General Wade Eiling, often known as The General, is a military mastermind who is responsible for both Captain Atom and Major Force’s development. Wade Eiling originally appeared in the inaugural issue of Captain Atom in 1987, created by writer Cary Bates and illustrator Pat Broderick.
From the outset, the figure has proven to be a thorn in the side of several DC superheroes while also putting a face to the shadowy government risks involved. In the DC universe, he may easily be regarded as the primary character of a crafty, dishonest military general.
Then get ready for today’s film, in which we will not only go deeper into Wade Eiling’s origins as a power-hungry, headstrong man focused on serving his country, but also shed light on how his deceptive, devious tactics have influenced so many heroes. Are you all set? So, let us get started!
Who Is Wade Eiling Aka The General?
Remember how we described him as a military tactician right at the very beginning? Well, let’s make that a conniving, corrupt military honcho, one who has had a very long record of misusing his power to accomplish his personal patriotic ends. General Wade Eiling has been in charge of a highly classified U.S. military experiment known as the Captain Atom Project, the purpose of which was to make the most advanced weapon that the world has ever seen or in other words, a superhuman soldier.
Since he commanded the experiment, it goes without saying that he needed a guinea pig so no points for guessing who that turned out to be. Well for those, who don’t know, the test subject turned out to be the United States Air Force officer Nathaniel Christopher Adams, one who had been framed for a crime that he did not even commit in the first place.
Needless to say, Adams was under military justice when Eiling gives him a choice of either signing up for the atomic experiment or being put to death. Having no other options left, Adams agrees to volunteer for the project, the result of which, turns him into the nuclear meta-human known as Captain Atom.
However, the project has been deemed a failure with the sudden disappearance and supposed destruction of Adams. But does that stop Eiling? Of course not. He goes ahead with the same experiment and this time with a new experimental subject – Clifford Zmeck. Also, a member of the United States Air Force but with a rather disreputable past, Zmeck was offered a pardon by Eiling with the condition that he volunteered for the same experiment.
This leads to the creation of Major Force but with the same accident taking place, Zmeck is assumed to be dead as well. But unbeknownst to Eiling, both Adams and Zmeck were simply pulled from time and taken 20 years ahead into the future. Well, of course, Adams returns back and so does Zmeck but to the former’s shock, Eiling had already married his wife by then. Not just that, he was also fathering both his children. Eiling takes his evil ways notches higher by making Adams work for him as well as the U.S. government as the hero Captain Atom.
If you are thinking why Adams would agree to work for him after everything that the former has done, well the wicked Eiling had his ways of course; his very children as a bargaining chip to have Adams under control or to put it in a slightly better manner, promises of making him see his family again. Adams as Captain Atom is sent on a mission to retrieve a lost submarine, but the operation turns out to be an utter failure leading to a great amount of embarrassment on the part of Eiling in front of his superiors.
As fate would have it, Eiling is later diagnosed with a brain tumor, one that just can’t be operated on in any manner. Not ready to accept his fate, Eiling comes up with his own scheme. Sending a military team to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, he retrieves the indestructible body of Shaggy Man. Of course, Green Lantern, as well as Aquaman, do their best to stop his men but they fail to do so and Shaggy Man eventually gets delivered to Eiling who by then had already planned his next move – a massive attack on the Justice League.
The superhero team not only finds themselves suddenly ambushed by the American military forces but they also realize that the attack is being led by the International Ultramarine Corps, more like government-sponsored metahuman soldiers genetically enhanced by Eiling’s team of scientists. With Batman, Huntress, and Plastic Man eventually tracking down Eiling, the trio is absolutely appalled to discover that Eiling has not only taken his life but has also transferred his brain patterns into the indestructible body of Shaggy Man.
One peek at his computer and all of his military plans, the blueprints of the brain transfer as well as the flawed Ultramarine Project, everything gets disclosed. As for Eiling, he does make an appearance. Witnessing him in the shaved body of the Shaggy Man is quite a sight indeed. To top it off, he even addresses his new self as The General.
While this is happening, let’s not forget about the fight that the JLA has engaged with the military forces and the Ultramarine Corps. The battle only ends when Superman after using his super senses is able to let the Ultramarine Corps know how they have been nothing more than pawns in the General’s pursuit of more power and control. It goes without saying that the Ultramarine Corps who had come forward for their services in good faith feel betrayed enough to switch sides and help the JLA instead.
But even with the collective efforts of the superheroes and the Ultramarines, the General cannot be stopped. Thanks to Batman for finally figuring out a way; having noticed that the General’s tactical edge and focus are sort of weak in his new form, he along with the team are able to lead Eiling onto a transport pad, one that teleports him to 433 Eros.
The General – Electrifying Backstory From Justice League Unlimited
You know there was a time when The General was heading the U.S. military response to the Dark Heart invasion. For those of you who are wondering, what was the Dark Heart, well, it was an extremely advanced alien construct, one that was capable of interminably recreating itself using nanotechnology. Coming back to the story, Eiling initially greeted the Justice League who had already come to curb the threat.
With the superheroes doing their job, Eiling along with his men moved out the local people. But then he became flustered upon discovering that the League’s Watchtower had a binary fusion weapon that was used as part of the containment. Once, the calamity subsided, Eiling seized what was left of the Dark Heart technology, asserting that his researchers would gain a lot from something that had literally overpowered the Justice League. He also warned the superheroes for possessing a weapon of mass destruction.
Well, post the troubling and rather unsettling expose of the Justice League having a weapon of mass destruction, and Eiling thinking they using it against Earth, his main target now was to overthrow the Justice League. So, he wasted simply no time in becoming a crucial member of a secret division of the United States government, Project Cadmus, to be more precise, so as to acquire more power and go against the Justice League in case they went rogue.
It was during his time with Cadmus that one actually got a fair idea of how Eiling truly was. For someone giving us vibes of being a dedicated American nationalist, he surely had a mind of a dictator. For someone, who thinks that he is only serving his country, well in his mind, he wanted his country and army to be the most formidable. Also, he literally cares a zilch when it comes to the lives of people. Democracy meant nothing to him!
Now, we all know who Doomsday is. Those who don’t and we doubt if there’s any, well Doomsday was a monstrous being, a result of Project Cadmus or to be more precise, the division’s fail-safe with an ability to kill Superman in case the latter ever went rogue.
So, you all can imagine what happens when Doomsday escapes the facility and tries to kill Superman. Of course, we have Amanda Waller, the head of Project Cadmus commanding Eiling to stop him. Well, don’t be surprised to hear the solution that the General came up with – fire a missile with a nuclear Kryptonite warhead in spite of the very fact that Superman, as well as the rest of the Justice League, were already in the midst of a rescue operation vacating the civilians from an erupting volcanic island. Sad on the part of Eiling that he could not get what he desired. With Batman stopping the missile and Superman defeating Doomsday, Eiling’s plan of taking down both Superman and Doomsday in a single shot flopped miserably.
Looking for a way to get back at the League, a ready-to-go to any extent Eiling had Captain Atom assigned to Cadmus. While Captain Atom insisted on the fact that he was a part of the League then, Eiling knew exactly what to do. We are thinking something to do with Captain Atom’s oath of service and his sense of duty perhaps. Oh, the wicked Eiling not only had Captain Atom attack Superman but also had Waller send Galatea and the Ultimate clones to ambush the Justice League. He was literally relishing a fight taking place in the new facility of Cadmus when batman broke in and him out.
Post Lex Luthor’s involvement with Cadmus, the organization was made to alter its functioning focus and Eiling was re-casted back to administrative duty. While Waller was more than grateful for the fact that they were not sent to imprisonment for their actions, Eiling was even more paranoid and irrational. He literally went to the extent of accusing Superman, the Justice League as well as every metahuman in general for the current state of the world.
Let’s not disregard the fact that Eiling also did not believe that the Justice League had demolished their ‘space weapon’. Planning to demonstrate to the world that the League was not the only superpower on the planet, Eiling laid his hands or let’s say stole a highly classified Nazi body enhancement chemical, one that was taken by Spy Smasher during the second world war.
The serum mutated Eiling into a hideous, bulky form amplifying his strength and immunity in the process. In fact, he became so strong that it was pretty easy on the part of Eiling to defeat The Seven Soldiers of Victory and at the same time also put the lives of innocent people at risk, addressing them as ‘acceptable losses’.
What followed next was a lengthy, exhaustive battle; and, it was only after the spectators there managed to confront him boldly about his so-called patriotic act that Eiling eventually realized that he was similarly being a threat to the people the same way he regarded the Justice League to be. Eiling eventually surrendered to the fact that he had eventually become what he disliked the most but also strongly claimed that he was right about the League and vowed to come back believing that his country will need him.
Not much is known regarding what happened to him post the Metropolis incident.
What makes The General So Deadly?
Possessing the indestructible body of the Shaggy Man, General Eiling was unbelievably strong, exceedingly fast, and almost unstoppable. When lifting heavy weights say more than 100 tons feels easy for him, you do get the idea of who you are dealing with. Simultaneously engaging himself in a fight with several Justice League members isn’t really a big deal for him.
Next, comes his invulnerability; the fact that he is absolutely resistant to physical injury, weathering blows from Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Zauriel, and many more concurrently, and still feeling no pain is certainly something to think about, right? Ever thought why else would the Justice League members have tricks as their last resort to defeat him? Well, if you have not, then it’s high time that you give it a definite thought.
Right from surviving in harsh environments, we are talking about space here and that too without any level of discomfort to having ridiculously high regenerative skills like getting completely regenerated when there is just a single arm that is left of him, wait, oh, is more to Eiling. You will be surprised to know about his superhuman sense of smell; while fighting Batman, he could literally smell his enemy’s adrenaline. And, if you think that is crazy wait till you hear this. Possessing the indestructible body of Shaggy Man-made Eiling immortal, which means there’s literally zero need for him to drink, eat, sleep and even breathe for that matter.
Apart from all of these, General Eiling was a gifted military strategist with an extensive amount of military training and experience besides the fact that he was also a scheming, corrupt military leader. That makes him deadly, literally in every possible manner.
Monstrous Form Of the General In The Flash TV Series
Portrayed by Clancy Brown, the character of General Wade Eiling appears on The CW live-action series, The Flash. Here, he is a two-star U.S. Army general who has already been working with S.T.A.R. Labs. In other words, he had been carrying out his inhumane experiments on Grodd until Harrison Wells got a whiff of his activities and shut down the experiments whilst breaking ties with him too.
First noticed in the episode titled Plastique, Eiling is seen in charge of a task force to capture Bette Sans Souci for her power of turning ordinary objects into explosives upon physical contact. But that can’t be it. It’s Wade Eiling that we are talking about. Of course, Eiling shot and killed her.
In episodes titled The Nuclear Man and Fallout, Eiling tries to retrieve the meta-human Firestorm for his abilities of course but in the process, gets kidnapped by Eobard Thawne and Grodd. In Grodd Lives, the titular gorilla makes full use of his telepathic powers to mind control Eiling and makes him rob armored cars. It was only after Team Flash defeated Grodd that Eiling was ultimately liberated from Grodd’s mind control and released from the Pipeline.