Random Happenstance

The cover makes it look like this one's going to be a no-holds-barred, 12-round slobber-knocker of a brawl. In actual fact, it gets four pages; one more than an imaginary story and the same as a subplot about his daughter! From 1987, Captain Atom #5, "The Return of Dr. Spectro" Written by Cary Bates, pencils by Pat Broderick, inks by Bob Smith.

Several plotlines are running at once here, not necessarily to collide soon, either: a reporter reads her boss a story from Captain Atom's biography, featuring a battle between him and Dr. Spectro. Supposedly, they had fought many times in the years when the Captain had operated in secret, but that was a cover story cooked up by the government, to more quickly sell the public on their hero. No way that could backfire on them...cleverly, the 'flashback' stories featured the classic Ditko look for the Captain. The reporter wants to find Dr. Spectro and get his side of the story for a tell-all book. Following a lead, she finds the former assistant of the Rainbow Raider, who denies everything, but then seems awfully interested in the advance for the book.

Meanwhile, in his civilian identity, Nathaniel Adam takes his daughter to the carnival: they're getting along fine, even if the age difference is weird. Since Adam was launched forward in time when he got his powers, they were only five years apart now! And his daughter's stepdad was his boss, General Eiling, who calls him back to duty early to appear at an air show. The Captain grins and bears it, but some of the audience isn't impressed; among them Ronnie Raymond, half of Firestorm! When an automated jet seems to go haywire, Ronnie interrupts Professor Stein's lunch in order to leap into action as Firestorm! Completely unnecessarily: the jet was just a demonstration, and Captain Atom stops Firestorm from intervening, then suggests he "lighten up!"

Nathaniel's fellow officer Jeff seems to have realized his secret identity; while the reporter finishes her interview with "Dr. Spectro" only to be told by her editor it was a scam! The "disinformation scandal" was breaking, all of Captain Atom's history was going to be revealed as fake, and the reporter is kicking herself for getting snowed by the Doctor. Only, while he had made the whole thing up from her idea, he now had actual super-villain stuff, and kills the reporter, becoming Dr. Spectro for real...

This reminded me a bit of the first X-Factor stories, when they were pretending to be mutant hunters in order to save mutants: a cover story that's such a whopper of a lie it's hard to believe they could be surprised when it falls apart. And it falls apart quick! Meanwhile, Pat Broderick had done more than a few issues on Fury of Firestorm, so this was a seamless fit there. But Firestorm's status quo might've drastically changed the next time he saw the Captain; we may have to see some other time.