| Steve Austin (fictional Character) |
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This article is about the television character. For the Professional Wrestler of this name, see Stone Cold Steve Austin . Steve Austin (played by Lee Majors ) was a fictional Astronaut turned Cyborg agent working for a secret U.S. spy agency called the OSI on the 1970s television show '' The Six Million Dollar Man ''. BACKGROUND According to the Martin Caidin novel '' Cyborg '' that the show was based on, Austin was a former US Army Helicopter pilot in Vietnam who transferred to the Air Force before joining the astronaut corps. As backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 17 , he became one of Twelve Men to Walk On The Moon when the prime LMP broke an arm before launch. In the . As retold in the opening credits of each episode, the crash of an experimental M2-F2 lifting body aircraft severely injured Austin. The operation that "rebuilt" him cost $6 million. Bionic ( Cybernetic ) implants replaced Austin's right arm, both legs, and his left eye, respectively enhancing his strength, speed, and vision far above human norms. He uses his enhanced abilities to work for the OSI as a Secret Agent (and as a test subject for bionics). Caidin's original concept for the character in his ''Cyborg'' novel had some differences. The bionics were not as advanced, the eye was merely a photographic camera (the shutter was activated by blinking and the film was later developed,) the ''left'' arm (not right) was replaced, and Austin also had several additional bionic components such as a radio transmitter built into a rib, a steel-reinforced skull, and a poison dart gun in one of his bionic fingers. After being rebuilt, Austin is recruited by the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) a secret branch of the US government. Austin becomes a top agent for the OSI, travelling the world to fight everything from terrorism (the most common target of the literary version of the character) to alien invasion (in the TV version). Austin's personality was adjusted for the TV series. In the books, Austin could be cold-blooded and would not hesitate to use his powers to kill if necessary. In the pilot, Austin is initially hesitant to work for the OSI because, he says, "I don't want to kill people", although he appears to do just that in the subsequent mission. After the show's first season, however, Austin was usually not shown killing anyone. Austin's family backstory is barely described by Caidin. The TV series, however, introduced his mother and stepfather (who live in Ojai , California ), and Steve's eventual fiancee, Jaime Sommers, who becomes '' The Bionic Woman ''. Details about Austin's later life were filled in during three made-for-TV reunion films that aired between 1987 and 1994. In the first, which takes place several years after Austin retired from the OSI, it is revealed that he had a son who would have had to have been born in the mid-1960s (his mother is not identified); this son subsequently suffers traumatic injuries and undergoes bionic rebuilding. Austin subsequently returns to OSI and in the second film helps thwart a terrorist attack against an athletic event in Canada. In the final reunion film, he and Jamie finally marry. NOTES |
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