Atomic Man
From Transformers Wiki
- The Atomic Man is a human from the Generation 1 continuity family.
Mike Power, the Atomic Man, was born disabled, and worked tirelessly to replace his useless limbs with mighty mechanical prosthetics. Few can withstand his devastating atomic punch, making him a valued member of the Adventure Team.
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Fiction
G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers
In 1978, the Atomic Man accompanied Joe Colton and Chok-Pa to the Himalayas of Tibet, where they foiled the plans of General Mihai. Fleeing Mihai's forces, Power shielded his teammates from the firepower of the general's jet fighters with his invulnerable limbs, but was unprepared for both sides to come under attack from the forces of Cobra-La. Power's atomic punch briefly staggered Bludgeon, but the Atomic Man was soon felled by the Pretender's sword in front of his horrified friends. Black Horizon, Part 1 of 2
2005 IDW continuity
Mike Power was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Atomic Man profile where, as a result of amniotic band syndrome, he was born without a right arm or left leg. In spite of his disability, "Mikey" enjoyed a happy childhood as an amateur sleuth, solving mysteries with the help of his loyal dog Smarts. On one early adventure, he helped track down a stolen bicycle, which had been nabbed by local bullies Finney and Pidge. Sometime after that, Finney went missing inside a "haunted house", and Pidge recruited Mike to investigate. Power discovered that the "ghosts" were holograms projected by a piece of advanced technology being smuggled into the country by Brasnyan spies. Action Man, who had tracked the Brasnyans to the States, burst in and arrested the criminals, congratulating Mike for his courage. While Action Man was busy, Mike rescued Finney and took the hologram projector for himself... unaware that he had actually recovered the remains of an IRON Trooper.
That winter, Mike—after feeling helpless for the first time in his life—became obsessed with improving his prostheses by analyzing and reverse-engineering the advanced technology recovered from the "hologram projector". His new obsession consumed his life to the point where he gave up detective work and neglected Smarts, who eventually ran away. After years of intensive work, Power created a new set of superhuman prostheses for himself, which became his trademark "atomic" limbs. Power and Glory His increasingly experimental research led him to higher education, where he earned several degrees in cybernetics at CalTech and M.I.T. Atomic Man profile
After graduating, Power met and befriended Joe Colton, leader of the elite Adventure Team. After impressing him with his cybernetically enhanced abilities, Power eventually joined the Adventure Team, becoming the "Atomic Man" and the team's first truly super-powered asset. Power and Glory Secret Raiders Befriending fellow technology-wielding superhero Bulletman, the duo quickly gained a reputation as the team's heavy-hitters, capable of tackling missions that their teammates couldn't. Atomic Man profile
This durability would be put to the test in 1984, when the Adventure Team were deployed to Egypt to rescue Garrison Kreiger from the Tomb of Amtoltec in Dahshur. Colton discovered that a swarm of IRON Troopers dressed as mummies had swarmed to the site, and dispatched Bulletman and Atomic Man to take them out. Further investigation revealed that the Decepticon Soundwave, on a mission of his own, had also travelled to the tomb to investigate a mysterious Talisman responsible for the Iron Troopers. The Adventure Team struggled against the Cybertronian in the room containing the Talisman. With his mechanical limbs torn to shreds by Soundwave's hail of fire, Mike was compelled to reach out to the Talisman, which flooded his body with energy, repairing his damaged limbs and granting them the ability to generate forcefields. Ultimately, this mission marked the beginning of the end for the Adventure Team: the world was getting stranger and ordinary humans like Joe Colton weren't capable of keeping up. The Secret of the Mummy's Tomb
On one of their last missions, the Adventure Team struggled to rescue scientist Emil Burkhart from more IRON Troopers. Relying on his cybernetics to rescue Burkhart, Power was too late to save the scientist, who died while his daughter watched. Despairing over his failure, Power reached out to Kreiger in the hopes of using the Talisman to upgrade his limbs even further. Power and Glory Kreiger promised to help Power achieve his goals, offering him the opportunity to unlock its deepest secrets and become one with the artifact. Trusting his potential benefactor, Power accepted and relocated to Kreiger's Brasnyan base, the nexus of his research into the Talisman. Unification Day: Dusk
Though professing good intentions, Kreiger quickly made his true goals clear as he and Centurion began "Project Ice Man," a battery of invasive experiments aimed at increasing the synergy between Power's cybernetic physiology and the systems of the Talisman through a series of incremental upgrades. Power and Glory In 1994, after years of such experimentation, Power was able to reactivate the Talisman, which had the unexpected effect of returning Sgt. Savage and Centurion's starship Axalon to the timestream after their disappearance in 1944. The effort involved caused him to collapse, and when Colton's Adventure Force stormed the base seconds later, they were unable to discern a heartbeat and assumed that Kreiger had killed Atomic Man. When Eagles Scream Believing that Kreiger had killed their most powerful member, Adventure Force was decommissioned shortly afterwards, Power and Glory and Kreiger was dishonorably discharged for his deeds, going on to found I.R.O.N. Garrison Kreiger profile
The truth, however, was more complicated: Power had survived his traumatic encounter with the Talisman, and deprived of government oversight, Kreiger's machinations grew increasingly depraved: as decades passed, Power's mutilated body grew increasingly mechanical as Kreiger continued his experiments. Eventually, Kreiger succeeded in his original goal of making the Atomic Man "one with the Talisman:" an elaborate web of life support systems kept the cyborg alive and conscious, his atomic limbs now directly integrated into the base. The "Ice Man" was able to control the base's numerous facilities remotely; by controlling the IRON Troopers created by the Talisman, he could even reanimate the dead bodies of Domitius Major and "Shockwave". Power and Glory
In 2017, after the formation of the Iron Ring Tomax Paoli and Centurion were sent to collect data on the Ice Man experiments from Kreiger's I.R.O.N. tower in San Francisco in preparation for an upcoming invasion of Cybertron. The Iron Klaw Shortly into their mission, however, the Iron Ring was infiltrated and compromised, and in the aftermath Baron Ironblood made the decision to scrub them. The Iron Klaw Kup, Action Man, Mayday, and Garrison Blackrock caught up with them and pressed Tomax for information regarding the "Ice Man". In the base, Kreiger and Doctor X made preparations for when the heroes inevitably found out about their machinations and came to bring Kreiger in. Strange Visitors
The team joined forces with Matt Trakker and Gloria Baker to investigate Kreiger's Brasnyan base in the hopes of learning more about Kreiger's recent activities. Using Atomic Man, Kreiger sprang numerous traps on the heroes as they closed in on the center of the base, but after besting his "I.R.O.N. Cybertronians" Kreiger infused Mike's body with supplies of Ore-13 to push his capabilities to the limit. With time running out, Action Man appealed to Power's humanity, imploring him to remember that all of Atomic Man's improvements were to better himself as a hero. Action Man's words moved Power to realize that he'd lost his way. Apologizing to his best friend Smarts for abandoning him, Power deactivated his cyborg body and seemingly perished, shutting down the base and taking the Maximals with him. Power and Glory
Though Power's physical body had perished, his mind persisted: having spent so much time interacting with Talisman technology, an etching of his mind had been preserved within the systems of the ancient obelisk, a data ghost existing in the virtual realm between life and death. Following a confrontation in Buenos Aires, a critically injured Blackrock was thrust into infraspace, where he encountered the spectre of his master Onyx Prime. Before the Prime could destroy his former servant, Power—seemingly a young child once more—intervened, punching out Onyx's digital avatar while explaining to the bewildered Blackrock his plan to "reinvent himself" for the last time. When Blackrock returned to the living world, he used Metrotitan's systems to unleash a wave of energy. This had the side effect of releasing Power's spirit, which found its way into the body of Centurion and produced a hybrid being, Centurion's new consciousness containing the memories of both Transformer and human. Ghost in the Machine
External links
- The Atomic Man at Adventure-Gear.com (archived)