Lex Luthor's robotic army reigns down from the sky.
"Fall back, FALL BACK!" General Hardcastle yells out to his troops.
A moment later, Hardcastle is taken out by one of Luthor's bots. Two air force jets circle above the area.
"Retreat, we are in full retreat." The pilot hears over his comms.
Just then, a bot lands on the pilot's cockpit. The pilot gasps in shock. The robot punches through the glass windshield. The pilot hits the eject button.
"NO!" Nathanial yells out.
Nathanial Adams wakes up from a nightmare in his bed, in his home in southern Texas. Nathanial heads to his kitchen to get a glass of water. Nearly twenty months had gone by since Lex Luthor's hostile takeover of the United States. But Superman stopped him. The country learned to move on, but it would never forget what Lex had done. Especially Nathanial Adams. Nathanial was an Airforce pilot, one of the best they had, and he was there the day that Lex took over. He had struggled to shake the memories of that day ever since.
As Nathanial drinks his glass of water, he tries to recover and shake the memories of the nightmare he just had. Suddenly, he hears something.
"Who's there?" Nathanial asks.
All he can hear is a dog barking in the distance. Nathanial heads to his safe and grabs his gun.
"Show yourself!" Nathanial demands.
"Nathanial Adams." A voice says.
A U.S. army general steps out of the shadows and into Nathanial's kitchen.
"Who are you?" Nathanial asks.
"General Wade Eiling. I'm here to get you back to work." General Eiling says.
"Back to work?!" Nathanial reacts.
General Eiling hands him a large envelope. Nathanial takes it and begins looking it over.
"It's called the Captain Atom project." General Eiling explains.
"You want to turn me into a bomb?" Nathanial asks.
"I want to give you power, true power. The kind of power to stand up to a mad man's robotic army or an artificial intelligence alien menace." General Eiling explains.
"I don't know." Nathanial says.
General Eiling pauses for a moment.
"You know, I talk to your psychiatrist." Eiling begins.
"So there's no patient doctor confidentiality?" Nathanial asks.
"On the battle field soldier's must be open and clear. There can be no distractions. They all must work as if they were sharing one mind. And you, you have been too distracted for too long." General Eiling says.
"Stop." Nathanial warns.
"I know about the dreams, about you flying in the day of Luthor's invasion." General Eiling says.
"I said stop!" Nathanial says again, this time almost pleading.
"The way you watched General Hardcastle and a battalion of infantry soldier's mowed down in seconds." General Eiling continues.
"Please stop!" Nathanial begs.
Nathanial grabs his head, he closes his eye and witnesses the most terrifying moment of his life once again. He is back in his cockpit during Lex's invasion. The ships carrying Lex's robot army comes down from the sky. The robots emerge and begin taking out Nathanial's comrades and friends. A robot lands on Nathanial's cockpit. It punches at the glass. Nathanial is able to eject just in time. His parachute lands in a tree and he hides there until the battle is over. Nathanial had never felt so powerless.
"Okay, I'll do it. I'll come with you." Nathanial finally concedes.
"Your flight leaves at O'six hundred, here's your ticket, see you in Washington." General Eiling says.
The next day, Nathanial arrives in Washington. General Eiling gives him a tour of the pentagon to help him get reacquainted.
"It all seems familiar yet different." Nathanial says.
"After Luthor and Brainiac, changes have been made." General Eiling says.
As Nathanial looks around, he bumps into some someone.
"Sorry ma'am." Nathanial says.
He looks down, it was Lois Lane he had just bumped into.
"Miss Lane, what are you doing here?" General Eiling asks.
"I got a call to come here. They found more of my father's stuff." Lois explains.
"Your father was one of the greatest generals Uncle Sam ever saw." General Eiling says.
"Thank you general." Lois says.
"Pleased to make your acquaintance ma'am, I'm Nathanial Adams." Nathanial says as he reaches out to shake Lois's hand.
Lois reaches out to shake hands with Nathanial.
"Well, it was excellent seeing you, but we must be going." General Eiling says.
General Eiling speeds Nathanial away from Lois.
General Eiling used to serve under Lois's father. Lois had always found him a little radical and her gut told her he was up to something. Conversely, General Eiling never much cared for Lois. He always felt Lois was sticking her nose places it didn't belong and reporting on military secrets that he felt should remain classified.
Lois collected her father's items and took them to her hotel room. In her room, she changes into her military fatigues. She always keeps an outfit on her when she heads to military base, in case she needs to sneak somewhere she wouldn't otherwise be permitted. Lois was also able to rig her fathers security cards to get her access to areas she otherwise wouldn't be permitted.
Lois sneaks her way into the facility that General Eiling and Nathanial were in. It was a facility she spent time in frequently as a child. She knew of several secret compartments and passages to sneak around. She sneaks in and finds General Eiling and Nathanial in one of the labs.
"This is Doctor Heinrich Megala. He is the top researcher on this project." General Eiling says, as he introduces Nathanial to the doctor.
"A pleasure to meet you. This project is quite extraordinary really. You see, we're going to bond your body with energy." The doctor explains.
Nathanial begins looking over Doctor Megala's notes.
"I'm not sure about this General. I'm beginning to have second thoughts." Nathanial says.
"Seems to me your only choices in life are do this service for your country and have a taste of true power, or go home and be a pathetic shell for the rest of your life." General Eiling says.
"Very well." Nathanial says with a sigh.
"Excellent, excellent. Take this lead suit and put it on for the procedure." Doctor Megala says.
"And this will protect me?" Nathanial asks
"Sure, sure." Doctor Megala says.
Nathanial leaves the room to change.
"Well, it'll protect us." Doctor Megala murmurs.
The door slams open.
"Eiling, what the hell are you doing this time?" A booming voice asks.
Amanda Waller enters the room.
"I'm ensuring the future of this country." General Eiling says.
"This is crazy." Waller says.
"The Justice League is getting stronger every day. Not to mention that alien threats are rising exponentially. And we still are on shaky ground with Bialya." General Eiling says.
"But this- Waller starts.
"How is this any crazier than your Task Force X?" General Eiling asks.
"This is a good man." Waller says.
"Which is why he is being trusted with this mission." General Eiling says.
Waller finally concedes. This is General Eiling's procedure, and he has full backing on it.
"I'm ready." Nathanial says as he reenters the room.
Doctor Megala straps him to the operating table. He hooks him up to the machine. Next he drops down a protective dome around Nathanial. He finally starts the procedure. The wires begin to feed energy into Nathanial's system. At first Nathanial feels okay, then, suddenly…
"AHHH!" Nathanial begins to yell.
"Hang in there, hang in there." General Eiling says.
"AHHHHHH!" Nathanial continues to yell, his body begins to puff up.
"It's too much, he can't take it." Waller says.
"No, no, we're so close." Doctor Megala says.
Lois can barely watch on through the crack she can spy through in the wall.
"AHHHHHH!" Nathanial continues to yell.
Finally, Nathanil's body puffs up and in a bright white light, it explodes, shattering the protective dome.
Lois looks back, there is no sign of Nathanial. Just a destroyed lab and an empty operating table.
"It- it didn't work. What do we do now?" Doctor Megala asks.
"We clean up and start again." General Eiling says.
Lois can hardly comprehend what she just saw. She hurries her way out of the facility. She had to get to Clark and tell him what she witnessed.