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Anonymous writes...

Which misconceptions about Captain Atom and his supporting cast annoy you the most?

Greg responds...

Hmm...

1. The conflation of Captain Atom with either (a) Doctor Manhattan or (b) Wildfire of the LSH. Cap is neither an empty shell full of energy as Wildfire is, nor does he have the godlike transformation/transmutation powers of Manhattan.

2. The idea that you can blow Cap up and his destruction releases the equivalent of an atom bomb. He's tapped into the quantum flow, but if he had built up enough power from the flow to be able to generate that kind of explosion, the excess energy would have instantly transported him into the future.

3. Anyone who divorces the Captain's story from the love of his children. That's his raison d'être. Period. That's not to say he can't participate in an adventure that has nothing to do with his kids. A League mission or what not. But if the story is about him, then everything with him is about his kids. He is a dad first. A super-hero and/or a soldier second/third.

4. Anyone who forgets that Cap is a man out of his time. It's not quite as big a deal as the kid thing. He has adapted. But it's important to remember that the 1960s was not that long ago to him.

5. General Wade Eiling is often mischaracterized from my point of view. This is a man with an agenda, but he's still (in his mind) a patriot. He's got a temper, but he's pragmatic not irrational. He'd never, for example, voluntarily place his brain inside the Shaggy Man. That's just silly to me. He's basically a proto-Xanatos. Wade's not as charming as David. But he's that smart and always armed with contingencies.

6. There are probably a lot of other things, too, if I thought about it too much. But the BIG ONE is...

7. The pronunciation of "Eiling." It's EE-ling, like an electric eel. All those people who pronounce it EYE-ling are just objectively wrong.

Response recorded on March 08, 2022


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