Colonel Future

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Publication information
Arclight
Colonel Future. Art by Barreta.
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Superman #378 (Dec. 1982)
In story information
Alter ego	Edmond Hamilton
Abilities	time warping technology, forcefield, stasis field ray, rocket pack, athlete

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Colonel Future is the name shared by two fictional super-villains in DC Comics.

1 Colonel Future I (Edmund Hamilton)
2 Powers and abilities
3 Colonel Future II (Edmund H. Future)
4 External links

[edit] Colonel Future I (Edmund Hamilton)

Colonel Future I first appeared in Superman #378, as a scientist of NASA in Cape Canaveral named Colonel Edmond Hamilton (named after the science fiction writer). Colonel Future studied the future and was an expert in creating futuristic designs. Because of his name twin, and a resultant interest in his works, Hamilton had been given the nickname "Captain Future", at least until his promotion to colonel.

During an accident in which he was hit by an electric current after spilling coffee over a computer console, Hamilton received a brief glimpse of the future in which a gigantic sun fire streak was heading towards Earth. Determined to prevent it from destroying the planet, he used his newfound ability to gather knowledge of the futuristic technology needed to avert the catastrophe.^[1] Building up an arsenal including a jumpsuit, a flight pack and time control-based weaponry, and using his modified nickname as an alternate identity, Hamilton began to steal the components he required to built a solar ray cannon, since he had neither time nor resources to construct it from scratch. This brought him in conflict with Superman, who became increasingly puzzled about Future's motives, since the equipment, while expensive, was hardly worth theft, and the fact that despite appearing as a supervillain, Future was careful not to harm anyone during his raids.

However, as it turned out, the sun fire streak was drawn to Earth by Superman himself. He had meant to use it to destroy a meteorite containing kryptonite, which was heading to Earth, as an preemptive measure. Unable to approach it to throw it off course by hand, he wanted to deflect the streak with a reflector lens he had made of old satellite debris, to be redirected to annihilate the meteorite.

But just as the streak was about to hit the lens, Future fired his ray cannon, which shattered the lens and allowed the sun streak to pass towards Earth unhindered. Superman just managed to stop it by bodily intercepting it, then followed the ray's trajectory to its source, where he found Colonel Future near his burned-out cannon. Future was able to explain the circumstances, which convinced Superman that this had all been an unfortunate accident caused by good intentions, and Superman gave Future the advice to use his powers more responsibly. Whether Colonel Future has ever chosen to use his precognitive power again remains unrevealed.

[edit] Powers and abilities

Colonel Future I had the latent ability to catch glimpses of future events, but only if his life was in mortal danger. In order to use his newfound ability, he reconstructed the same circumstances under which he first came to use them by constructing a 'death-chamber', a closet-like device fitted with electrocution equipment. It remains unknown whether other situations which involved mortal danger could also trigger this ability.

The equipment Future used in his raids included a rocket pack, a force field belt, a tachyon portal generator, a time stasis beam, a teleportation device, and an ultrasonic gun for burrowing underground.