There's always another way.
— Captain Atom
Captain Atom: Armageddon is a 2005 miniseries by DC Comics under the Wild Storm imprint.
After the events of Public Enemies (2004), Captain Atom suddenly finds himself in the WildStorm universe.
Captain Atom: Armageddon provides examples of:
- A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Captain Atom stops Voodoo's psychic assault by routing the entire internet into her mind.
- Alternate-History Nazi Victory: After bringing Captain Atom to an alternate Earth where the Nazis won World War II, Jack Hawksmoor complains about how common such worlds are in the multiverse.
- Always Someone Better: Captain Atom notes more than once how, despite his sheer power and good intentions, he tended to be overshadowed by heroes like Superman and Batman in his home universe. It gets flipped around once he arrives on the Wildstorm Earth: Atom ends up overshadowing most of its native superhumans.
- Apocalypse Maiden: Captain Atom discovers that something embedded itself in him as he entered into the Wildstorm universe, and because of it he is going to destroy everything if he stays there. He also learns that he can't leave, and that if he dies, the destruction will happen instantly.
- This transfers over to Nikola/Void in the end; she heals Captain Atom and sends him home, but decides that her universe needs resetting.
- Apocalypse How: This was the main driver of the plot. Captain Atom, quite against his will, was going to explode and destroy the entire universe, and nothing could stop it.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Played for Black Comedy; once he realizes he's stuck on an alternate Earth, Captain Atom laments that he's lost, alone, and also gold, for some reason.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Inverted. The Midnighter saw Captain Atom as just another target for a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. Instead, Captain Atom treated the Midnighter to a total Curb-Stomp Battle, showing that sometimes Awesome by Analysis is no match for raw, unadulterated, world-shaking power.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: When Grifter first suspects Void has returned, he asks his acquaintance Jeremy to run some tests to make sure. Jeremy runs the scans and confirms that he's not detecting a single signature of her energy. Grifter is disappointed until Jeremy elaborates: he's detecting two signatures.
- Beware the Superman: The basic attitude of the Wildstorm Earth's general population. Captain Atom was already dismayed to see average citizens terrified of superhumans like him, but he's extremely upset to see the same fear coming from the U.S. military and even the President of the United States.President: "Here, it's the others — the ones like you and Majestic — who matter. They're the ones who run things, the ones that decide who lives and who dies...and who gets to go home. Here, normal people, even normal people with the word "president" in front of their name...well, they don't really count for too much in the grand scheme of things. Here...we answer to a higher authority."
- Blood Iron: Before Captain Atom knocks her out, Voodoo threatens to control the iron in his blood and rip his veins apart.
- Chrome Champion: All over the place: Captain Atom, The Engineer and Nikola when she embraces the power of Void.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: The Authority are so used to dealing with strange, apocalyptic threats that they're somewhat desensitized. After taking Captain Atom through several peaceful alternate universes, Jack Hawksmoor and the Engineer don't think anything of bringing him with them into a huge battle on a world where the Nazis are in power. Jack even offers Atom the chance to kill that world's Hitler as if it were a fun opportunity.
- Continuity Nod: Majestic briefly tells Atom about the time that he met Superman and switched places with him for a while.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Authority goes up against Captain Atom, a guy who can swat them down like flies, and does so. Captain Atom's thrashing of Midnighter was one brutal beatdown.
- Dark Age of Supernames: Spoofed both ways a few times, with Captain Atom commenting how the named heroes of the Wildstorm Earth have little flair or pizzazz. On the flip side, Jack thinks that Captain Atom didn't have confidence in his name and had to stick a title to it. It gets very personal (and more than a bit hypocritical considering his own name) when Midnighter threatens Nikola this way:Midnighter: "Do you have a clever name like 'Grifter'? One that sounds hip at first , until you realize it's trying too hard?"''
- Despair Event Horizon: The Doctor gets one at the end of the series, declaring that he has given up and that they should all just stop trying to prevent the end of the universe, as several of the most powerful superheroes have already died trying, and should instead focus on trying to meet the end with dignity.
- Heroic Suicide: Discussed; when Majestic explains that Atom's continued existence is a threat to the entire universe, he points out that a hero like Atom would probably accept giving up his own life to prevent the deaths of everyone else. Captain Atom doesn't disagree, but wants to look into the situation himself before deciding on a course of action. It ends up being a moot point when Captain Atom confirms that his death won't prevent the disaster, it will just trigger it instead.
- Hollywood Hacking: Justified; Captain Atom has the power to directly interface with computers and information networks, which proves extremely useful both for intel on the world he's found himself in and to crunch the numbers relating to his situation.
- Information Wants to Be Free: When Captain Atom accesses the classified information of the Wildstorm Earth's various governments, he remembers how his old teammate Mister Miracle taught him how to do so, arguing that such information should be freely available.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: When he meets Nikola at the apartment building he crash landed in, Captain Atom admits that it's nice to meet an "average, normal human" like her. When Atom puts his hand on her shoulder, Nikola immediately transforms into Void and accidentally knocks him out with a blast of energy.
- Intercontinuity Crossover: The series thrusts Captain Atom into Jim Lee's WildStorm universe. The mini-series results in a Cosmic Retcon for Wildstorm, and allows those comic readers who generally hated the ridiculousness of The Authority watch them get their heads handed to them.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: After seeing Apollo, the Midnighter, and Jenny Quantum die horribly while trying to kill Captain Atom, The Doctor doesn't even try to fight, and acknowledges the inevitable.
- Lack of Empathy: A recurring problem with the Wildstorm heroes: while they're ostensibly the "good guys," a lot of them don't really concern themselves with what the normal people of their world think.
- Majestic protects Earth, but he clearly sees humans as his subjects and brushes off Captain Atom's angry observation that people are terrified of people like him.
- While he's not outright cruel, Grifter isn't terribly considerate of Nikola's fear and discomfort at suddenly acquiring superpowers.
- While Captain Atom and the Engineer are sharing a romantic moment, they see a plane in danger of crashing. Atom immediately leaps into action to save it; while she helps, the Engineer spends the entire rescue complaining, calling the people onboard "ingrates" and even wonders out loud if they're worth saving at all.
- Let's You and Him Fight:
- Zig-Zagged with Captain Atom and Majestic. They fight when Captain Atom first arrives on the Wildstorm Earth since he accidentally destroys a building and Majestic assumes he's a threat. Their second meeting is more cordial, since by that point Majestic has learned about who Atom actually is. Their third meeting starts with Atom attacking Majestic on sight out of anger of learning just how bad things are on this version of Earth. The two scuffle for a bit, but Majestic puts an end to it to inform Atom of the threat he's unknowingly posing.
- When Grifter sends the WildC.A.T.s to deal with Captain Atom, they end up picking a fight with him at the Washington Monument.
- Averted with the Authority, who teleport Captain Atom to the moon to meet the Engineer, who in turn politely invites him to visit their headquarters. Atom even comments on how friendly they are compared to the other superhumans he's met so far. Of course, while they're genuine about helping him if they can, the Authority are perfectly willing to kill Atom if they feel it's necessary.
- Monumental Damage: During their encounter in Washington, D.C., Majestic throws Captain Atom through the Washington Monument. Fortunately, he has nanobots that repair the damage without too much trouble.
- My Skull Runneth Over: Captain Atom does this to Voodoo when she tries to invade his mind. He uses his neural uplink to the Pentagon's computer net to basically KO her with the Internet.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Captain Atom is generally considered a second-tier hero at best in the mainstream DC Universe, however, when he is transported to the WildStorm universe, he proves to be almost unstoppable, all but casually walking through the Authority, that world's mightiest "heroes". Of course, part of this is that Captain Atom holds back a lot.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Captain Atom goes up against Maul. Maul's power is that he can reconfigure his body mass and become a figure similar to the Hulk. Captain Atom can manipulate atoms, and he turns Maul back into his skinny scientist self.
Maul: Uh oh.
- Nikola's reaction when Majestic reveals that she's the only one who can stop Captain Atom from detonating.
- Outside-Context Problem: Captain Atom is this for the WildStorm Universe. The WildStorm heroes, especially the more powerful ones like Mr. Majestic and the Authority, thought that they had their world pretty much in hand, and that they could handle just about anything that came their way. When Captain Atom showed up and, through no fault of his own, contracted a condition that was going to cause him to destroy the universe, they figured that they could cure him. When that failed, they figured that they could kill him. Cue a very satisfying series of Curb Stomp Battles.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Captain Atom was already this, but something has made him a ticking time bomb set to destroy the entire Wildstorm universe.
- Phlebotinum Overdose: How Captain Atom beats Apollo: he goads Apollo into teleporting them both to the surface of the sun, then uses his powers to overclock Apollo's solar absorption and forcing him back to Earth, unconscious.
- Power of Trust: Captain Atom tries this method twice, to different results. He calms down Nikola after she accidentally transforms into Void by calmly introducing himself and promising to help her. He later tries this with the Engineer, asking for her to trust him over the Carrier's supercomputer. Unfortunately, she doesn't go for it.
- Pro-Human Transhuman: Unlike most of the Wildstorm heroes, Captain Atom doesn't see himself as inherently superior to those without powers, even stressing that it's the normal man inside of him that matters.
- Properly Paranoid: When it looks like the Engineer has successfully disarmed the threat inside Captain Atom, Majestic is worried that the fix seemed far too easy. He's ultimately proven right in the worst possible way.
- Reconstruction: The series functions as this. By the time it came out, the Wild Storm characters had come to embody all the excesses of the Dark Age, so DC brought Captain Atom, who, while hardly what you'd call a traditional superhero, nonetheless was a much more wholesome, positive character to set the WildStorm Universe to rights.
- Red Herring: The title of the story, for fans who know the story behind Armageddon 2001. Despite starring Captain Atom, it doesn't involve Monarch or his alternate future in any way. The Armageddon the title refers to is merely the end of the WildStorm universe.
- Reincarnate in Another World: Captain Atom was killed at the end of Public Enemies (2004) via nuclear explosion, and reformed himself in the WildStorm universe.
- Right Behind Me: A variation takes place when Jack Hawksmoor contacts the Engineer with a plan that might help Captain Atom:Hawksmoor: Even Majestic thinks there's a slim chance it could work.
The Engineer: Majestic? That tight-ass? What's he got to do with it?
Hawksmoor: Well, for one thing, he's standing right next to me, listening in.
The Engineer: Oops. - Rule of Symbolism: When Grifter confirms that Nikola has received a shard of Void's essence, he "welcomes" her to the life of a superhuman by mentioning things like "super heroes," "arch villains," and "crazy adventures." Unlike both Nikola and the reader, he doesn't notice the train car embedded in the side of a building behind him, highlighting how disconnected the heroes of the Wildstorm universe have become from the people they're supposedly protecting.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Captain Atom is so frustrated with the WildC.A.T.s playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to decide who fights him first that he just tries to turn and fly away. Unfortunately, Maul is able to grab him before he can leave.
- Seen It All: As Captain Atom pieces together that he's on an alternate Earth, he notes that he's not that disturbed by people not seeming to remember him, mostly because he's seen all sorts of similar weird things in his career.Captain Atom: I've seen that sort of thing before. Mass hypnosis, amnesia virus. Some would-be villain is always pulling a stunt like that.
- Simple Solution Won't Work: Several of the Wildstorm heroes have the means to travel to alternate Earths very easily, but something has happened to Captain Atom that's keeping him stuck in the Wildstorm universe.
- Skewed Priorities:
- When Grifter initially calls in the WildC.A.T.s to search for Void, Warblade is more concerned with a gallery show he's holding in a couple of days (though, to be fair, he genuinely believed that Void was dead).
- When the WildC.A.T.s confront Captain Atom at the Washington Monument, Maul, Voodoo, and Warblade get caught up playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to decide who gets to fight him first (much to Zealot's annoyance and Atom's bafflement).
- Swift barely gets involved with the situation regarding Captain Atom; in two of her few appearances, she's either watching TV or getting ready for a photo shoot.
- Soft Reboot: The series results in a soft reboot for the WildStorm Comics universe.
- Spiteful Spit: Captain Atom does this twice: once to Majestic after the latter claims that people like him are the best thing to ever happen to humans, then later to Apollo as part of a Batman Gambit.
- Sympathy for the Hero: Captain Atom gets a lot of this, especially from Mr. Majestic and the Authority, who both recognize that Cap is a good man and a hero, and that it's not his fault that he's going to blow up and destroy the universe. They do their best to help him, and Angie Spica, the Engineer, a member of the Authority, even gets romantically involved with him. That doesn't stop her, and the rest of the Authority, from trying to kill him, in the mistaken belief that that will stop him from destroying the universe.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: In contrast to the Wildstorm heroes, Captain Atom refuses to kill anyone. He even refuses to kill an alternate Earth's version of Hitler.
- Underestimating Badassery: This is why Apollo and Midnighter lose to Captain Atom. The pair think Atom is just another super-powered mook, not realizing that Atom is more powerful than all the members of The Authority combined, including Jenny Quantum. The only reason they last as long as they did is that Cap refuses to go all out against people he barely knows, even ones who are currently trying very hard to kill him. Really, just about every superhero in the Wildstorm universe was guilty of this. Midnighter and Apollo were just the most egregious case because they were the last. They knew, or should have known, that Cap had already beaten Mr. Majestic, the WildCATs, and the Engineer, all of whom were also guilty of severely underestimating Cap, to the point where the WildC.A.T.s deliberately attacked one at a time, as if it were a game.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
- Averted when Captain Atom flies to the White House. The rest of the U.S. government is so terrified of a superhuman seizing control of the government again that they authorize the use of a warhead, even though it will also kill the president and everyone else at the White House. Thankfully, Captain Atom is able to safely negate it.
- What You Are in the Dark: After learning that he's going to unwittingly destroy the Wildstorm universe and becoming disheartened by how bad things are there, Captain Atom briefly considers giving up and letting the disaster happen. It only takes a single panel of silent contemplation for him to realize that he's kidding himself and gets ready to find a solution.
- Wire Dilemma: Referenced when Majestic explains how the WildC.A.T.s attempt to kill Captain Atom could have gone very, very wrong:Majestic: You've seen those movies where a bomb is being defused, and great care is taken not to cut the wrong wire? Killing him would be cutting the wrong wire. And in case you were wondering, there is no right wire.
- The Worf Effect: The entire WildStorm Universe is this for Captain Atom, with him basically beating the crap out of everybody. His casual dismissal of Midnighter's abilities ("Care to try that with me?") and his curb-stomping of Apollo were particularly entertaining.
- Worthy Opponent: Zealot appreciates that Captain Atom shares her view of their fight as a serious matter (unlike her teammates, who treat it like a game). While it doesn't stop her from trying to kill him, she does at least promise him a quick and painless death.
- You Can't Go Home Again: One of the story's main sources of drama. Even though the Wildstorm heroes have dozens of ways to travel to alternate worlds, none of them can help Captain Atom, since something is keeping him trapped on their world. In the end, Nikola (having embraced the power of Void) is able to remove the shard of herself that was embedded in him and sends him home immediately.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: Absolutely nothing the Authority, Majestic, or the Wild CATS do is able to stop the threat Captain Atom is unwittingly posing to their world. In the end, the Wildstorm universe would have been completely destroyed if not for the last-minute intervention of Nikola as the new Void.
