OVERSEERS of the HELIXOVERSEERS of the HELIX
Classification: Humanoid extraterrestrial race
Location/Base of Operations: Planet Helix, unrevealed star system, unrevealed galaxy
Known Members: None identified (they may or may not
actually have names)
Affiliations: Formerly the Drones, Slave-Catchers
(including Nimbus)
Enemies: Drones, Nimbus;
presumably other unidentified Slave-Catchers whom
they presumably terminated when they had no further need for them
First Appearance: Atomic Age#1 (November, 1990)
Powers/Abilities: The Overseers are grossly humanoid, although they apparently lack any body hair or external genitalia. It is unrevealed whether they have male and female forms as do the drones.
Perhaps, like the Drones, they
respond to each other on a molecular level, bonding with skin contact,
becoming a quasi-single entity and experiencing an intense rush of
passion in the their shared molecules.
Or, perhaps, they don't wish to expend the effort,
and they have found another, easier way to replicate.
They possess advanced technology:
They are highly-skilled at cloning and genetic engineering as well as mutation of existing beings, including granting energy-manipulating powers.
They
possess spaceships presumably able to achieve some faster-than-light
travel, such as warp-drive, hyperspace, etc. to allow them to travel
interstellar differences in relatively short time periods.
They also possess air car-like vehicles from which
they can fire energy blasts.
They
utilize technology that is voice-activated so that they do not have to
utilize any physical movement to control it.
They can terraform an otherwise barren world, making it not only habitable but growing vegetation.
They
have screens for viewing locations across interstellar distances
(perhaps only if they have an agent, such as a slave-catcher, there.
They can transmit
their thoughts to their slave-catchers across interstellar distances
virtually instantaneously.
They could
presumably control the weather on Helix
Traits: Overseers apparently exist in a
technocracy.
They are efficient and lacking in sentiment. They value business/function, nothing personal. Emotions, family and even simple decency are considered to represent weakness and/or vulnerability.
They considered their drones to be
lesser beings, akin to beasts of burden.
Type: Bilaterally
symmetric humanoid bipeds
Eyes: Two (on head; light blue color seen)
Fingers: At least formerly four (plus opposing thumb)
Toes: Presumably at least formerly five
Skin color: "Pink" (comparable to Caucasian humanity), at least
Average height: Approximately 5'10"?
History:
(Atomic Age#1 (fb) - BTS) - Eons ago, the beings who would become known as Overseers colonized (see comments) the spiral-shaped world they called Helix, establishing life and making it green with vegetation.
(Atomic Age#1 (fb) - BTS) - The
Overseers at least believed their own merchants and scientists to be
without peer, and they eventually felt that they had risen above
physical labor, and they wished to concentrate on the higher functions
of life.
Inevitably, some physical tasks
continued to be needed, so they resolved to create beings to do these
tasks for them.
(Atomic Age#1 (fb)) - The Overseers
genetically-engineered the Drone race in a laboratory through the
miraculous "Mother Cell"
(Atomic Age#4 (fb) - BTS) - The
Overseers used their own genetic material as the basis to create the
Drones.
(Atomic Age#1 (fb) - BTS / Atomic Age#2 (fb) - BTS) -
The Mother Cell was progressively divided until the first drone was
created. Other drones were created in similar fashion from the first,
increasing their number.
Eventually a female drone was
created, and the male and female drones begat others (freeing the
Overseers from the chore of what they saw as animal husbandry). The
Drones replicated rapidly each carrying within itself a progressively
more infinitesimal piece of the original Mother Cell.
(Atomic Age#1 (fb)) - The Drones were designed to be hard, fast and efficient workers, and they were created without mouths. The Overseers did not consider the Drones to be slaves, but rather beasts of burden, like oxen or a mule (although I'm not sure that they would have known what those were).
(Atomic Age#2 (fb) - BTS) - The Overseers felt that the Drones should be grateful to the Overseers for their existence as well as for the food, shelter and basic care the Overseers afforded them.
(Atomic Age#1 (fb) / Atomic
Age#2 (fb) - BTS) - Two
fragments of the original Mother Cell -- which were somehow connected
to each of the Drones that were developed from it, directly or
indirectly -- were stored on other planets -- one of which was Earth --
for safekeeping.
(Atomic Age#3 (fb) - BTS) -
At some point, the Overseers placed a decoy mimicking the actual Mother
Cell fragment within a few miles of the actual fragment.
They reasoned that anyone seeking to destroy the
Mother Cell fragment would be drawn to the decoy, which they would then
destroy and move on.
(Atomic Age#1 (fb) - BTS) - Drones performed all of the work for their masters, the Overseers of the Helix, laying its roads, tilling its soil, cleaning its refuse, etc.; they kept the world machine running.
The Drones were originally
obedient, cost-efficient and unquestioning, and they worked from youth
until death.
Although they lacked the ability
for speech, they learned to communicate through looks, gestures and
guttural sounds.
(Atomic Age#2 (fb) - BTS) - After a thousand generations (see comments) of misery, an understanding arose amongst the Drones...
(Atomic Age#4 (fb) - BTS) -
...now numbering 10 billion.
(Atomic Age#1 (fb)) - The Drones rose up against the Overseers, using their implements of labor as weaponry. Anguished by their own existence and welcoming death, the Drones would suicidally attack whole cities, causing massive explosions and devastation.
(Atomic Age#1 (fb) - BTS) - Ultimately,
the Drones resolved that the efforts would take too long and cause too
much pain, and so they made a new plan: Some would escape Helix and
seek out the two Mother Cell fragment.
(Atomic Age#2 (fb) - BTS) - Somehow, destroying these original cell fragments was to cause the instant deaths of the Drones, committing "geneticide."
This was planned to both end the
Drones' miserable existence and to hurt the Overseers by removing their
work force.
(Atomic Age#2 (fb) - BTS) -
Across Helix, Drones stowed aboard cargo vessels. Across the cosmos,
Drones escaped in life-boats. Across the universe, Drones instinctually
were able to track the faint "scent" of the Mother Cell.
(Atomic Age#1 (fb) - BTS) - The
Overseers created a number of Slave-Catchers to pursue and capture or
destroy the drones on other worlds. 
(Atomic Age#1 (fb) - BTS) - Some
Drones returned to the Overseers are were reindoctrinated.
(Atomic Age#3 (fb) - BTS) -
The Slave-Catchers were Drones that the Overseers transformed for this
purpose, including giving them mouths and a different appearance while
emptying their memories so that they would not think to question. Their
bodies were altered so that their very molecules jumped at the
Overseers' commands. 
(Atomic Age#1 (fb) - BTS)
<October 4, 1957> - One of the Slave-Catchers traveled to Earth
(arriving on the same day that the USSR launched Sputnik), where he
became known as Nimbus after he had emerged from within a nimbus cloud.
(Atomic Age#1) - After
Nimbus slew a pair of Drones, the Overseers contacted him, reminding him
of his mission.
(Atomic Age#2) <October 9> -
When Nimbus began to question the purpose of his mission, the Overseers
contacted him, reaffirming his need to stop the remaining Drone on
Earth from destroying the Mother Cell fragment.
(Atomic Age#2 - BTS) -
Engaging the third Drone, Nimbus sought to somehow learn from her what the
Overseers weren't telling him.
(Atomic Age#2) - As the Drone revolt accelerated, the Drones slew more of the Overseers, who considered all of Helix to be in danger.
As Nimbus, weakened by the Drone's dodging his
blasts and forcing him to exhaust his finite energies, prepared a
strategic blast to take the Drone's arm off, the Overseers mentally
contacted him again. Distracted, Nimbus was struck by a blast and fell
to the ground. The Overseers told Nimbus that they could not consider
capture and must terminate all off-Helix drones
(Atomic Age#2 - BTS / Atomic Age#3 (fb) - BTS) - As the weakened Nimbus was captured by the US military, the Drone seemingly located the Mother Cell fragment (actually the decoy) and destroyed it...
(Atomic Age#3 - BTS) - The
Drone was shocked when nothing happened following the destruction of what
she believed to be the Mother Cell fragment.
(Atomic Age#3) - A pair of Overseers noted the decoy's destruction and reasoned that the Drone would move on to another world, while they would instruct Nimbus to return: Too weak, he would lose consciousness at the edge of Earth's atmosphere, plunge back down to the surface and be destroyed. Pleased with this perceived result as it prevented continued pouring of resources into an obsolete agent and that they had others to whom they had to answer. Considering the matter resolved, they next planned for lunch.
The Overseers subsequently contacted Nimbus, telling him that the other Drone was no longer relevant, and they instructed him to come home, and that they would lead him to his rewards.
(Atomic Age#3 - BTS) -
Escaping and again encountering the Drone, Nimbus sensed her thoughts.
Sympathizing with the Drones' plight and their movement, Nimbus further
realized that he himself had been a Drone. He and the unidentified
Drone united in friendship.
(Atomic Age#3) - As a number of
drones scaled their tower and attempted to break through their window,
a pair of Overseers observed, with one considering the progress to be
incredible given their lack of technology, while the other considered
it to be pathetic, not understanding why they could not simply be happy
in their place. Having warned the Drones, they electrified their
window, either killing the drones instantly or causing them to fall to
their deaths.
The Overseers subsequently
contacted Nimbus again, instructing him to terminate the Drone and to
return home, but Nimbus broke free from their control. 
(Atomic Age#3 - BTS) -
Alongside the Drone, Nimbus located the real Mother Cell fragment.
(Atomic Age#4 - BTS) -
Presumably due to their bond and the feeling that there was more to
life, Nimbus and the Drone claimed but chose not to destroy the Mother
Cell fragment.
(Atomic Age#4) - On Helix, a
pair of Overseers (the same pair?) considered that while they were
winning, the city smoldered and that it was like this all over the
Helix.
They considered that the
reindoctrination of all wayward Drones proceeded apace and that
the escapees had either been returned or neutralized, so that the Helix
was not in real danger.
Nonetheless, with the billions of
Drones on Helix (and fellow Overseers still be assassinated), the
immediate danger there was to be prioritized over the loss of Nimbus on
a planet that housed a Mother Cell.
The two also considered that as
the reindoctrination process was untested, there might be future
uprisings, generations from now. Further, they noted that subduing the
Drones as it was could disrupt their lives for years, which was such a
bother.
At least one of the Drones considered that, since the Drones had been created from their own Overseer DNA that they had made Drones of their own kind and they perhaps should blame themselves.
The other Drone countered that they must never blame themselves and that that is why they would always succeed...
(Atomic Age#4 - BTS) - Nimbus and the unnamed Drone woman chose to live a life together on a isolated atoll on Earth.
Comments: Created under the Epic Imprint and owned by Frank Lovece and Mike Okamoto.
On the surface, this would seem to
be a world without super-heroes, and it probably was intended to be an
all new reality. However, just because super heroes weren't seen or
referenced doesn't mean they did not exist. There were relatively few
superhumans around circa 1957, and so it may just be that we didn't see
or hear about any of them. Ultimately, the aliens seen did not seem to
have much effect on the world, beyond Nunez's book. With that in mind,
I am not going to provide a reality designation; I'll just leave it as
is until something more definitive comes a long.
I would love to see a follow-up story, with Nimbus
and the Drone being encountered by the First Line in the later 50's,
early 60's, 70's , 80's...I'd like to see follow-up on Joe Nunez and
Nan & George Stoddard.
I'm not sure why destroying the
initial cells from which the Drones had been created would destroy them
all...but that was a main plot of this story.
Admittedly, I took genetics 35+ years ago, but
IIRC when cells undergo divisions, the new cells exist, but the old
cells aren't left behind...and if the DNA was replicated via mitosis,
it would have stayed the same...if the cells replicated by meiosis, the
chromosomes would have have been reduced in half, but if they were
merging with cells from a being identical to the original, the genetic
content would stay the same.
But, we don't really know how they were replicated,
and perhaps the DNA mutated or degraded slightly with each division for
unrevealed reasons.
How long is 1000 generations?
If they were reproducing with maximum efficiency, they could have been having a new generation every 15 years or so, so perhaps somewhere around 15,000 years?
But then again, what is a year to the world of Helix with two suns?
Where did the Overseers who colonized Helix originally come from? Maybe from the Xorri or another similar race?
This profile was completed 11/03/2024, but it was saved for the Appendix's 25th Anniversary Event to represent
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
The Overseers should be distinguished from:
  (Atomic Age#1 (fb) - BTS) - Existing
between two suns, it developed (or perhaps was created) in a
spiral helix form, resembling that of a DNA molecule.(Atomic Age#4 (fb) - BTS) - Helix was vast and deserted when the first beings who would be known as the Overseers colonized it. (Atomic Age#4 (fb) - BTS) - The Overseers singlemindedly exploited every square inch of their new world. (Atomic Age#1 (fb)) - The Overseers genetically-engineered the Drone race to perform all of their labor for them. After a thousand generations, the Drones rebelled and attacked their masters. (Atomic Age#1-4) - The Overseers were coming out ahead in the conflicts, but many Overseers were overwhelmed and assassinated, and many Overseer cities were aflame. --Atomic Age#1 |
images: (without ads)
Atomic Age#1, pg. 24 (Helix);
pg.38, panel 1 (creating Drones; Mother
Cell);
panel 3/bottom of page
(ships);
pg. 46, panel 1 (early Overseers)
#3, pg. 3, pane1 1 (two, full);
panel 2 (two, faces);
#4, pg. 28, panel 1 (revolt);
panel 2 (recapture);
pg. 29 (two within dome);
panel 3 (city
aflame)
Appearances:
Atomic Age#1-2 (November-December, 1990) - Frank
Lovece (writer), Mike Okamoto (penciler), Al Williamson (inker), Mar
McLaurin (editor), Carl Potts (executive editor, Epic)
First posted: 09/11/2026
Last updated: 11/03/2024
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel
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