Atom Heart Father is an ability bound to a dark Polaroid camera and the pictures it produces,[2] thus it doesn't have an appearance.
Abilities
The abstruse power of Atom Heart Father makes it a fearsome and seemingly invincible Stand when it is set up. However, it has a glaring weakness in that anyone is free to use the camera the ability is bound to, allowing Jotaro to take advantage of it and render the Stand harmless.[3]
Supernatural Photography
Atom Heart Father is bound to a Polaroid camera which takes pictures with several extraordinary properties.[2]
The most obvious one is that it allows people to see the ghost of Yoshihiro Kira who is normally invisible to human eyes.[2] More precisely, Yoshihiro only exists inside the pictures the camera takes and he alone can move inside them.[4] In case the picture is a close-up, he can even extend his head and arms out of the photography to interact with the world.[5] If need be, the photograph can float around by itself and Yoshihiro can store items like the Arrow inside the photographs.[6]
Not only can Yoshihiro move inside the picture, but he can also interact with objects that are within the photographed area. For instance, he could call Josuke with a phone from the photograph.[4] Whatever happens inside the picture will be reflected in the real world no matter what the victims do, thus if Yoshihiro was to decapitate Josuke inside the picture with a knife, that same knife would burst out of a drawer and fly at Josuke to cut off his head.[3]
Moreover, two properties protect Atom Heart Father from interference:
Damage on the photo is transferred to the subjects
First, the photographs cannot be destroyed to stop the power because the damage to the pictures will be transferred as equivalent wounds to those depicted inside.[4]
Secondly, everything inside the photo becomes an effectively isolated space defined by the frame of the photographs. While people inside trying to get out will find themselves bumping into an unbreakable and invisible wall, people outside trying to go inside the photographed space find themselves transported to the other side of the space. Yoshihiro describes this last property as people being literally trapped inside the photographs.[3]
Although this set of abilities makes Atom Heart Father seemingly impossible to stop, it has one glaring weakness. Anyone is free to use the camera the ability is bound to, and Jotaro uses that to take a photograph of Yoshihiro alone and then destroys the camera.[3] Thus, everything that is supposed to happen inside the old photograph is interrupted and Yoshihiro finds himself trapped within the small frame of a photograph, unable to use his power again.
Despite the destruction of the camera, the supernatural photograph can persist indefinitely.[6] However, if the photograph containing Yoshihiro is destroyed, his ghost will disappear forever.[7]
The Stand's basis is rooted in superstitions of photography capable of capturing the forms and images of ghosts, and an old Japanese superstition from the Meiji Era, where it was believed that cameras stole the souls of those who were taken a photo of. Araki came to the idea when thinking of how having a haunted photograph as a Stand would be interesting.[8]
References
↑Harvest - Vol.17 "Shueisha Jump Remix Diamond is Unbreakable Edition" P106-107 The origin of STANDS! Part 4
Manga Appearances
Anime Appearances
