Steven "Steve" Austin
Played by Lee Majors
Occupation	Company officer, U.S. Air Force (Reserves) Astronaut/Test pilot OSI field agent
Family	Helen Elgin, mother Jim Elgin, stepfather Carl Austin, natural father Michael Austin, son Jaime Sommers, wife
Appearances
SMDM	all
BW	"A Thing of the Past" "The Deadly Missiles" "The Return of Bigfoot (Part II)" "Kill Oscar" "Kill Oscar (Part III)
MOVIES	all

Colonel Steven "Steve" Austin^[1] is the primary protagonist of Martin Caidin's Cyborg series of novels and the television series spinoff of these books, The Six Million Dollar Man. After a almost-deadly military plane crash, as the result of a classified government project, Steve Austin was reconstructed into the world's first bionic man.

Early life

Steve Austin was born on February 5, 1943. (His actual birthplace is not known to have been specified in the stories.) His father, Carl, was a captain in the US Army Air Forces, commanding a DC-3 nicknamed "My Little Girl." While on a top-secret courier mission over the Himalayas, his plane was attacked by Japanese fighters. It was reported that Carl Austin bailed out of the plane and left the crew to die. (Steve eventually learned it was actually Carl's co-pilot, Christopher Bell, who had fled the plane in "The Coward.") Steve’s mother, Helen, later married James "Jim" Elgin, who brought the family to a ranch in Ojai, California and formally adopted Steve as his son.

Steve excelled at athletics, but also possessed a strong scientific streak. Fascinated by airplanes and flying, he cajoled his parents into letting him get a pilot's license before he could drive a car. He joined Army ROTC in high school to earn money for college and fell in love with local girl Jaime Sommers when she was 12 , When Jamie was 15 her parents died and Steve talked his parents into letting her move in with them making his parents her guardians until she turned 18 . but their relationship ended when Steve left for college. While at college, he roomed with future recording star John Perry, and even wrote some songs he claimed would make John famous if he recorded them. In college he was outstanding in football, but turned down offers to turn pro in favor of graduate school. Steve earned master's degrees in aeronautical engineering, geology and history, and occupied what little spare time was left to him with programs in wrestling, judo, aikido, gymnastics, and fencing.

Steve's experience as a military pilot dates back to least to October of 1962, as "Target in the Sky" describes him as having flown reconnaissance missions over Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After college, Steve spent a year in Vietnam flying a helicopter gunship, but was shot down (breaking three of his ribs) and sent back to the U.S. to recuperate. He took the opportunity to transfer to the Air Force to fly jets. He commanded a wing of F-111 fighter-bombers, then was assigned to Edwards Air Force Base in California, where he became one of their top test pilots. He also met Doctor Rudolph "Rudy" Wells, who quickly became one of Steve's closest friends.

Early Career

The reputation Steve earned at Edwards made him very attractive to NASA, who recruited him for the astronaut program. Even among the competitors of the astronaut corps, Steve stood out as the youngest astronaut, along with a combination of sheer genius, athletic ability and ladies'-man magnetism. It was at this time that he became seriously involved with Barbara Marsh; he and Barbara were engaged for a time, but his commitment to NASA ended the relationship.

Steve was selected as backup mission commander on Apollo 17, the final lunar landing. When the primary mission commander broke his arm in a car accident two weeks before the launch, Steve was promoted to commander of the prime crew. At 12:53 a.m. on December 7, 1972, Apollo 17 launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida. Four days later, Steve landed his lunar module on the Moon; he carried out a series of successful experiments and even set the record for longest single moonwalk at seven hours, thirty-seven minutes. When Apollo 17 returned from the Moon on December 17, 1972, Steve Austin was a celebrity, as evidenced by a road sign near Ojai featuring his name. (NOTE: The second telefilm pilot, Wine, Women, And War, identified Austin's ship as Apollo 19.) In the episode "Danny's Inferno," Steve gives Danny his flight jacket with a patch on it that read Apollo XIX (Apollo 19). It is a unique, and somewhat primitive, design.

After making the obligatory rounds of talk shows and special appearances, Steve returned to Edwards AFB. He was anxious to return to space, but the next round of missions aboard the Skylab space station were already spoken for. NASA wanted him for a rotation aboard Skylab II, but Steve set his sights on the Space Shuttle, and quickly became chief design officer and chief test pilot of a lifting body prototype designed to test a spacecraft's ability to reenter atmosphere and land like an airplane.

The almost-deadly crash

The test flight began well. The lifting body detached from its carrier B-52, ignited its engines and brought Steve Austin to the edge of space. He piloted the ship back into the atmosphere and to the runway back at Edwards, but a crucial component of the craft's steering system (believed to have been the third of its four rocket chambers) blew out, and the ship crashed to the desert floor.^[2]

Injuries

Austin survived the crash, but barely. His right arm was torn off by the twisting forces of the crash, which also crushed his legs. A fragment of metal penetrated the front of his flight helmet, shattered his jaw and destroyed his left eye. His ribs were crushed, a valve of his heart was injured, and his skull was fractured, resulting in a concussion. His legs were too badly crushed and had to be removed. (He also sustained serious internal injuries.) Rudy Wells, who was present at the test, had Steve rushed to Edwards Air Force Base's medical center and supervised hours of surgery. Steve was kept in electrosleep to allow his body to recuperate and to spare his mind the horror of his injuries.

Project Cyborg

While Steve slept, Rudy Wells was approached by Oliver Spencer of the Office of Strategic Operations. Oscar Goldman, the Director of the Office of Scientific Intelligence, or OSI, of the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, had long sought to create a cyborg, a melding of man and machine through the new science of bionics. Working with the Bionic Research Laboratory in Colorado Springs, he had the technology; now all he needed was the right man. Steve Austin was the perfect candidate. Spencer convinced Rudy Wells that bionics were Steve's best hope, and offered to pay six million dollars to make it happen. As later explained in "Pilot Error," this money was provided through the political efforts of Oscar Goldman. He had influenced Senator Ed Hill, who was also an Air National Guard Reserve general officer at the time, to get emergency Congressional authorization for the funds without having to specify what the money was going to be used for.

What do you have to give to reach perfection?

The next several months were difficult. When Steve was revived from electrosleep and learned of his condition, he attempted suicide. Wells knew that while Steve's physical condition had stabilized, his emotional state was delicate. He spent hours explaining bionics to Steve, using the astronaut's scientific curiosity and engineering genius to draw him out of his shell. After months of discussion and education, Steve agreed to the surgery.
He was given a new eye, an new arm and two new legs; these were all bionic hardware.

The "ultimate man's" search for his soul

The recuperation process was long and difficult. The months it took for Steve to use his new limbs easily and safely took a heavy toll on his self-esteem. After a long period of testing and refining, Steve learned that the OSI planned to use him as a special agent on missions too dangerous for normal agents and too specialized for regular military. His first mission was to rescue an Israeli sympathizer from Arab insurgents; Steve was captured and learned that his objective had been shot trying to escape months before. Steve was able to escape after a grenade assault on the insurgent base.

Bionics

Steve's left eye, right arm, and both legs are replaced with Bionic prostheses, totaling six million dollars. They endow him with superhuman vision, strength, and speed.

LEGS

• • Superhuman Speed: Steve's legs allow him to run over 60 mph, though the highest speed ever shown in the series on a speed gauge was 66 and 70 mph. The later revival films suggested that he could run faster at a speed of 120 miles per hour.
    • Superhuman Swimming: In Wine, Women and War He has been shown to be capable of swimming at 40 mph. In Bionic Ever After? it is revealed he and Jaime go for leisurely 20 mile swims. In Carnival of Spies he used his legs to propel himself through the water like a speed boat.
  • Superhuman Strength: Steve's legs are very strong and can kick any door down; he can even lift/push a car with his legs, and when he kicks an object, it is usually seen flying away. In Operation Firefly Steve was able to use his leg as brake to stop a speeding car he was trapped in. In Steve Austin, Fugitive Steve’s legs were able to overpower a bulldozer.
    • Superhuman Leaping: He can jump over 40 feet high and leap well over 30 feet horizontally. In Date With Danger (Part II), Steve jumps 40 feet across one rooftop to another.
  • Superhuman Agility: His legs give him amazing agility and acrobatic abilities.
  • Superhuman Durability: His legs are also extremely durable, allowing to survive great falls that would break the legs of a normal man.

ARM

• • Superhuman Strength: Steve's bionic right arm has the equivalent strength of a bulldozer, lifting well above 1,000 pounds. With his bionic arm, Steve can perform feats of great superhuman strength, including breaking steel chains, lifting cars, throwing boulders, ripping guns in half, bending metal bars, crushing concrete, knocking down and lifting trees, throwing objects incredibly far, and so on. His strength level is high enough to flip an entire car and lift a small plane. In Death Probe (Part II), Steve was strong enough to bring down a hovering helicopter a few feet, so he could hook it to the Space Probe. Blows from the bionic arm against human opponents are usually depicted as being devastating but not fatal. Austin is able to exercise a degree of control and is usually able to deliver non-fatal blows, but Steve typically tries to avoid this, saving the bionic right hook for a crisis^[3]. Doctor Dolenz calculates that Steve can lift 2,420 pounds six feet off the ground. In Sharks (Part II), Steve was able to push an entire submarine, the greatest strength feat shown by any bionic person.
  • Superhuman Speed: In many episodes, he has moved his bionic arm at great superhuman speeds. He has used this on several occasions for tightening/untightening screws and lugs. In The Infiltrators Steve is shown punching at incredible speed, like a jackhammer.
  • Superhuman Durability: The arm is incredibly durable, and he often uses it as a shield, as objects usually bounce off or break when they hit it. Many episodes often having protecting himself and others from falling debris.
  • Tracking Device: In the season 2 premiere of the series, Austin’s bionic arm has a facility to connect a tracking device to it.
  • Geiger Counter: It is revealed, in this episode, that Austin's bionic has had a Geiger counter, for detecting radioactivity, installed inside it^[4].
  • Microchip Detector: In the episode "The Blue Flash" Steve gains the ability to detect microchips with his arm, resulting in a blue flash in his bionic eye.
  • Radiation Absorption: In Straight On 'Til Morning Austin's arm is capable of absorbing radiation without ill effect to Austin or anyone nearby.
  • Electricity Immunity/Absorption: In several episodes Steve is shown grabbing and pulling live electrical cables with no harm despite his arm being mostly metal. He was also shown on one occasion using the electricity to increase the power of his arm.
  • Bionic Fingernail: In The Bionic Woman (episode), Steve used his fingernail to carve his and Jaime’s names into a tree.
  • Compartment: In The Bionic Boy it’s revealed that Steve has a small compartment in his arm that he can open up at will.

• Bionic Eye
  • Telescopic Vision: His left eye has not only restored his vision, but also features a zoom lens like a binocular, (the ratio is cited as 20.2:1) that allows him to see things far away. He can use it to spot enemies from miles away, scan fleeing license plates, spot hidden cameras and traps, provide expert reconnaissance etc. In The Secret of Bigfoot, Steve is said to have spotted a footprint from over 200 yards away.
  • Microscopic Vision: It is not only telescopic but also microscopic, meaning that he can use it for magnifying his vision to see smaller objects. In the episode "The Bionic Woman," Steve scanned a $20 bill with his eye using his macro lens at Oscar's request, and determined that it was genuine.
  • Infrared Vision: Additionally, the eye is equipped with an infrared function that allows him to see in the dark and the ability to detect heat, as in the episode "The Pioneers." (This is explained as being possible due to a miniature photomultiplier tube, with a maximum power of ten million, in the paperback novels that were written after the series premiered.) This is displayed in the show with a red lense.
    • Fingerprint Scanner: In "Clark Templeton O'Flaherty," his bionic eye is given a infrared fingerprint scanner.
  • Night Vision: In the original TV movie, Wine, Women and War, the first time we observe Austin use his bionic eye, when he needs to see in the dark. A green filter is used on the camera, when we see events from his point of view, similar to what is seen in night vision scopes and goggles in real life (in the series, a red filter suggesting infrared is used instead).
  • Targeting System: One early episode, "Day of the Robot," shows the eye as a deadly accurate targeting device for his throwing arm, implying that it may have a targeting system in it. This is also shown in One of Our Running Backs Is Missing while Steve is bowling.
  • Perfect Aim: In Bionic Ever After?, it is shown his eye gives him perfect aim with firearms.
  • Rapid Scanning: Yet another new function of Steve's bionic eye is introduced: the ability to rapidly scan a series of objects (namely a stack of photographs), though it's not explained how Steve's brain could process the information so rapidly. He might have previously displayed this ability in "Eyewitness to Murder” when he was seen quickly scanning a mug book, but with no accompanying bionic eye effect.
  • X-Ray Vision: In the comic G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero vs. The Six Million Dollar Man, Steve’s eye is shown to have an X-Ray function, as he was able to see into a structure, to spot how many enemies were waiting for him.
  • Hidden Door Detection: Steve displays a unique ability in the episode "The Secret of Bigfoot". After he rips Bigfoot's arm off and pursues him into the cave, his way is blocked by a false wall. Austin looks at the wall and as an electronic sound effect is heard, the portion of the wall that opens up begins to glow. Although it is possible that this is a presentation of Austin's infrared vision capability, by this point in the series the usual presentation of this was a red-filtered version of the usual crosshairs which followed the usual close-up of Austin's eye; this does not occur in this instance.
  • Slow-mo Vision: "The Secret Of Bigfoot, Part Two," features another unique use of Austin's bionic eye. He can view humanoid beings moving too fast for a normal eye to see. While the standard crosshairs are visible, a different form of filtering is used for the image, a lower-pitched version of the "bionic eye beep" is heard, and the close-up of Austin's eye is different from the usual one used.
  • Sensor Detection: In "Divided Loyalty," Steve was able to see motion-sensor beams when Leon Jackson and his son could not.
  • Medical Scan: In Divided Loyalty, when Leon was blinded, Steve was able to use his eye to tell him that the blindness was only temporary and that his vision would come back.
  • Illusion Detection: In "Straight On 'Til Morning," Steve was able to see past the illusion the aliens had created to fool their pursuers, and determine it to be fake.
    • Hologram Detection: In "Nightmare in the Sky" Austin uses his eye to see a holographic plane.
  • Radiation Detection: In "The Return of Bigfoot," Austin's eye can detect radiation.
  • Signal Detection: In Date With Danger (Part II), using his eye in tandem with his bionic arm, Steve was able to trace a telephone signal through various electrical wires and relays.

• Bionic Ribs and Spine: In Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman, Rudy mentions to Steve that he replaced Michael Austin’s ribs and spine with the same metal as Steve’s body. This would explain a lot of the damage Steve has taken over the years, and help to explain how Steve can lift incredible weights without his body crushing.

• Bionic Endurance/Stamina: All bionics are powered by nuclear power generators that provide the user's bionic hardware almost limitless endurance and stamina, while Steve's heart and lungs need only to provide for his torso, head and remaining arm, increasing the capacity of the remaining organics. In The Six Million Dollar Man (1973), Steve’s bionic enhanced stamina allows him to run for hours in a Saudi Arabian desert, in scorching heat, without getting fatigued. In The Bionic Boy Steve is mentioned as having run bionicallly for hours at top speed, and yet is not fatigued at all.
  • Enhanced Lung Capacity: Also, in Wine, Women and War is is suggested that Steve Austin's bionics give him the ability to hold his breath for longer periods of time.

Upgrades

In Bionic Ever After? Jaime suggests that Steve will receive some provocative bionic upgrades from Rudy, similar to ones she received when he removed a computer virus from her system.

Details of the hardware

Although Austin's legs and right arm are bionic, nothing was directly mentioned to have been done to reinforce his back and spine. As a result, most of his displays of bionic strength (lifting and throwing heavy objects, etc.) would either be impossible or would have caused crippling if not fatal injury. So it is likely some enhancements were done in his back. (Most of what is known about how the limbs were attached comes from the graphics displaying Austin's bionics in the opening credits; his legs are shown to actually be attached midway up Austin's natural thighs, which if taken as 100% accurate would have made running fast and jumping impossible as the legs would still have to rely on remnants of Austin's human legs. The same set of graphics also indicate that the mechanisms supporting Austin's bionic eye extend to the back of his head. Though it seems like some sort of reinforcement or enhancement must have been done to his body as he was able to take hits of superhuman force from beings like Barney Hiller,Bigfoot, Maskatron, Robot, and even Mike Power (in the comics), that would have killed a normal man.

Austin's bionics in the novels have some additional capabilities, not seen in the show. A finger on his bionic hand is capable of firing projectiles (specifically poison darts). Storage compartments in the legs allow him to carry concealed items, such as an oxygen tank and breathing mask. Austin's eye was originally depicted as simply a camera (which had to be physically removed after use) and Austin remained blind in the eye; later, he gained the ability to shoot a laser from the eye. (This ability is also demonstrated in the first issue of the The Six Million Dollar Man comic book issued by Charlton Comics). A radio transceiver can be equipped in one leg, and his partially metallic rib cage can be used as an antenna and also provide protection. A good portion of Austin's skull has also been replaced with metal. In Nuclear Alert, it is revealed that Austin weighs approximately two hundred pounds.

Although not utilized in the TV series, many of these extra features, especially the poison dart gun and metal skull replacement, are featured in several of the novels adapting Six Million Dollar Man episodes, especially those by Mike Jahn. The Charlton Comics Six Million Dollar Man magazine included several stories that incorporated some of these extra features, too, such as the radio transceiver in Austin's leg. In Operation Nuke, Oscar mentions that the casing in Steve’s skull is strong enough to endure a blow 10 times greater than that of a sledgehammer. In Cyborg IV Steve’s bionics became linked with his own space vehicle allowing him complete control of it. Steve “feels” and “sees” exactly happens to that ship as if it were a part of his body. Instead of having gauges and digital readouts tell him about the telemetry of the ship, it feeds directly into his body.

In the epilogue of the novel "The Secret of Bigfoot Pass," the aliens attempt to erase Austin's memory of his encounter with them, but while this is successful in the televised episode, requiring Austin's memories to be restored in the later sequel episode, the novelization ends with Austin telling the aliens that the steel plate used to replace his skull (per Caidin's version of the character) renders such memory-erasing efforts useless.

In the reunion movies, the capabilities of Austin's bionic hardware seemed to have been increased: With his right arm, he could flip an entire car, and he seemed to be able to jump higher; the heights he could reach by that means appeared to be at least double those of the television show. In addition, it was also shown that the colonel could now run faster as well. His eye was also apparently upgraded, as it had new and improved functions, but how or why Austin had all these upgrades of all his bionic hardware prostheses is unknown. After being rescued by a recently upgraded Jaime in Bionic Ever After?, she hinted to him that he was in store for unspecified upgrades as well. As Austin aged, apparently the artificial skin of his legs and arm were also "aged" for consistency with the rest of his body, though the mechanics of this were not discussed in any of the movies.

The toy version also had additional bionic feats for his arms and legs with the “Critical Assignment” toy line. They could be removed and replaced to add new features. The arms had a laser, a Sonic neutralizer gun, and even an oxygen tank and mask. The legs each had a feature too, with the left leg capable of exploding (for both offensive purposes and for malfunction), and the right contained first aid and medical repair devices.

Bionic Weaknesses

• Extreme Cold: The implants have a major flaw, which "Population: Zero" reveals: extreme cold interferes with their functions and can disable them given sufficient exposure. However, when Austin returns to a warmer temperature, the implants soon regain full functionality. This weakness is shared by Jaime Sommers, and other such cyborgs.
• Radiation Leakage: Bionic hardware, owing to the inherent nature of its main power source, has another flaw; as seen when Steve's legs were destroyed, it leads to harmful radiation leaks throughout his body.
  • Geiger Counters: Bionics also give off trace amounts of radiation, enough to be detected by a Geiger counter.
• Superhuman Beings: While normal human thugs and henchmen are no match for Steve, his strength has limits. Bigfoot and The Deathprobe were both too powerful for Steve to outright overpower, and Barney Hiller and The Robot are able to match him.
• Extreme Force: Steve’s bionics are very durable, but they are not indestructible and episodes such as Dr. Wells Is Missing and The Pioneers has shown them getting damaged. In The Return of the Bionic Woman his legs are shown getting damaged.
• Limitations: Although throughout the various series, Steve has pushed the boundaries of what his bionics can do, they do have limits. There are speeds he can’t reach, weights he can’t lift, and heights he can’t jump to.
• Bionic Virus: In Bionic Ever After? Steve’s Bionics were hacked by the villain and began to severely malfunction, only saved when Rudy did a full bionic surgery.

OSI Career

Returning to the United States, Steve came under the direct supervision of Oscar Goldman. Their relationship was strained at first; Austin chafed at being obligated to OSI, and Goldman, though himself a former Naval Intelligence (N-2) captain retired into civilian civil service in the intelligence community, at first treated Austin as a machine. It took many months before the two began to thaw towards one another, aided in part by a mission where Steve protected Oscar from assassins. Eventually, the two became close friends. Steve Austin retained his rank and pay in the Air Force, officially listed as an advisor to OSI. In reality, he was their top agent, traveling the world and using his unique skills on behalf of the American government.

Known code names

Primary

• Sneezy (Act of Piracy and others)

Mission-specific

• Blue Sparrow (Little Orphan Airplane, assigned by USAF)
• Operator 1 (The Seven Million Dollar Man, assigned by OSI when posing as a telephone worker)
• Sea Shell (The Most Dangerous Enemy)

Further space travel

Austin's career with the OSI took him back into space on several occasions after his bionic operation.

In The Rescue of Athena One, Austin launches to rendezvous with Athena One at Skylab, where Major Kelly Woods has docked after a catastrophic explosion injured her crewmate. Austin manages to effect repairs, but discovers that his bionics are effected by the radiation in space, causing severe symptoms, making him fear that he will be unable to return to space ever again. Oscar reassures him later, telling him that Rudy Wells has developed a shield for his bionic limbs, that will allow him to return.

In The Bionic Woman episode "Doomsday Is Tomorrow", which aired concurrent with the middle of Season Four of The Six Million Dollar Man, it is revealed that Austin is traveling on the NASA space station Skylab for undisclosed reasons (thereby rendering him unavailable to help Jaime Sommers prevent the activation of a doomsday device).

During Season Five, Austin returned to the moon for the two-part adventure "Dark Side of the Moon". He also flew a space mission to test a new rocket fuel in "Just a Matter of Time" and blasted off at the end of "Deadly Countdown" to repair a satellite in orbit.

Family

Steve Austin has few known family members. His parents are discussed above, and Jaime Sommers eventually becomes his wife. Austin is also known to have been married at least once before and to have had at least one child, a son, Michael Austin, born sometime in the early to middle 1960s, from that marriage. Michael would eventually become a test pilot like his father and, ultimately, undergo advanced bionic reconstruction after an accident similar to that experienced by his father.

Later rebuilds and upgrades

Steve Austin underwent several upgrades and/or rebuilds during his career. For example, in The Return of the Bionic Woman, an Achilles heel-like incident incapacitated his legs (and bionic system), requiring Wells to rebuild his legs and requiring Austin to spend several weeks rehabilitating and retraining himself. In the reunion movie "Bionic Ever After?", Austin's bionic eye works differently than seen in the series (suggesting an off-camera upgrade occurred prior to the film) and it is also suggested that he later received an upgrade to his systems.

Silver bracelet

In Seasons One through Three, Steve was seen sporting a shiny, metallic bracelet on his right wrist which may or may not have been a POW/MIA bracelet, which were popular in the 1970s--especially among U.S. servicemen. By Season Four, the bracelet was gone. There is no indication that the bracelet has any connection to Steve's right arm being bionic.

Appearance

Although usually clean-shaven, for a period of time (beginning in "The Return of Bigfoot", Austin sports a mustache. The mustache disappears after the episode "The Privacy of the Mind". Steve is 6'0" tall and supposedly weighs 175 lbs, according to his District of Columbia Motor Vehicle Operator's Permit as shown in season 4 episode "The Ghostly Teletype." (According to such of Caidin's novels as Operation Nuke and the specially-written novelizations of several episodes, Austin actually weighs almost 240 pounds because of the metal and other systems in his bionic hardware prostheses. According to Goldman's thoughts about this, Austin carries it all, if not quite with ease, with the indifference of any man who knows what he is.)

Personal habits

Although Steve is never seen smoking, he is often seen with an unlit wooden match in his mouth. Whether this is an indication that he used to smoke is a matter of interpretation.

Novels vs. TV

Bionics

In Caidin's original novels, Steve's bionics are somewhat different than those depicted on TV. They are nowhere near as sophisticated, with the bionic arm being little more than a battering ram, and his legs were more designed for stamina than super-speed. Steve remained blind in his bionic eye, which as initially depicted was little more than a concealed camera that actually had to be removed in order to process the film. His legs had compartments containing underwater breathing gear, as well as a radio transmitter (the antenna being an artificial rib). Most of Steve's skull was replaced with alloy that allowed him to withstand blows to the head that otherwise would render unconscious, or kill, normal people (a featured definitely omitted from the TV series, given how many times Steve was knocked out). Austin's bionic arm was his left one in the novels, and concealed in one of the fingers was a CO2 dart gun that fired poison projectiles.

Characterization

Steve Austin, as depicted in Martin Caidin's original novels, is a somewhat colder individual than the TV series. While very much the reluctant agent as on TV, once in the field he follows his orders with deadly efficiency, sometimes acting more in the cold-blooded mode of Mack Bolan or Nick Carter than the Austin known from the TV series (for example, during his first mission in the initial Cyborg novel, Austin uses his bionic arm to kill numerous adversaries, including breaking the neck of an unconscious opponent to prevent him from giving away his presence). One weapon given to Austin in the books, a CO2 gun hidden in a bionic finger, fires poison darts.

In his interviews for the 2010 DVD release of the series, Lee Majors remarked on this aspect of Austin, and added that a conscious effort was made to tone this down for the series. Indeed, the TV movie adaptation shows Austin stating his reluctance to kill (though he appears to do so at least once during the rescue mission when he drops a grenade into the cab of a tank, presumably eliminating the operator inside). The TV version of Austin also kills on a few occasions in the later TV movies and early episodes, but these became rare events and ultimately eliminated.

However, an attempt was made to maintain literary continuity between Caidin's novels and the several novelizations that were published. As a result, the character of Austin in books such as the adaptation of Wine, Women and War, and International Incidents (a novel combining the plots of several episodes) is more the cold, deadly agent of Caidin's books than the version played by Majors. Several aspects of Steve's bionics are restored in these books, such as the CO2 dart gun, which he uses to kill people in scenes added to the novelizations (i.e. several of Kaslov's men in "Wine, Women and War", and the villain of "Love Song for Tanya" in International Incidents), and steel-reinforced skull that causes the aliens' attempt to block Steve's memory at the end of "The Secret of Bigfoot" to actually fail in the novelization of same. Austin's legs in the novelizations once again contain the radio transmitter and equipment compartments, and his bionic arm is once again his left, not his right.

References