The definitely-not-true origin of Captain Atom
21. Captain Atom #3 by Cary Bates and Pat Broderick
I love and respect Cary Bates’ later career in comics. He spent years toiling on the books that weren’t cool and new in the Bronze Age, titles like Superman and the Flash. But more than perhaps any one of the pre-Crisis DC writers, he immediately stepped into attempts to tell more adult stories. He certainly does so in the pages of Captain Atom.
Unfortunately, he makes Captain Atom’s origins incredibly dense in the process. Even here on issue three, we’re still just working toward making him a hero recognized by the public. Why? Because every story of Captain Atom before this one is a fiction created by the United States military.
In the previous two issues, we learned Nathaniel Adam was a disgraced Air Force captain strapped to an experimental rocket. It exploded and sent him twenty years into the future to the present day. He also became an immensely powered hero, arguably on the scale of Superman.
Still a military man, the brass is faced with the problem of a supposed criminal being their new superhero. They event an elaborate back story for the new hero, complete with hiring actors to play super-villains. This issue has him go on a show that’s not quite Nightline. (DC is at a weird point here where…
