This article is about Maggie Walsh's creation, for the Sunnydale High student see Adam (student)
- “You're like Tony Robbins if he was a big, scary Frankenstein-looking... You're exactly like Tony Robbins.”
- ―Spike[src]
Adam was an undead being, self-described as a Bio-mechanical demonoid. He was portrayed by George Hertzberg.
Character history
The man who would become Adam appears to Buffy Summers in a dream.
Originally a fallen agent of the Initiative, Adam is a creation of Professor Maggie Walsh. He is part human, part demon, and part robot, and was to be the perfect organism, with the adaptability and intelligence of humans, and the strength and emotional detachment of demons. Adam is created in Room 314, and his first independent act is to kill Professor Walsh with a retractable skewer inside one of his arms.
As soon as he awakens, Adam begins philosophizing about his existence and leaves the lab. He kills and dissects a human boy as well as demons, in order to get an understanding of biology. He soon returns to the lab to download every file relating to his creation. Adam can link himself up to computers and possesses considerable intelligence.
Spike works for Adam for a short time, to extract the chip that the Initiative implanted in him to make him docile. He decides to help Adam stop Buffy by exploiting existing rifts within the Scooby Gang. Fortunately, Buffy figures out the plan when Spike lets too much information slip.
Adam does not need to eat, because he has a uranium-based power source in his chest. He is aware of every aspect of himself, and is immune to universe-changing spells, such as the one cast by Jonathan Levinson in the episode Superstar. Adam is also armed with a three-foot-long bone skewer from a Polgara Demon and a thick hide. He later upgrades himself to incorporate a minigun and grenade launcher.
He considers himself a brother to Riley Finn, because Professor Walsh experimented on both of them to make them "perfect" life-forms. Adam intends to make Riley just like him, so the two can command an army of other biomechanical demonoids. In order to obtain the large supplies of bodies required, Adam appears before the demons of Sunnydale, and persuades them to join forces against the Initiative. Demons and vampires, known for rejecting each other, begin to fight together, while others allow themselves to be captured by Initiative agents. Adam's plan is to fill the Initiative facilities with demons and then unleash them on the soldiers by unlocking their cells from Professor Walsh's secret laboratory. Afterward, he and his minions will recover body parts from the slaughter and fashion a new race formed from man, demon, and machine (the implicit idea is that Adam will expand outward until he repopulates the planet). Adam wants Buffy trapped with the installation when this occurs, because she will be able to even the casualties before being killed.
To assist himself in the creation of his army, Adam creates a second biomechanical demonoid using the body of Forrest Gates, who Adam had recently slain. He also reanimates the corpses of his other victims, Professor Walsh and Dr. Francis Angleman, though they possess little brain activity and function as little more than drones.
Adam is defeated when Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles combine their essences in Buffy's body via the enjoining spell. The collective in Buffy invokes the strength of the First Slayer and uses magic to counter Adam's attacks. With the First Slayer's strength combined with her own, she manages to rip out Adam's power source and deactivate him.
In the final episode of Season Four, Restless, Buffy, in a dream, sees Adam in his human form, before Professor Walsh's experiments. When Buffy asks for his name, the dream Adam replies "Before Adam? Not a man among us can remember."
Adam's final appearance on the Buffy television series was as one of the guises that the First Evil used to torment Spike.
Powers and abilities
Due to his cybernetic enhancements, as well as the numerous demon body parts that he was composed of, Adam possessed great physical strength and durability, sufficient enough to easily outmatch Buffy in their fights and rip off a vampire's head with his bare hands.
Due to the Uranium 235 core used to reanimate and power his body, Adam had no need for food, water, or sleep, and was virtually immortal, able to survive and rapidly regenerate from any wound no matter how severe as long as the core was active.
Adam's cybernetic implants also gave him some other abilities. Most notably, he was able to absorb electrical energy to strengthen himself, thus making the Initiative's trademark taser blasters completely useless against him. He was also a technopath, able to mentally activate Behavior Modifiers and interface with computer networks and hard data storage such as floppy disks. He later upgraded himself by implanting a collapsible minigun and rocket launcher in his right arm, both of which he used to great effect against Buffy in their final showdown.
He also possessed a heightened sense of self-awareness, making him immune to mind control and aware of reality alterations. One of his deadliest weapons was a bone-skewer within his right arm, salvaged from the corpse of a Polgara demon.
In addition to all of his powers, Adam was a genius, often giving a scientific analysis on both human and demon psychology and nature. He also possessed extensive knowledge of the Initiative's personnel and facilities, and was a master of persuasion, easily convincing the vampires and demons of Sunnydale to team up against the Initiative.
Quotes
- “I've been thinking. About vampires. You fear death. Being immortal, you fear it more than those to whom it comes naturally. Vampires are a paradox. Demon in a human body. You walk in both worlds and belong to neither. I can relate.”
- ―Adam[src]
- “You feel smothered. Trapped like an animal. Pure in its ferocity, unable to actualize the urges within. Clinging to one truth. Like a flame struggling to burn within an enclosed glass. That a beast this powerful cannot be contained. Inevitably it will break free and savage the land again.”
- ―Adam[src]
Trivia
- Like many characters, themes, or situations on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Adam is inspired by other, earlier sources. His origin and nature can be traced both to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the cyborg in the film Terminator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- Adam is unique among the Big Bads of the series in that he was killed off in the penultimate episode of the season as opposed to the finale. As the only season finale not written by Joss Whedon occurs in season 6, this gives Adam the distinction (depending on whether or not Dark Willow can really be considered a Big Bad) of being, arguably, the only Big Bad defeated in an episode not written by the show's creator.
- He likes the Beatles song "Helter Skelter". (The Yoko Factor)
Appearances
Buffy Season 4
- A New Man (covered in sheets)
- The I in Team Template:1st
- Goodbye Iowa
- Who Are You
- Superstar
- New Moon Rising
- The Yoko Factor
- Primeval Template:Killed
- Restless (human and in dreams)
Buffy Season 7
- Lessons Template:OnlyFirstEvil