The Nuclear Man was created from Superman's DNA by Lex Luthor for the purpose of destroying Superman.
Biography[]
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace[]
After stealing a strand of Superman's hair from a museum in Metropolis, Lex Luthor and his nephew Lenny went about creating a clone of Superman in order to defeat him. The Nuclear Man was born. Immediately, the Nuclear Man made his way to Lex Luthor's building, where he showed that he has the power to generate heat and electricity by touch and levitate objects by hand beams, but also his weakness of dependence on radiation.
It wasn't long until Superman and this Nuclear Man battled, from destroying the Great Wall of China to saving Moscow from a nuclear missile, saving a little girl in Kansas from a nuclear tornado to saving Italy from a volcanic eruption. But the big trouble was the near-destruction of the Statue of Liberty. While saving the Statue, Superman was completely distracted by it and Nuclear Man successfully clawed into his neck. After falling to near-death, Nuclear Man kicked The Man of Steel into the air, with the cape hooked onto Lady Liberty's flame.
The next day, Nuclear Man was made as an asset to help Luthor fire the nuclear arms dealers he had hired. And afterwards, he saw a picture of Lacy Warfield, developing a crush on her. And so, into Metropolis square, Nuclear Man started attacking people and destroying city objects until Superman would take him to "the woman". But Nuclear Man's aggression got the best of him, as Superman successfully tricked him into going into an elevator, where he short-circuited the power, causing Nuclear Man to collapse and allow Superman to fly the elevator to the moon.
But the sun eventually shone into the elevator, and Superman and Nuclear Man had another battle until the latter hammered Superman into the moon's surface. Nuclear Man flew to earth, and found Lacy Warfield and took her to Lex's lair, where they got into a shuttle of some kind and flew into space. Superman successfully destroyed the shuttle but Lacy and Nuclear Man flew into space. Superman eclipsed the sun by pushing the moon in the way, brought Lacy back to Earth and threw Nuclear Man into a nuclear power station, where he overloaded the reactors.
Powers and abilities[]
- Super strength: He is strong enough to rival Superman.
- Flight: He can fly, even into space.
- Heat generation: He can generate intense heat from his body. He can cause a volcano to erupt by dropping into it.
- Freeze breath: Similar to Superman, he can exhale a gust that freezes the target solid.
- Energy blasts: He can fire powerful orange energy blasts with his hands that explode on impact.
- Levitation beam: He can levitate a target, sometimes causing them to spin, by shooting blue beams out of his hands.
- Extendable nails: His nails can be extended into sharp claws that can scratch even Superman and greatly weaken him.
- Invulnerability: Nuclear Man is nearly impervious to physical damage, only defeated when dropped into a nuclear reactor in his depowered state.
Weakness[]
- Radiation dependency: If Nuclear Man is in a place where there is no radiation or the sun does not shine, he would enter a catatonic state and become unable to move. Being exposed to radiation allows him to resume activity. This is in contrast to Superman, who can store energy in his cells so he does not shut down immediately while not under the sun.
Relationships[]
Family[]
- Clark Kent - genetic source and enemy
- Lex Luthor - creator
- Lenny Luthor - creator
Enemies[]
- Lacy Warfield - hostage
Behind the scenes[]
Mark Pillow had never acted in a film prior to Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, and was cast based on his physical similarity to Christopher Reeve. Pillow played the role of Nuclear Man, which was loosely based on the Atom Man character from DC Comics.