In the fourth installment of the Superman movie series Clark Kent/Superman (Christopher Reeve) must deal with the imminent threat of world nuclear war beginning in the conflict between the US and Russia. He intends to remove all nuclear weapons from the earth, and goes about to do so. Unbeknownst to Superman, though, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) has stolen a piece of Superman's hair and used it to create a genetic marker. When he attaches this to one of the nuclear missiles that Superman is collecting and Superman tosses all of the missiles in to the sun a strange being that comes to be known as Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow) is created by the explosion and the genetic marker. A battle for dominance ensues between Superman and Nuclear Man.