General Wade Eiling

General Wade Eiling, sometimes known as The General, is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics.

Not to be confused with General (DC Comics).
General Wade Eiling
General Wade Eiling as seen in the interior artwork from Who's Who Update '88 vol. 1 #4 (January 1995).
Art by Pat Broderick.
Publication information
PublisherDC Comics
First appearanceCaptain Atom #1
(March 1987)
Created byCary Bates (writer)
Pat Broderick (artist)
In-story information
Alter egoWade Eiling
Team affiliationsSuicide Squad
The Society
Injustice Gang
United States Army
Notable aliasesThe General, Shaggy Man
AbilitiesSuperhuman strength, durability, speed and endurance,
regenerative healing factor, military expertise

General Eiling made his live appearance on the first season of The Flash played by Clancy Brown.

Publication history

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

Fictional character biography

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] This is considered a failure by Eiling and Heinrich Megala, the project's main scientist. They would attempt the experiment again, which ends up with the creation of Major Force.

During the 18 years in which Adam is gone, Eiling marries Adam's wife and acts as father to his two children.[1] Eiling also manipulates Captain Atom into serving the military. His first attempts, a chance for Adam to view his children in exchange for retrieving a lost submarine, falls apart in issue #3 of the 1980s Captain Atom series. This embarrasses Eiling in front of his superiors. The same issue details the cover story for Captain Atom that Eiling helps create, one that is, in his words, "a scenario just far-fetched and hokey enough to sound authentic". His continuing conflicts with the title character were a major focus of the 1980s Captain Atom series. Eiling would also form an intensely adversarial relationship with Megala.

General Wade Eiling makes a cameo appearance in SoftWar, the very first story arc of 1993 maxi-series The Hacker Files.

In JLA #24 after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, Eiling sends a military team to salvage the indestructible body of the a Shaggy Man from the Pacific Ocean where he has its body shaved. Green Lantern and Aquaman attempt to stop the Corps from retrieving the body, but their efforts are thwarted.[2]

The General returns to his base of operations, Threshold. From there he orchestrates a military assault on the JLA. Answering a call for help in Phoenix, Arizona, the Justice League are attacked by American military forces. Spearheading the offensive is a new superhero team called the Ultramarine Corps.[1][3] Recruited and genetically enhanced by Eiling's lab team, The Ultramarines already exhibit signs of terminal illness.[3] Meanwhile, Batman, the Huntress and Plastic Man track Eling to Threshold, where they discover that Eiling transferred his brain patterns into the indestructible body of the Shaggy Man and called this form the General.

The JLA battle the military and the Corps until JLA #26 (Feb. 1999). General's forces consider mutiny as doubts against attacking the League come to a head. Superman, whose super-senses have diagnosed the Ultramarine's disease, persuades the Ultramarine Corps that General has used and betrayed them. The Corps members, who volunteered for service in good faith, switch sides and speed with the JLA toward Threshold.[4]

Even against the combined might of the JLA and the Ultramarines, the General is unstoppable. Batman notices that General's tactical edge and focus are diminished in his new artificial form. Working together, the team fights the monster onto a bulk-matter teleport platform. General is transported to 433 Eros, a 'rocky needle', six miles in length, at the heart of the Sol system's asteroid belt.[1]

He stays there for several months until Queen Bee recruits him into Lex Luthor's new Injustice Gang. General battles against the Justice League a second time as part of a coordinated attack, this time utilizing a large-scale machine gun. He declares that the League was wrong to banish him to the asteroid with no trial. The battle moves to one of the White Martian warships that is currently inside the Phantom Zone. There, General states his plan to utilize the weapons of mass destruction on Earth itself. Orion's war dog Sturmer participates in a trick against General. The canine tackles the man through a ship's airlock, into the Phantom Zone. This naturally distresses Superman, but Orion assures him that Sturmer has willingly made this choice.[5]

Having somehow escaped, he has since appeared in the JSA comics fighting Hal Jordan. During the "Infinite Crisis" storyline, General is one of the hundreds of villains recruited into the Society.[1][6] He is a participant in the Battle of Metropolis, the first step of the Society's war on the heroes. This effort fails. Later, he is recruited into the Suicide Squad, where his regenerative powers are significantly diminished. He betrays the team to their intended target. Rick Flag detonates a bomb implanted in General's head, ending the threat. His head and brain eventually regenerate, but results in some amnesia. General continues to serve as a Squad member through the "Salvation Run" storyline. This is the name for a program that exiles supervillains to a distant, Earth-like planet without a trial.[7]

In September 2011, DC Comics engaged in a line-wide revision of its superhero comics, including their stories and characters' fictional histories, known as The New 52. In the new stories, the character of Captain Atom has a new origin with General Wade Eiling first appearing in a radiation suit while flanking Captain Atom.[8] General Eiling tells Captain Atom to fall in line as he is a super-weapon that will keep America on the top. When Captain Atom tells them that he will be just another atomic bomb for them, General Eiling attempts to quarantine Captain Atom. While stating that he cannot eat or drink, Captain Atom counters everything that the military throws at him.[9]

Powers and abilities

General Wade Eiling is a military expert.

In the shaved body of a Shaggy Man that he dubs General, Eiling has superhuman strength, durability, speed and endurance as well as a regenerative healing factor.

Other versions

JLA/Avengers
  • The General is among the mind-controlled villains defending Krona's stronghold when the heroes assault it. He is defeated by Iron Man and Vision.[10]

In other media

Television
General Eiling from Justice League Unlimited.
General Eiling (as The General) in Justice League Unlimited.
  • General Wade Eiling appears in the Justice League Unlimited animated series, voiced by J. K. Simmons.[11] Introduced in the episode "Dark Heart", this version is a USAF General and a member of Project Cadmus who regards metahumans as a threat to humanity. After the Atom shut down the eponymous Dark Heart, Eiling and his soldiers confiscate the device. In "The Doomsday Sanction", he sent a nuclear warhead to kill Doomsday regardless of innocent casualties and was reprimanded by Amanda Waller. In "Question Authority", Eiling compelled Captain Atom to choose between the USAF or the Justice League. In "Panic in the Sky", Eiling attempts to stop Batman from confronting Waller, but fails to defeat him. Following Project Cadmus' disbandment, Eiling was relegated to a "pencil pusher". In "Patriot Act", Eiling has dinner with Waller, who no longer considers the Justice League a threat. Following this, a displeased Eiling injects himself with Captain Nazi's super-soldier serum and transforms into a monster.[12] He attempts to find Superman, but chooses to fight non-powered Leaguers Green Arrow, Speedy, Shining Knight, Crimson Avenger, Vigilante, Stargirl, and S.T.R.I.P.E. instead. While he soundly defeated the group, a group of civilians stood between him and a weakened Shining Knight, at which point Eiling realized he was the only metahuman involved in the fight. Upon leaving, he vowed to return if the Justice League becomes a threat.
    • He also appears in issue #5 of the spin-off comic of the same name, wherein he invades the Justice League's Watchtower while Blue Beetle is on monitor duty. Blue Beetle eventually incapacitates Eiling using Green Arrow's flare arrows.
  • General Wade Eiling appears in the Young Justice animated series, voiced by Jeff Bennett. In the episode "Failsafe", a mind-training exercise conducted by Martian Manhunter features Eiling leading the U.S. Army in defending Washington D.C. from an alien invasion. In "Cornered", Eiling leads the military when Despero and L-Ron surround the Hall of Justice with a massive forcefield and attempt to disable it until the Reach Ambassador successfully deactivates it.
  • General Wade Eiling appears in The Flash live-action series as "a pivotal recurring" character, portrayed by Clancy Brown.[11][13] A two-star U.S. Army general, this version worked with S.T.A.R. Labs five years prior to the series to develop a means of creating psychic interrogators until Harrison Wells learned he was abusing the program's test subject Grodd and broke ties with him. Introduced in the episode "Plastique", Eiling leads a task force to capture Bette Sans Souci for her abilities, only to shoot her after he attacks him. Eiling returns in the episodes "The Nuclear Man" and "Fallout" to harness Firestorm's abilities, but is abducted by Eobard Thawne and Grodd. In "Grodd Lives", the titular gorilla uses his psionic powers to brainwash Eiling and force him to rob armored cars until the latter is captured by Team Flash and remanded to the S.T.A.R. Labs' pipeline until Grodd is defeated. Team Flash releases him from the prison and Eiling leaves peacefully.

Video games

General Wade Eiling (as The General) appears in the Nintendo DS version of Justice League Heroes.

Reception and analysis

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".[14] The Supervillain Book summed up Eiling's character as an "immoral soldier".[15]

According to George A. Gonzalez, in the figure of General Eiling the creators of Justice League Unlimited represent 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 "quite literally [...] embodies the ugliness of militarism".[12]
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.[12]

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 dangerousness even more.[16]

References
  1. Jimenez, Phil (2008), "General, The", in Dougall, Alastair (ed.), The DC Comics Encyclopedia, New York: Dorling Kindersley, p. 135, ISBN 978-0-7566-4119-1, OCLC 213309017
  2. JLA #24. DC Comics.
  3. Lloyd, John (May 2020). Exploring the Dynamics of Relationships and Emotional Processes of Comic Book Characters for Potential Implications in Family Therapy: A Content Analysis Approach (PhD). p. 81. Retrieved December 31, 2020.
  4. JLA #26. DC Comics.
  5. JLA Vol. 6: World War III (collects JLA #34-41, 2000, ISBN 1-56389-618-4). DC Comics.
  6. Infinite Crisis #3. DC Comics.
  7. Salvation Run #1. DC Comics.
  8. Captain Atom Vol. 2 #3. DC Comics.
  9. Captain Atom Vol. 2 #4. DC Comics.
  10. JLA/Avengers #4. DC Comics/Marvel Comics.
  11. Ng, Philiana (August 8, 2014). "Clancy Brown has joined The CW's "Arrow" spinoff as a powerful comic-book character". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 8, 2014.
  12. Gonzalez, George A (2016). "Justice League Unlimited and the Politics of Globalization" (PDF). Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction. 45 (123): 5–13.
  13. Egan, James (2016). "The Flash 2014". 1000 Facts About TV Shows Vol. 1. Lulu Publishing Services. ISBN 9781326660536.
  14. Plowright, Frank, ed. (2003). The Slings & Arrows Comic Guide. Slings & Arrows. p. 108. ISBN 978-0954458904.
  15. Misiroglu, Gina Renée; Eury, Michael, eds. (2006). The Supervillain Book: The Evil Side of Comics and Hollywood. Visible Ink Press. ISBN 978-1578591787.
  16. Engelns, Markus (2009-09-07). "Der Dritte Weltkrieg als Reifeprüfung" (PDF). Medien Observationen. Retrieved 2020-12-14.
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