Atlas

Atlas is a robot who appears in all of the Astro Boy series. He is a robot with the ability to defy the rules of robotics present in the Astro Boy universe and has the ability to hurt humans. While his appearances were brief in the original 1960s series, he plays a major role in the 1980s and 2003 series.

1980 series
In the 1980s series, creator Osamu Tezuka chose to develop this character's role to be more involved in the story. In this series, Atlas was built using the same blueprint for creating Astro Boy; these blueprints had been stolen by the criminal Skunk, another common antagonist of the more modern Astro Boy stories. Atlas' facial features resemble those of Astro, but his overall appearance varies greatly, with a red body and gold hair.

Rather than simply being a confused robot who carried out the commands of his human creator with no knowledge of the repercussions of his actions, he was given what was known as the Omega Factor, a device that allowed him the ability to hurt humans. Early in the series, Atlas' body was severely damaged, along with that of his beloved robotic caretaker, Livian. It was after this event that Atlas rebuilt he and Livian's bodies into the adult, warrior-like appearances that they remained in for the rest of the series. In Atlas' last appearance in the series (Atlas Forever), Astro Boy found out that he was Atlas' brother. At the end of the episode, Atlas gave up his evil ways and sacrificed himself to save the world.

2003 series
In the 2003 series, Atlas' name was originally Daichi, and was the robot son to Tokugawa and raised to be the first robot CEO. At first, Tokugawa cared very dearly for Daichi and even organized a birthday for him, giving him

an atlas for his present (hence where he got his alias) and told them one day they could see the world from the moon. However, with work getting in the way, he spent less and less time with Daichi and even ignored him completely. Mr. Tokugawa believed he gave all Daichi needed in material needs, completely unaware of the lack of emotional needs to the point Daichi rebelled against him and lead a bike gang to cause trouble while keeping the "perfect son" image in front of his father. After being rebuilt by Dr. Tenma, he used his new found powers to destroy Tokugawa Industries until Astro Boy stopped him. He later returned to destroy Tokugawa's moon base, but he had a change of heart in killing Tokugawa when he saw the earth just like his father promised him all those years ago. He often sarcastically called Astro Boy "brother", due to the fact they were both built by Tenma.

However, that is just a altered story-line since the dub writters thought the original plot would too dark for american viewers.

In the real anime story, Daichi was the son of Tokugawa who rebelled after him and died in an accident, later his father begged Dr. Tenma to create a robot with Daichi's memories since he knew the scientist already created a robot with human minds. Dr. Tenma realizing that Tokugawa had some similarities with himself created the robot, but putted many negative memories from Daichi's original life so the robot rebelled. In a fit of rage Atlas attacked members of a gang of bikers which he used to be with after they rejected him for being a robot and some bystanders.

Later, he attacked the Tokugawa industries while pretending to have a image of "perfect son" in front of his father.

It was also an strategy to create a robot which would be used to force Atom to evolve.

His English voice actor is Greg Cipes.

Episode 6
This episode is named after him.

Manga


In the manga: (image uploader not working, so i place this link for now until i get home: http://tezukainenglish.com/?q=node/283)

Trivia:

 * Atlas appears in Tetsuwan Atom for Super Famicom in his child form, despite being based in the 1980 version. His adult form was cut out from the game.
 * Atlas in a recurring boss in Astro Boy: Omega Factor which the player may have to defeat in both scenarios "Birth" and "Rebirth".
 * Atlas appears as a boss in Tetsuwan Atom for Playstation 2, however his story as Daichi's replacement was omitted and he is just killed by Atom following his second defeat.
 * Atlas appears in Tetsuwan Atom: Tap Tap Rush as a boss in his adult form based in his 1980 version.
 * The 1980's Atlas seems more similar to the 1960's Blue Knight due to their similar roles and backstories, with the exception that Atlas was made with stolen blueprints. It worth of note that 1980 Atlas can be nicknamed as "Red Knight".
 * Atlas in the 2003 version is based more off his original 1960's counterpart, however with a new body armor and jets located in his back instead of being located in the middle of his crotch (1950's manga) or ears (1963's anime series).
 * Due the recasting of Atlas as Atom's brother, Cobalt who was Atom's brother in the original series was removed since his role would be redundant.