The origin of Adam Power has long been shrouded by myth, mystery and controversy. There have been two leading schools of thought when it comes to Adam Power’s origin.

The first claims that Adam Power is from Earth and points to the bios on the original action figure card backs (circa 1982) as evidence. Those card backs definitely state that Adam Power originated from Earth.

To wit:

“Adam Power – Leader of the Power Lords, Origin: Earth, Weapon: Ion Blaster Gun
A hero of incredible strength, Adam absorbs the cosmic energy of the power jewel to magically change himself into Lord Power, Leader of the Power Lords. He protects and defends both the humanoid and extra-terrestrial galaxies and uses Volcan Rock as his secret stronghold.”

The second school of thought claims that Adam Power is from the Planet Toran and points to the first issue of the Power Lords comic book mini series published by DC in December of 1983 which claims that Adam Power was born on the Planet Toran and grew up basking in the glow of its three suns.

The team at Powerlordsreturn.com has always been bothered by the dichotomy between the card back bios and the comic books so we sent an investigative team to Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona (Home to The World’s Largest Collection of Telescopes!) to settle the controversy once and for all.

In the comic book, when we first meet Adam, he is working at what appears to be Kitt Peak National Observatory, where he has somehow managed to land himself a job as an astronomer’s assistant, even though his past is obscured by amnesia, he doesn’t have a single scholarly credit to his name and he has no academic degrees of any kind. He’s been working at the observatory for three years, using high powered telescopes and doing a job that post-doctoral students in astronomy around the world would kill for. Adam Power only discovers who he really is after Shaya swoops down in her Power Ship and saves Adam from a Trigore who blasts his observatory to smithereens with an ion burst. We know this because after the observatory explodes, Adam Power says “GOOD LORD! THE OBSERVATORY! IT’S BEEN BLOWN TO SMITHEREENS!”

DC Power Lords’ Comic Book Art by Artist Mark Texeira (1983)

After extensive research which involved patrolling the surrounding area for evidence of ion blasts and alien activity, Powerlordsreturn.com discovered that none of Kitt Peak’s observatories had ever being attacked or destroyed by aliens. (The staff at Kitt Peak confirmed as much, even though they looked at us a little strangely when we asked about the aliens.)

If you click on this link, you can take a look at the observatory yourself via web cam to confirm that all of its observatories are present and accounted for: http://www.noao.edu/kpno/kpcam/index.shtml

So there you have it. All signs point to the original card back bios being correct. Adam Power is from Earth.