General Wade Eiling

Wade Eiling first appeared in Captain Atom #1 (March 1987) and was created by Cary Bates and Pat Broderick.^[1]

Wade Eiling is a military tactician who blackmails the accused Nathaniel Adam into participating in the atomic experiment that turns Nathaniel into the nuclear being Captain Atom, and causes Adam to disappear for 18 years.^[1]

During Adam's disappearance, Eiling marries Adam's wife and raises his two children.^[1] Following Adam's return, Eiling manipulates him into serving the military.

Eiling is later diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, recovers the body of the first Shaggy Man, and transfers his brain into it to save himself. Eiling battles the Justice League before they transport him to the asteroid 433 Eros.^[1][2][3][4]

Eiling is later rescued and joins Lex Luthor's Injustice Gang. He attempts to destroy the Earth before Orion and his dog Sturmer stop him.^[5]

Having somehow escaped, he has since appeared in the JSA comics fighting Hal Jordan. In Infinite Crisis, General joins Alexander Luthor Jr.'s Secret Society of Super-Villains.^[1][6][7]

Eiling later joins the Suicide Squad. After he betrays the team to their intended target, Rick Flag detonates a bomb implanted in his head. His head regenerates, but he is rendered amnesiac.^[8]

The General continues to serve in the Squad through the "Salvation Run" storyline, during which he is exiled to another planet.^[9]

Eiling is reintroduced in The New 52 continuity reboot, where he uses Captain Atom as a weapon.^[10][11] He also appears in the series The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men, where he opposes the eponymous hero.^[12]

General Wade Eiling specializes in military warfare.^[13] As the General, Eiling possesses immense physical strength and is functionally immortal.^[14] He can regenerate his body rapidly and does not require food, water, or sleep to survive.^[4]

The General appears in JLA/Avengers #4 as a brainwashed minion of Krona.^[15]

The Slings & Arrows Comic Guide found that in the character of General Wade Eiling the comic had created "an appalling specimen of military pigheadedness who can justify every iniquitous piece of behaviour under the blanket of national security".^[20] The Supervillain Book summed up Eiling's character as an "immoral soldier".^[21]

According to George A. Gonzalez, the Justice League Unlimited incarnation of Eiling represents the negative side of "aggressive military policies of the 2000s" by the US government, like "wanton violence" and "fixation on 'power' (i.e. military force)". Through his deliberate transformation into "a huge, hideous, grayish monster with superpowers", Eiling "embodies the ugliness of militarism".^[18] Eiling also serves as an example of the development of comics over the decades: While in the 1940s and 50s comic heroes were "unabashed patriots", in the figure of General Eiling from the 2000s they fight against a representative of a misunderstood patriotism that values the reputation of the nation-state higher than the lives of any number of civilians.^[18]

Markus Engelns gives a different characterization of Eiling based on the World War III comic arcs, in a later stage in the character's development: Eiling no longer has his function as a general, and has lost any discernable motive beyond fighting, which emphasizes his dangerous nature even more.^[22]