Nathan
Spencer was a member of the Federal States of America's military forces, but had
his arm blown off during combat. During his rehabilitation, he became the first
test subject for bionic experiments conducted by TASC., the Tactical Arms and
Security Council. His codename was Research and Development #1, so he gained the
nickname "Rad." There he received his trademark bionic arm, after
which he was sent into active duty and given the rank of captain, after the
antagonistic Imperial army attacked and captured the TASC operative Super Joe in
the original Bionic Commando. Nathan succeeds in stopping the Imperial
attack, preventing the enemy's resurrection of Adolf "Master D"
Hitler, and rescuing Super Joe. For his valiant efforts, Joe is is promoted to
director of TASC, and he and Nathan go on to train a new breed of bionic
commandos.
The second Bionic Commando game for the Xbox 360 & PS3 takes
place several years after the NES original. As bionic enhancements became more
prevalent, hostility grew among normal humans who were becoming paranoid and
scared by enhanced bionic soldiers. Riots broke out and a bionic rebellion began
as a result of this paranoia. Amidst this tumult, Nathan Spencer was wrongfully
accused and sentenced to death. He was spared from this fate only by the
detonation of a massive bomb that leveled Ascension City. The government
releases Spencer from prison and fits him with a new bionic arm, allowing him a
chance at a pardon in exchange for tracking down and stopping those responsible
for this heinous act.
In the next gen version of Bionic Commando, the origins of Nathan's Bionic arm are revealed through medical
reports found by hacking relay stations, and Super Joe explaining how Bionics
were created. The Medical reports reveal that Nathan was a casualty of war, and had his entire
left arm blown off, along with some of his torso by a grenade explosion, and
that the damage was unrepairable. Super Joe explains that he helped create
Bionic Limbs for humans who had suffer loss of limbs, he explained that they
always tried to make robots like humans, but the trick was to turn humans into
robots. This is what happened to Nathan's wife Emily Spencer ,she had been used
by Super Joe as a construction Catalyst of Nathan's Bionic Arm, she was turned
into his arm, as Super Joe explained, for a Bionic Limb to fuction properly
their needed to be a strong physical and emotional bound between the two
subjects, as the machine/bionic is a "living" entity that fuses with
the host. Jayne "Mag" Magdelane's Bionic legs are derived from the
person named "Jammie Madgelane" possibly her husband, this is the same
case as Nathan's arm, a person that is strongly connected through emotional and
physical bonds must be used for a bionic limb to fuction properly with the
subject.
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Page Updated:
Oct. 28th, 2023
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Quick story: Shortly after the
first Marvel VS Capcom 1 was released in 1998, one of my old friends said to me, "Man, they
need to put Bionic Commando in this game." And I was like... "Who's
Bionic Commando?". (Yeah, I actually hadn't heard of Bionic Commando at that time.) My friend was like "Whaaaaat?!" XD
Spencer seemed like a natural fit for the game, but honestly I wasn't
particularly thrilled when I saw they were using his "next-gen"
version. If you ask me, Spencer's
default MVC3
appearance is painfully boring. I don't think the dreads really work for him, and
he needs to shave.... Do they not have razors in the future or something? :/ Just to nag a little more, I think his voice
sounds pretty lame / awkward (both in English and Japanese). At least "New Capcom" was smart enough to put a classic "Super
Joe" alternate costume in UMVC3 for the nostalgia effect. Anyhow,
Spencer does have some pretty epic combo possibilities, but that alone doesn't make a
great fighting game character design. Could've done more with him, I think.
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Fighting
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Effectiveness
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