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100px-NuclearMan1

The first Nuclear Man from the movie's deleted scenes.

Nuclear Man (portrayed by Mark Pillow but voiced by Gene Hackman) is the supervillain from the film Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. He was created by Lex Luthor with the DNA of Superman.

Prototype Nuclear Man[]

Deleted scenes from the film show a prototype Nuclear Man (played by British actor Clive Mantle), who was quickly defeated. This Nuclear Man also seemed to resemble Bizarro. This Nuclear Man was made in the laboratory of Lex Luthor. The only time he battled the Man of Steel was when Superman (in the form of Clark Kent) and Lacy Warfield went to the Metro Club to dance. Nuclear Man entered the club with the intention of killing Superman, until a woman began hitting on him. After killing her, Nuclear Man battled Superman using cars, garbage cans, and other street objects. Ultimately, Superman kicked him into a power transformer and the first Nuclear Man was destroyed. Later, Lex Luthor's nephew Lenny salvaged the remains to help him make Nuclear Man 2.

Nuclear Man[]

250px-NuclearMan2

The powerful second Nuclear Man.

The genetic material needed to clone a being to surpass Superman were put into a computer-enhanced box, along with some cloth-like material to make his clothing. In the deleted scenes this genetic material was the remains of the prototype Nuclear Man, while in the original film it is the stolen Superman DNA.

After being assembled, Lex Luthor put the case onto a nuclear missile — scheduled to be hurled into the sun by Superman. Within the star, Nuclear Man was born. Immediately, Nuclear Man made his way to Lex Luthor's building, where he showed that he has the power to generate heat and electricity by touch, has eye beams (improved over Superman's), can levitate objects by hand beams, can shoot fire and heatflares that explode, and has the regular super strength. But his only weakness is lost contact with the sun, which would render him unconscious. It wasn't long until Superman and this Nuclear Man battled, from destroying the Great Wall of China to saving Moscow from a nuclear missile, saving a little girl in Kansas from a nuclear tordado to saving Italy from a volcanic eruption. But the big trouble was the near-destruction of the Statue of Liberty. While saving the Statue, Superman was completely distracted by it and Nuclear Man successfully clawed into his neck. After falling to a near-death, Nuclear Man kicked The Man of Steel into the air, with the cape hooked onto Lady Liberty's flame.

The next day, Nuclear Man was made as an asset to help Luthor fire the nuclear arms dealers he had hired. And afterwards, he saw a picture of Lacy Warfield, developing a crush on her. And so, into Metropolis square, Nuclear Man started attacking people and destroying city objects until Superman would take him to "the woman". But Nuclear Man's aggression got the best of him, as Superman successfully tricked him into going into an elevator, where he short-circuited the power, causing Nuclear Man to collapse into unconsciousness and allowing Superman to fly the elevator to the moon. But the sun eventually shone into the elevator room, and Superman and Nuclear Man had another battle. Nuclear Man threw, zapped, jumped on, and tossed rocks at Superman until he finally got Superman where he wanted him and hammered into the moon's surface. Nuclear Man flew to Earth, and found Lacy Warfield and took her to Lex's lair, where they got into a shuttle of some kind and flew into space. Superman successfully destroyed the shuttle, but Lacy and Nuclear man flew into space. But Superman eclipsed the sun and brought Lacy back to Earth while Superman threw Nuclear Man into a nuclear reactor, where both Nuclear Man and the reactors were destroyed.

Fan fiction[]

Nuclear Man also appeared in the fan film Superman: the children of Krypton. The first Nuclear Man was replaced by Bizarro as Luthor's first super monster. In this movie, opposite of "Superman IV", He battled and defeated Supergirl before fighting Superman.

Trivia[]

  • Nuclear Man is listed as #1 in Wizard Magazine's "10 Villains We'd Like to Forget." The text reads: "Ya know what? Clones may just be worse than robots. Especially when they've got lame electric powers, 'evil nails' and only have their powers while exposed to sunlight."
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