Gamma

World in Flames

During the World in Flames event, Gamma became a minion of Doctor Destroyer. An sleeper agent of Destroyer's in Stronghold released Gamma from hotsleep, allowing the radioactive mutant to burst the walls of the super-prison with nuclear explosions. The coordinated breakout that followed released some of AltEarth's most hardened super-criminals; only a handful have since been apprehended.

Gamma was also responsible for an attack on Millennium City and the murder of the young hero Cyclone. He was not defeated in that encounter, but mind controlled into leaving the city by Orchid.

History / Background

Dr. Frank Ward was a brilliant nuclear physicist and research scientist who took too many risks in his pursuit of knowledge. Those risks came back to haunt him when his son Adam was born a mutant with severe mental retardation and a hard-radiation aura and touch that resulted in his mother's death. Dr. Ward kept his son in isolation, shielding everyone from Adam's uncontrolled radiation bursts, and spent the next sixteen years seeking acure for his son's condition.

Dr. Ward's search became more urgent when he discovered that he was dying from cancer, most likely from exposure to Adam's radioactive emmissions over the years. Ward developed an experimental treatment that he believed would leech off Adam's exess radioactivity and also grant him a measure of normal mental capacity, once the interfering energy stopped overloading his brain synapses.

Dr. Ward's plan required the theft of a large amount of radioactive material from labs in his home state of Illinois. This drew the attention of the Fabulous Five. Tracking the thefts, the team discovered Dr. Ward's secret lab and defeated the mercenaries he had hired. Damage to the lab equipment forced Dr. Ward to make the final connections to his device manually, and to place the device over his son' unshielded head; Ward collapsed near his son, his hands and face severely burned by radiation. When the Fabulous Five fought past the mercenaries they found a large, glowing blue man cradling a charred corpse. Assuming this monster had killed the man, the team attacked.

Awareness began to dawn on Adam, and aching for contact, Adam was shocked and confused by the violent attack from a group of stangers. Adam fought back until Comet realized that Adam wasn't an ordinary supervillain and called off the attack. The team calmed Adam and turned the child-like mutant over to the Department of Paranormal and Superhuman Affairs.

Under round-the-clock medical and psychological care (though always in physical isolation), Adam learned to speak articulate English. He eventually piece together the story of his life as well as the details of his parents' deaths. The stress of imprisonment and guilt pushed Adam over the edge and he burst free from a government lab by generating a nuclear explosion. He swore revenge against the Fabulous Five, who he believed caused his father's death and dubbed himself "Gamma, the Atom-Smasher."

He has made several attemps to destroy the Fabulous Five. During his last attempt, in 2003, the team managed to capture him and oversee his transport to Stronghold. Awaiting trial, he was placed in "hot sleep," a form of suspended animation, as he was deemed both too unstable and too powerful to be allowed to remain conscious. Convicted of the murder of lab technicians and attempted murder of the Fabulous Five, Gamma was sentenced to life in hot sleep, at least until other means of containing him could be devised. Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have since organized campaigns for a more humane form of incarceration for the vengeful, child-like mutant, many even questioning whether he was competent to stand trial or whether he should have been tried as an adult.

Personality

Adam has the personality of a bitter and lonley adolescent. His father's final treatments and his limited interactions and education by government scientists awakened his intellect, which is unremarkable, but no longer stunted. Adam has neihter the emotional stabilty nor the life-experience to handle the world he lives in. In many ways, he acts as a vengeful child lashing out at the people he considers responsible for his pain. Denied human contact all his life, he is intensely lonely, but denies that he needs anyone or anything. He claims that humanity rejected him first, and that he will show them how right they were to fear him.

Although he would not admit it, he looks to Doctor Destroyer as a surrogate father. Like his own father, Destroyer is an accomplished scientist obssessed with his projects; and, like Gamma himself, Destroyer desires--for very different reasons--to end the lives of most of humanity.

Powers / Tactics

Gamma's body generates radiation he can channell and project in various ways. He can create beams of heat and surround himself in a damaging radiation field. He can use his energy to fly and his body is incredibly tough; he is also superhumanly strong and immune to radiation and extremes of temperature.