell was cracked when JSAer Crimson Avenger shot him, quantum leaping him and everyone around him one week into the future. By this time the JSA had already defeated the Humanite and freed the Thunderfront from his control.

(JLA / JSA: Virtue and Vice) - The JLA and JSA’s ranks were decimated when the Seven Deadly Sins possessed several members of the teams, so Captain Atom was called to deal with the situation as a JLA reservist. He confronted the Sin’s master Johnny Sorrow, but one look at Sorrow’s unmasked face caused Atom to quantum leap. He reappeared in the near future, distracting Sorrow’s partner Despero, and allowing the unpossessed members of the JLA and JSA to defeat Sorrow and Despero.

(Identity Crisis #1) - Captain Atom was among the number of heroes who attended Sue Dibny’s funeral.

(Superman / Batman #1-6) - President Luthor informed Atom and his other super-powered aides that a kryptonite asteroid was on a collision course with Earth. Lex called a press conference and blamed Superman's for the impending disaster, saying his very existence was attracting a piece of his home planet to Earth. He put a billion dollar bounty on Superman's head so he could face a trial for crimes against humanity. Captain Atom knew Lex was just making up facts to further his vendetta against Superman, and asked Lex to give him the opportunity to ask Superman to surrender peacefully, but Lex told him to be a good soldier and get back in line. A number of supervillains failed to collect the bounty on Superman, who was being aided by Batman, so Luthor sent Atom and a number of heroes to bring them into federal custody. Katana switched sides midway through a battle with Superman and Batman, and she cut off her former ally Major Force’s hands with her sword. Force couldn’t control the energy leaking from his wrists, and he would have exploded and destroyed Tokyo if Captain Atom didn’t absorb the energy into his own body. The strain was too much for Atom, and the explosion shunted Atom forward in time to a possible future. In this future the kryptonite asteroid had decimated Earth and the only person left alive was Superman, who blamed himself. Atom told him the future was fluid, and that he could still avert the catastrophe. He jumped back in time and knocked out Superman, preventing him from riding a rocket ship into space to destroy the asteroid. He knew the presence of kryptonite would weaken Superman, cause him to fail, and Earth would be destroyed. Atom piloted the ship, breaking up the asteroid into hundreds of smaller pieces that reached Earth. The explosion that occurred when the ship collided with the asteroid shunted Atom into another universe.

Comments: Created by Joe Gill & Steve Ditko.

In the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe Captain Atom lived on Earth-4

Captain Atom was originally published by Charlton Comics, which DC obtained the rights to in 1983.

Captain Atom received profiles in Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #4, Who's Who: Update '87 #1 and Who's Who in the DC Universe #6. Captain Atom received a profile in JLA-Z #2 under the JLA (The International Era) entry.

Captain Atom had cameo in Damage #0, Green Lantern: Rebirth #3, Hawk and Dove III #1, Justice League of America II #1, Power of Shazam II #10, R.E.B.E.L.S. Annual #1, Spectre II #22 and Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime #1.