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Nathan "Rad" Spencer
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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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Marvel VS Capcom 3

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Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3MVC: Infinite

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Page Updated:  May 23rd, 2020

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.

Fighting  Style  /  Moveset
Personality  /  Charisma
Outfit(s)  /  Appearance
Effectiveness  in  series
Overall Score

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