BIOGRAPHY - Page 2
Nitro eventually made his way back to Earth and took up mercenary jobs for demolition and sabotage. He blew up at the Atlantic Coast Rail Yards before moving on to Wall Street. The new 
incarnation of Heroes for Hire was hired to deal with him, and Nitro was dispersed on his first job when Hercules lobbed a tank of natural gas at him, scattering his vaporous form. In their next encounter, Nitro pitted his exploding fist against the dragon chi of Shao-Lao in the Iron Fist, with impressive feedback for the both of them. Danny Rand was knocked unconscious, but Nitro was still on his feet when the Black Knight approached him. Nitro’s next blast was absorbed by the Shield of Night and returned to him by the Sword of Light, finally knocking the mercenary unconscious. [Heroes for Hire (1st series) #2-3]
Nitro remained a hired gun (bomb?) over the next few years. The Kingpin sent him as a message to Norman Osborn, nearly blowing him up in an elevator shaft. [Spider-Man (1st series) #95] Count Nefaria of the Maggia used intermediaries to send Nitro after Tony Stark. Iron Man found a new way to stop the living bomb by identifying the frequency pulse which triggered Nitro’s explosions. By duplicating the signal, Iron Man burst Nitro against his will until his system was too 
ragged to explode again. [Iron Man (3rd series) #15] Nefaria outfitted Nitro with a defensive scrambler before sending him out again with his other hirelings Whiplash and the Death Squad. A S.H.I.E.L.D. sniper took out Nitro’s scrambler, though, allowing Iron Man to blow up the exploding man in the midst of his allies. [Iron Man Annual 1999] Nitro did another job in New York when Sammy Silke had him hired on behalf of the Kingpin to target attorney Matt Murdock in front of the courthouse. Daredevil nearly had a concussion trying to bring down a man whose power is to make real loud noises, but Nitro was apprehended blocks away. [Daredevil (2nd series) #26-27]
[Note: Contrary to his previous encounters with Legacy, Nitro seemed surprised to learn he was responsible for Captain Mar-Vell’s death when Iron Man mentioned it in Iron Man (3rd series) #15.]
Nitro was incarcerated on the Raft when Electro staged a massive break out at the prison. Despite the efforts of several heroes, Nitro and roughly half the prisoners escaped custody that night. [New Avengers (1st series) #4] Nitro banded together with a small group of super-villains including Coldheart, Speedfreek and Cobalt Man. They were living off the grid in Stamford, Connecticut before their next job when the quartet was scouted by the New Warriors. The Warriors had started financing their super-heroics with a Reality TV show, hunting down criminals 
for fame and ratings. They made an extremely ill-advised decision to attack the villains at their suburban safe house, with the fighting spilling over into the surrounding neighborhood. Namorita punched Nitro into a bus at a nearby school, and so Nitro, the Exploding Man, the Living Bomb, did what came naturally. The resulting explosion killed 612 people, including three New Warriors and an elementary school filled with children. [Civil War (1st series) #1]
Nitro got out of town to lay low in Big Sur, California. The unprecedented explosive power he demonstrated in Stamford hadn’t come from nowhere. Walter Declun, the new CEO of Damage Control, Inc., sought to improve the profits of his construction and repair company by supporting “rainmakers.” He fed Nitro a supply of the power-amplifying Mutant Growth Hormone and left him to do what he does best, ensuring fat new contracts for Damage Control in the future. The Stamford disaster ignited a debate about unregulated superhumans, leading to the Superhuman Registration Act being pushed through Congress. Super-heroes started to choose sides over whether they would accept registration, but the X-Man and Avenger called Wolverine didn’t let this conflict distract him. He remained focused on bringing Nitro to justice.
Logan and a squad of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s new “Cape-Killers” tried to drop in on Nitro’s isolated cabin, but he simply blew up and killed all the soldiers in a single blast. Wolverine recovered from the explosion and began viciously tearing into Nitro, but he wasn’t the only interested party. Namorita of the New Warriors had been cousin to Prince Namor, and Atlantean commandos also wanted 
Nitro to settle his blood debt as an enemy of the throne. After Nitro was captured, Wolverine followed him down into Atlantis in order to convince Namor to let him pursue the Damage Control connection. Even in captivity, Nitro proved to be a threat, breaking loose and killing his interrogator, Politus, with his own blade. Wolverine cut off Nitro’s hand while helping the Atlanteans re-secure their prisoner, and used the interrogation that followed to go after Walter Declun. [Wolverine (3rd series) #42-45]
[Note: Possibly because of the MGH’s influence, Nitro’s power worked differently in this story. Instead of physically exploding, Nitro radiated an explosive force from his body while leaving a safe vacuum at the center for his body, clothes, cell phone, etc. Wolverine could therefore defeat him by being in too close for Nitro’s explosion to be effective.]
Nitro was held prisoner in Atlantis for some time, but Namor’s kingdom suffered political instability after siding with anti-registration forces during the American Superhuman Civil War. A radical Atlantean sleeper cell employed a super-being to sample Nitro and mimic his power, using it to attack the surface-dwellers in the name of Atlantis. Namor was forced to initiate a diaspora for his people, abandoning the city of Atlantis as Iron Man and S.H.I.E.L.D. threatened retaliation. Nitro was the catalyst for this evacuation, forced to absorb massive amounts of energy before releasing it all at once and destroying the city of Atlantis. The aftermath gave the Atlanteans a head start, as S.H.I.E.L.D. temporarily believed them and Namor dead. Through a political alliance with Doctor Doom, Namor arranged for Nitro to be further incarcerated in Latveria. [Sub-Mariner (2nd series) #1-6]
Speedball, sole survivor of the New Warriors from Stamford, went down a dark path after the Registration Act. He became the tormented Penance, working for the Initiative’s Thunderbolts while seeking redemption for his part in the disaster. Trauma from Nitro’s massive explosion interacting with his kinetic abilities meant Penance’s power was now triggered by pain, a fact which only fueled his unhealthy new mindset. Penance developed a monomania over bringing Nitro to justice in the United States, and he formulated a plan to enter Latveria and retrieve him, 
even outmaneuvering Doctor Doom in the process, just to face Nitro again. When his cell opened up, Nitro didn’t know or care who the kid in the bondage gear was, he just wanted out. Unfortunately for the Exploding Man, Penance was a masochist literally powered by pain and kinetic energy, meaning that repeatedly exploding in his face only made Penance stronger. The more they hit each other, the weaker Nitro got in turn.
Once he had the upper hand, Penance focused on Nitro’s own penance, delivering 612 precise blows to the super-villain, each one peppered with the name of one of his victims. He knocked Nitro out and redressed him in his own Penance armor. The suit was designed with internal spikes to trigger Penance’s pain-induced powers, but it was also engineered with the fantasy of one day 
putting Nitro in it too. For over an hour, as they flew back to America, every blow Speedball gave him, every time Nitro tried to explode, the force was amplified and returned to him as immeasurable pain. In this way, Speedball convinced himself Nitro would finally understand how his victims felt when they died. What remained of Nitro returned to the United States and remanded into custody for his crimes. [Penance: Relentless #4-5]
Somehow, Nitro found his way out of custody and joined Parker Robbins’ gang of super-villains. One of the benefits Robbins offered as the Hood was using his invisibility and stealth to extract his men from prison if they were ever caught. It’s possible he offered this service to Nitro as a down payment for his involvement in the new super-villain organization. [New Avengers (1st series) #35] Nitro had a minimal role in the Hood’s gang, however, making only a few minor appearances amidst the horde of villains. [Dark Reign: The Hood #1]
[Note: Given the obscure number of cameos he made and the continuity involved, it is quite possible that any depiction of Nitro with Hood’s gang was an error. He would make one more single panel cameo with this group when they reformed years later in Defenders (5th series) #10. Also, the hand that Nitro lost to Wolverine was back without explanation following Penance: Relentless. He was incarcerated with his powers neutralized throughout that period. Given Nitro’s abilities, it’s possible his hand naturally restored itself once he began exploding and reforming his mass again.]
Sometime later, Nitro resurfaced as a pawn of cosmic entities along with Graviton and Blizzard. The three of them were puppeteered by the children of Eternity (Explosion, Gravitation and 
Entropy), with Nitro specifically being directed by the sentient representation of the Big Bang itself. These forces sought to assert themselves to bring balance in the Eighth Cosmos, and targeted Earth’s defenders Starbrand and Nightmask for elimination before they could act with impunity. Nitro’s power was dramatically enhanced by Explosion, but his mind was lost to the single-minded entity, and the trio were soon captured and turned over to S.H.I.E.L.D. [Starbrand & Nightmask #1-4]
Nitro was one of numerous super-villains imprisoned in Pleasant Hill. The S.H.I.E.L.D. facility used a sentient Cosmic Cube known as Kobik to impose false realities on the inmates, making them believe they were completely normal small-town residents. This continued until Baron Zemo led an uprising that revealed S.H.I.E.L.D.’s abuses and cost them the service of Kobik. Nitro personally declared his feelings by detonating in the office of Director Maria Hill when Steve 
Rogers arrived to shut her down. [Standoff: Assault on Pleasant Hill crossover] After a successful escape, Nitro was apparently back in Big Sur when Baron Zemo sought him out to participate in the Army of Evil. [Captain America: Steve Rogers #13] The victims of Pleasant Hill came together for a massive attack on New York in support of Hydra’s takeover of America. Nitro inevitably detonated in the middle of Manhattan. Jessica Jones did her best to throw him away from populated areas, but his blast certainly consumed many lives. [Secret Empire #0]
More time passed, and Nitro was apparently in and out of prison again. He began experiencing trouble with his powers and headaches on top of that. Unable to acquire health insurance or work with his record, Robert Hunter was forced to resort to “doc bot” A.I.s for diagnosis, which only irritated him further. He developed a Luddite attitude towards tech and hooked up with an alien 
woman named Nada with similar goals. Nada’s planet was poisoned with toxic elements dumped there by an Earth corporation, making her hate human progress and tech, too. She developed a number of powers through exposure to those toxins in her “nada-force,” including teleporting between worlds and empowering others. Nitro fixated on destroying Carol Danvers, the current Captain Marvel, and he agreed to help Nada destroy all tech if she boosted his powers and helped him kill Carol.
Captain Marvel was in the middle of volunteering as a motivational speaker for at-risk youths when Nitro and Nada grabbed her in a wormhole. The vortex brought Carol to Nada’s world along with three teenagers, Zen, Zane and Zaka, and two more speakers, Blake and Keziah. Nitro and Nada blasted Captain Marvel around a bit before Nada swallowed the hero into her own pocket dimension. Satisfied for the moment, Nitro continued assisting Nada as she convinced the other travelers to join her Luddite crusade by empowering them as the Feral Five. As Captain Marvel broke free of her prison, Nada took the Feral Five members willing to follow her back to Earth, leaving Nitro for a rematch against Carol. Nitro had some new moves, keeping his fists solid while 
blasting them off from his body to strike Captain Marvel at a distance. Even after he collapsed a mountain on top of her, though, Carol kept on fighting. When Spider-Woman arrived with a ship to rescue Carol, the heroes departed and Nitro was left behind on Nada’s world, trying to pull himself together. [Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest #1-5]