Giants make for easy villains, they can crush the rest of us with ease. When one becomes a hero though, that is always fun because it’s like having an adult show up when you’re a kid in need. Erik Josten knows what it’s like to both a villainous giant and a helpful hero of height. How does someone get to grow big and go from criminal to hero? Let’s find out!
Erik Josten belonged to a large family of farmers, one of many kids. Things would be shaken up when his sister died due to an accident, but Erik didn’t see it that way, he blamed himself for failing to save her. This guilt lead to Erik running away from home and enlisting in the Marines. It wasn’t long before Erik was caught smuggling on the job and went AWOL, finding his way into mercenary life. He would find himself working for Baron Zemo as security, Zemo had been experimenting with ionic fields and Erik would become an experiment of Zemo’s colleague, the Enchantress. Erik would have his strength and toughness enhanced to superhuman levels. Realizing he could get into the villain game himself, he chose the name Power Man and began his new career in crime.
The Avengers became frequent opponents of Erik’s but after a stint in prison, he would be released to find that Power Man was now taken by a new hero, Luke Cage. The two fought for the name and Erik would lose. Aggravated with this, he would join Count Nefaria who promised to give him even more power to get his name back and beat anyone else who stood in his way. This turned out to be a trick and Nefaria stole the powers of Erik and the other villains working with Nefaria. Powerless, he would go back to his old smuggling way, but kept to the villain gig by becoming The Smuggler.
Heading west after his latest time in prison, he would find a scientist who gave him Pym Particles which allowed him to grow in size. To be petty, he would take the name Goliath to take his name from a hero who was currently not using it since his last one got taken by a hero when Erik wasn’t using it. As Goliath, he went head to head with the West Coast Avengers on several occasions. Also during this time, he’d go up against the former Goliath, Bill Foster who was now the current Giant-Man, the new Ant-Man, Scott Lang, and the newest heroic Goliath, Clint Barton, formerly Hawkeye. Due to his ties to ionic power, aliens would abduct Erik and he would be tested on until rescued by Baron Zemo, he would join Zemo’s new team as thanks for saving him.
Zemo’s plan was simple, get a group of villains, masquerade as heroes to gain the public trust to exploit it for their personal gain. Erik took on the name Atlas for his heroic identity and took well to the hero game. This new life turned out to be fun, Erik even started to date the team’s city liaison, Dallas Riordan. So well did Erik and his teammates go from villains to heroes, many didn’t want to go back to crime. Zemo was less than pleased but Erik and the rest of the Thunderbolts were able to fight him off and save the world. This somewhat helped cushion the blow when their true identities and pasts were revealed, but Erik would lose Dallas’ trust and relationship for it.
This would get more complicated when Erik was kidnapped by Count Nefaria for more ionic testing, turning Erik into a wholly ionic being. Erik would get killed stopping the villainous Scourge who was trying to destroy the Thunderbolts. This wasn’t the end for him though, he was able to bond with Dallas since they both still loved one another and Erik was able to possess her so that they effectively time shared his body, with him transforming her into an ionic energy form when he was in charge. They would get trapped on an alternate reality, a Counter-Earth, for some time, when they would return, Dallas and Erik were back to being two complete people, no longer bound as they were.
Frequently working with the Thunderbolts, Erik did find himself fully accepted as a hero by many in the community. He would even register during the hero’s civil war and working with fellow ionic hero, Wonder Man. S.H.I.E.L.D. was another story when it came to how they felt about his allegiance. Erik would have his mind wiped and rewritten to be a mailman of a community of villains who all had the same treatment with other jobs given to fill the town. All this was possible thanks to S.H.I.E.L.D, having a cosmic cube in human form, Kobik, a literal child. When the project failed, Erik has his powers and memories returned. He would join the Winter Soldier’s Thunderbolts team to protect Kobik from danger until he would defect back to the Army of Evil with Baron Zemo. In the recent War of the Realms, where the other Realms have chosen to attack Midgard, Earth, Atlas has joined forces with Ant-Man, Giant-Man, and Goliath to attack the frost giants of Jotunheim who have taken over Florida.
There you have it! Atlas is a redemption story with the occasional fall off the wagon. The important thing is that he gets back up since he’s actually a pretty good hero if he asserts himself, running away is tempting for him though. Will he ever appear on the big or small screen of the MCU? We’ll have to wait and see. Until then, see you next time!
Suggested Reading
The Avengers #21
Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #49
Iron Man Annual #7
The Incredible Hulk #449
Thunderbolts
Giant-Man
Dr. Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net
