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From SCIFIPEDIA
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| Nitro
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 Nitro versus Wolverine after the Stamford disaster.
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| Gender
| Male
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| Publisher
| Marvel Comics
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| Origin
| Scranton, Pennsylvania
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| First Appearance
| Captain Marvel #34 (September, 1974)
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| Creator(s)
| Jim Starlin and Steve Englehart
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| Alter ego
| Robert Hunter
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| Aliases
| None
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| Abilities
| Can explode powerfully and reconstitute himself at will.
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| Affiliations
| The Defenders, Lunatic Legion
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Nitro, the Exploding Man, is a fictional super villain comic book character owned by Marvel Comics.
Robert Hunter was a retired electrical engineer and a ham radio operator in his leisure time. A group of Kree (a technologically advanced alien race) scientists intercepted his transmission and bio-engineered him into Nitro, the Exploding Man. The Kree promised Nitro great power in exchange for service in their Earth based criminal organization, the Lunatic Legion.
Nitro is infamous for two despicable acts. First, he was dispatched by the Kree to steal Compound 13, a deadly nerve gas, from a U.S. Army military base. In the course of this crime, he was subdued by the superhero Captain Marvel. In the course of this, Captain Marvel was accidentally exposed to the gas, which led to him dying of cancer.
The second act was to explode at the worse possible moment in Stamford, Connecticut, while battling the New Warriors, killing hundreds of people including a bus full of school children and several supervillains and superheroes, including Namorita of the New Warriors. This tragedy touched off a series of events that led to the Civil War (Marvel Comics) limited crossover series, and the death of Captain America.
After that, he was pursued by the mutant superhero Wolverine, who eventually sliced off his arm with his adamantium claws and left him a prisoner of the Sub-Mariner (Namortia’s cousin) and Atlantis. Penance, formerly the New Warrior Speedball, brought him back to America, beaten and close to death.
2008, SCI FI. All rights reserved.