Great Britain built the Windscale nuclear 'pile' facility in Windscale, Seascale, Cumbria (now Sellafield), United Kingdom as part of the British post-World War II atomic bomb project. Sadly, the facility had a fire in Pile 1 on 10 October 1957. It was the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history, and one of the worst in the world, ranked in severity at level 5 out of a possible 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. John Stillwell was one of the nuclear engineers at the facility when the incident occurred.

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Dr. Stillwell was a key nuclear engineer who worked for the British government to process nuclear weapons and build-on their thin level of knowledge of nuclear weaponry. The fire was created as a result of raw experimentation that went wrong. Dr. Stillwell was one of the ones who recommended against the experiments and was one of the dozens who were caught in one of the experiments that went wrong; an experiment that resulted in the October '57 fire. Dr. Stillwell tried to contain most of the highly radioactive material in a secure reaction room. Unfortunately, for all of Dr. Stillwell's efforts to save lives by locking himself in the room with the highly unstable radioactive reaction, the reaction 'killed' Dr. Stillwell and still melted through the containment walls. Dr. Stillwell, however, survived his death.

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After the British government put out the fire, all while keeping the entire incident under wraps, teams layered in heavy radiation suits found Dr. Stillwell's body. When they extracted it in a lead-lined box (coffin) and brought it back to be buried, Dr. Stillwell emerged from his 'coffin', alive - but not the same. His body was radiating massive amounts of radiation, killing those near him. After regaining his faculties, Dr. Stillwell realized what he'd just done and gave himself over to the authorities. Due to Stillwell's radioactive state, he was placed in a heavily shielded underground bunker.  There, for the next decade, Dr. Stillwell was left in isolation...until Stillwell had had enough. 

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One day, Stillwell, after being taunted for the millionth time while in captivity, exploded with anger...and with his radioactive powers.

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Dr. Stillwell escaped his captivity and broke free. In his escape, he ran into traffic and create multiple car accidents, causing a bus full of students to overturn.  Once again, he realized what he done too late. After a decade of learning how to control his powers, he turned off his powers and went in and saved the students...eventually resulting in his capture once again.

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In 1990, British science divisions required assistance in disarming an older model nuclear weapon; a weapon that Dr. Stillwell and his team actually helped create. With Stillwell being the only survivor from that weapon's creation (all others died of cancer as a result of the Windscale fire incident, he was critical in devising a means of disarming the nuke. As a reward, Dr. Stillwell was allowed to 'occasionally' work with the British nuclear energies team in a secure lab...behind secure, shielded protective barriers. During this time, Stillwell found out that not only was he able to control his powers better, but that he was also no longer aging. He started providing more and more help to the British government, eventually reaching the point where they even allowed him to use his powers on several secret missions, but clad in radiation shielded armor and going by the name 'Atomic Man'. In January 2000, however, things changed significantly.

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The Soltan Star Empire invaded Earth on January 2000. England and Great Britain took a significant hit from the Soltans. London and its outer lying military and industrial areas were decimated by the Soltans in the first week of the invasion. 'Atomic Man' was unleashed on the Soltans with devastating results to the Soltans. At that time, Atomic Man couldn't fly, so his progress of going through the several hundred to thousands of Soltans. After four months of endless fighting, Atomic Man burned himself and his powers out in fighting the Soltans and fell into a coma as a result.  Luckily, dozens of resistance fighters came to his rescue and saved him. A few months later, the Soltans were driven off by the combined worlds forces, primarily, thanks to the diminished Soltan forces left in Great Britain from all of Atomic Man's earlier efforts.

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After the invasion, 'Atomic Man' became too popular a topic. Since no one knew he was Dr. Stillwell, they reused his name to hide him in local hospitals. In 2004, Dr. Stillwell awoke from his coma with his powers out of control. Stillwell, knowing all too well what his powers do to innocents found his way into an underground tunnel system to keep a safe barrier from innocents. Since England was still trying to rebuilt after the invasion, they had little resources to deal with Stillwell, so instead, they called in G.U.A.R.D.  GUARD provided a gentle extraction bringing him out of hiding in a safe manner. In a deal with the British government, GUARD agreed to take in Dr. Stillwell to work with Stillwell not only to get his powers back under control, but to help them in their thinly-manned Resources Division with nuclear physics.

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For the next decade or so, Dr. Stillwell, who went by the codename 'Atomax' during this time, aided GUARD's Resources Division as well as actually aided GUARD in several missions with ASTROGUARD and TERRAGUARD and even with their respective superhero teams. His assistance proved vital in saving the world on a couple of occasions. Dr. Stillwell was about to officially join ASTROGUARD's Astroguardian hero group when a sad event occurred that would change the world's views on him.

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In a battle with a rogue band of Soltan sleeper cell agents, Atomax fought against them in their attempt to set up a teleportation portal on Earth for the retreated Soltan forces on the dark side of Mars to come back and invade Earth once again.  In the heat of battle, Atomax made a combat mistake and exploded a local gas station, blowing up an entire one block radius, sadly killing several innocents, including children. The local media attacked Atomax for his actions, citing the Superpowers Registration Act (SRA) that identified legal action against hero (or villain) that caused direct innocent deaths. As such Atomax was put on trial and accused of involuntary manslaughter and placed in prison as a result.  Even though it was an accident, Atomax was used as a sacrificial lamb by politicians to 'enforce' the SRA's power against the superhuman community.

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An opportunity arose while Dr. Stillwell was in prison; an opportunity presented to him by a band of ASTROGUARD members. The opportunity was a chance to enact revenge against Soltans as part of a pro-offense movement that was planning on commandeering the only Earth-created starship, Terracer 1, and going on what most of the movement deemed as a 'one-way' trip to take down the Mars-based Soltans once and for all. In a covert jail break, Dr. Stillwell was extracted and brought up onboard Terracer 1 during the commandeering phase of the movement. Dr. Stillwell made sure that no one was hurt in Terracer 1's theft and went out of his way to ensure that everyone knew what he and the rest in the movement were doing was for protecting Earth and attempting to end the Mars-Soltan threat once and for all.

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Dr. Stillwell left a recording behind explaining his sorrow in the gas station accident and that all he'd ever wanted was to help and protect people. He always wanted to be a 'good man' and due to his powers, he knew now that he needed to take the fight 'off Earth' to prevent any more people on Earth from having to suffer from the damage that he or Soltan could further inflict on the people of Earth.

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Today, Dr. Stillwell, now called 'Atom Man' by his fellow Starfighters, continues on his journey with the other pro-offense movement 'Starfighters' on the Terracer 1 starship to Mars in an attempt to decimate the Soltans residing on the dark side of Mars. Atom Man is a bit of a geeky scientist and a serious, stereo-typical 'do-gooder'.  He is socially awkward and still uses terms like 'golly' and 'to the max!'. He sees himself as a person of responsibility that, with his powers, he is required to do right with them.  Sadly, his powers, being radioactive in nature, are considered toxic to the benefits of his demeanor in trying to be a hero.  He is looking for this 'trip' with the Starfighters to be his last chance to go out as a hero.

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