The Origin of Adam Smasher

Author: Unknown

Adam Sammish was a highly talented nuclear physicist, who had always had a phenomenal knack for understanding, and an almost innate link with particle physics. Working on many projects both private and governmental, Adam was a man happy in his career, with a seemingly picturesque home life; beautiful loving wife, and a son who appeared to be following his father’s footsteps, uncoerced. About half-way through his son’s last year working on his Bachelor’s of Science in Particle Physics, something changed with his son, Patrick. Patrick had been a moderate student, but kept his head above water. He partied frequently with friends and schoolmates. After a long weekend, things changed, and Patrick became a decidedly more astute student, and his grades skyrocketed. Adam would swear it seemed something scared him straight; but Patrick would never discuss it. When Patrick asked to join his father in his research, Adam accepted that incident as a blessing, his dream had come true and he could make the world a better place with his son at his side.

One day, one tragic day, he found out what scared his son straight. One of Patrick’s dorm buddies was a punk rocker, good kid with wacky hair cut and bizarre piercing fetish. This kid told Patrick about these cool guys he met that wanted them to join their crew. Patrick thought it would be cool to see what the deal was, so he agreed to meet them with a bunch of his buddies. After stopping to help a car accident victim, he had been late to the meeting, but not too late. Patrick got there in time to see his buddies being harassed by some punk-rocker-looking guys with baseball bats, shotguns and he swore one of them had a weird metal prosthetic arm. Patrick saw them beat the pulp out of a guy who wanted out and wanted to head home. When the others agreed, reluctantly, two of them were dragged off into a back room and he heard horrific screaming. It was days before he saw any of those guys again, and they were far from the same. Two of his buddies came up to him and harassed him about not coming that night, they seemed like they were hopped up on some kind of drug. He managed to avoid them for the rest of the semester by burying himself in his schoolwork and the library. But apparently, they were able to find him and tracked down where he worked.

These freaks with bizarre mechanical prosthetic weapons raided the particle accelerator research facility where Adam and Patrick worked. They destroyed everything in their path and sought Patrick out, knocked Adam across the room into the side of the particle accelerator, breaking the mechanism’s integrity. He was stunned and unable to move, and was forced to watch them brutally beat his son to a bloody pulp. He watched as they ripped his son’s right arm from its socket, spurting and pouring blood, and shoved a mechanical armed lamp into its place, and laughing at the mangled spectacle. Adam felt rage well up within him, and something else, not different, but stronger than ever before. In a scream of rage something wholly surprising happened. An intense searing began from behind his retina, you know, that spot where those aching sinus headaches start behind your eyes. And before he knew what was happening a yellow-green beam leapt from his eyes and seared right through one of the Freaks. In a nearly total loss of control, Adam unleashed a barrage of beams, screaming and soaking up the welling rage as fuel.

One of the larger Freaks grabbed his son and used his as a shield against this surprise assault. Adam watched as, in slow motion, a beam from his eyes crossed the lab tables, and met with Patrick’s chest, searing through. He watched Patrick’s eyes widen and then lose their light. His heart sank deep, and Adam fell to his knees. He heard that maniacal laughter, and the mechanical noises of their prosthetics. They left Adam there as explosions began erupting and engulfing the facility. That arrogance would cost them someday, Adam swore it. After only minutes that felt like days, he gathered himself, picked Patrick’s bloody body from the floor and walked out of the research complex, now unaffected by the lashing waves of radiation released by the explosions.

Adam carried his son to the hospital, and fell into a dark depression after the funeral. His wife’s love would eventually coax him from the well of self loathing. He tried to go back to work in his field, pretending nothing ever happened, denying what had happened to him. After a year or two, he recognized that he had a gift, those awakened powers included an ability to heal others, no one around him ever got sick, and wounds healed quicker. Finally, Adam realized his responsibility, and vowed to his wife that he would avenge their son’s death, traveling to Paragon City. She would go to live with her parents, while he would use his powers to help others while in pursuit of those Freaks responsible for shattering their life. Adam has begun to make a place for himself in Paragon City, joining a force of superheroes called The Unlimited, who have helped him in his never-ending quest. He has found the means to support his wife and she has since moved to Atlas Park, and Adam has tried to balance the family time, but still does what ever he can to help those that need it, and continually seeks to decimate the forces of the Freakshow, and bring justice and vengeance down upon them.