The Atom Family

The members of current generation of the world-famous Atom Family have been celebrities since the moment they were born. The Family is made up of adventurers and explorers who investigate strange phenomena and fight threats to the safety of Freedom City and the world. The current team consists of the four grandchildren of Doctor Alexander Atom—Max, Tess, Vicky, and Chase—their friend and former legal guardian “Uncle” Jack Wolfe, and their grandfather’s disembodied intellect, maintained within the computers of their headquarters, the Nucleus, atop the Goodman Building in Freedom City.

Assets

The Atom Family lives in the top five floors of the Goodman Building in Midtown Freedom City. Real estate financier Saul Goodman constructed the building and later sold it to Atomic, Inc., the family trust set up by Doctor Atom. Although the Goodman Building has been mortgaged and sold a few times over the years, it’s currently owned and managed by the Atom Family trust.
The top floors of the building are in the very spot where Centurion’s life-pod entered Earth’s dimension from the Terminus. Doctor Atom discovered lingering dimensional energies in the upper floors of the building, and constructed a special containment unit to ensure they would not spill over into Earth again (although they have anyway on a few occasions). Later experimentation channeled the contained energies into the Infinite Fractal Gateway or “IF Gate”—a portal into other dimensions and timelines.
The Nucleus contains living space for the Atom Family, extensive laboratories where Doctor Atom and Tesla conduct research, workshops for constructing various technological devices, and the extensive computer system housing Doctor Atom’s intellect. ALEX takes care of most of the Nucleus’ upkeep—aided by various servo robots—and Doctor Atom’s patents and the Atomic, Inc. trust pay for it all.
The Goodman Building is fairly unremarkable, a skyscraper of steel and concrete with mirror-finish windows. The floor immediately below the Nucleus remains empty as a “buffer zone” between the headquarters and the rest of the building. This floor contains some backup and support machinery for the Nucleus.

THE “ATOMOBILE”

The Atom Family uses a “sky-car” a swift anti-gravity vehicle, for getting around Freedom City and for short trips elsewhere. Chase Atom nicknamed the sky-car the “Atomobile” some years ago. Jack Wolf usually pilots, although all members of the family know how to fly it.

MORPHIC MOLECULES

Doctor Atom invented morphic molecules in the 1950s to serve the needs of the growing superhuman population. They provided the basis for an adaptive fabric, able to stand up to a wearer’s superpowers. The patent on morphic molecules has earned Doctor Atom a fortune, as has manufacturing custom-designed costumes from the material. Most superhero costumes are made from morphic molecules. This alone costs no equipment points: it’s just an assumed capability of costumes in the setting.
Members of the Atom Family each have their own morphic molecule bodysuits. Max’s suits are blue, Tesla wears red, Vicky’s suits are green; and Chase’s are purple.
The suits can be programmed to reshape themselves into any set of clothing desired by the wearer. There are also receiver circuits embedded in the suits, allowing them to use any part of a suit’s surface (usually the forearm sleeve) as a display screen for two-way communication or even a keyboard or touch-screen for data-entry.

History

The history of this most unusual family begins with Doctor Alexander Atom, renowned scientist and adventurer in the 1930s and 1940s. Doctor Atom explored lost and hidden civilizations in various parts of the world. He often found dire threats to humanity—such as his first encounters with the Sub-Terrans and their underground kingdom—or unbelievable wonders like the dinosaur filled Lost World in South America. On those occasions, Doctor Atom and his allies protected the world from threats it didn’t even know existed.
During World War II, Doctor Atom worked with the Liberty League as a scientific advisor. Rumor has it he also worked on the Manhattan Project, although he never discusses the matter. During the war, he met and fell in love with Marie Vaulaire, a daring French resistance fighter. Their affair was a brief, passionate one, but Marie died fighting against the Nazis soon thereafter.
The heartbroken Doctor Atom threw himself into his work, and this decade of furious activity and invention excluded nearly everyone save Anne Banks, a young woman who became his laboratory assistant, then partner, and eventually his wife. Anne said she had to pursue her husband “with relentless determination,” but in the end she got the brilliant—but often distracted—Doctor Atom to realize what he had right in front of him.
Their daughter Andreawas born in 1959. She grew up with her mother’s beauty and tenacity and her father’s brilliance. The Atoms later took in Jack Wolf, the son of one of Alexander’s friends, Colonel John Wolf, an astronaut lost on an early orbital mission. Jack was just a few years older than Andrea, and the two of them became close.
In 1972, Anne Atom succumbed to cancer, despite her husband’s valiant efforts to save her. Doctor Atom continued to raise his daughter and ward alone but too often buried himself in his research. He began to study robotics and computers more in-depth, building robotic playmates and nannies to help care for Andrea and Jack. She began attending the Hanover Institute of Technology in 1976, and there saw the performance of a “mentalist” named Mentac, who debunked psychic research. When she also discovered Mentac had actual psychic powers, she learned he pretended to be a stage mentalist and debunker as a way for him to find con-artists as well as true paranormals who abused their abilities and bring them to justice. Andrea introduced Mentac to her father and he began a long association with the Atom Family.
For the better part of a decade, the quartet of Doctor Atom, Andrea, Mentac, and Jack Wolf explored strange phenomena and fought hidden menaces. Andrea became more and more attracted to the mysterious and aloof Mentac, while Jack silently carried a torch for the lovely Andrea. Doctor Atom remained largely unaware of the romantic entanglements of his young protégés.
In 1980, Mentac finally told the Atom Family about his true origins: He was an exiled prince from Farside City, located on the dark side of the Moon. They confronted Mentac’s aunt, Lady Lunar, and overthrew her despotic control of the city. An admirer of the ideals of the American system of government on Earth, Mentac abdicated his throne and helped install a democratic government elected by the city’s people. In the midst of the celebrations, he also finally admitted his feelings for Andrea, and they married two years later. Jack Wolf left his foster-family, heartbroken over losing Andrea, and spent some time working as a mercenary in various parts of the world.
Andrea and Mentac had their first child, a boy named Maximus, in 1984. Three others followed: Tesla in 1985, Victoria in 1987, and Chase in 1989. Doctor Atom began his own battle with cancer in the late ‘80s. He kept the extent of his condition a secret, but Andrea eventually discovered the truth. During the Terminus Invasion, Doctor Atom worked to save Freedom City and close the dimensional breach Omega’s forces used as their beachhead, Andrea and Mentac dove into the Terminus to try and keep Omega from emerging. They left the children in the care of the house robots on the lowest and only undamaged floor of their headquarters.
Unfortunately, Andrea and Mentac failed to stop Omega’s emergence and appeared to be atomized by the mad god’s power. Doctor Atom helped Centurion and other heroes defeat Omega and reseal the dimensional warp. Doctor Atom’s health began to rapidly decline thereafter due to exhaustion from battling the invasion from the Terminus, and grief over the loss of his daughter and sonin-law. Refusing to leave his grandchildren alone in the world, he asked Jack Wolf to become their legal guardian. As a final experiment, Alexander Atom transferred his intellect and memories into a holographic computer system as his body finally gave out.
In 1997, when Maximus turned 13, everyone learned the young Atoms were mutants, whether because of their father’s unearthly heritage and psychic abilities, their mother’s various adventures, or their parents’ exposure to so many strange and unusual locales. “Uncle Jack” acted as the kids’ legal guardian and teacher, aided by a holographic representation of Doctor Atom and ALEX, a robot “butler” designed by Doctor Atom.
The members of the Atom Family are explorers at heart, with Doctor Atom’s keen intellect guiding their travels into the Terminus, to the Moon, into deep space, and to faraway lands and other dimensions and times. If anyone is likely to discover aliens, lost worlds, or similar things, it’s the Atom Family. They also run across (or stir up) trouble from time to time.

Type

Family