Machine Man
X-51 may have been born on an assembly line, but he was raised a human. The last in the X series line of experimental "living" robots, X-51 was taken in by the scientist Abel Stack to discover whether or not his development would be affected by staying in a loving family home. Taking on the name Aaron Stack, he learned to be compassionate, have a strong sense of justice, and to help out anyone in need, even if the intricacies of human interaction are foreign to him. Forced to leave his father's care early, he now seeks to live among Johnny Average. He is helped to navigate the human experience by his friend, psychologist Peter Spaulding, and in turn his robotic logic offers a refreshing perspective for Peter.
Tales of a roaming robotic good Samaritan have not gone unnoticed, however, and Aaron has found himself labelled as the superhero "Machine Man". When fighting his foes, Machine Man makes heavy use of his telescopic limbs, and his ability to cancel the gravity equation around himself, allowing him to fly. He also lists super strength, flame resistance, and computer interfacing among his powers. Perhaps his most state-of-the-art gadget is his "humanised face", a mask that covers his head and, with the addition of a pair of dark glasses, fully conceals his mechanical nature from the humans he wants to live among.
Fiction
X-51 was the last and latest in the X series line of robots, created in a secret underground military complex in America. Unlike his brothers, X-51 was taken in by Dr Abel Stack and raised under the name Aaron.
After X-35 became the latest of the X series to become plagued with existential questions and go on a violent rampage, project head Dr Broadhurst reluctantly activated the protocol to detonate all of the remaining robots. Becoming aware of the detonation order, Abel removed the bomb from Aaron, who was confused by his father's unusual behaviour. Abel insisted that he had taught Aaron everything he can, and that it was now time to go out and explore the world. He gifted Aaron with a humanised mask to help him blend in, and, as a final request, had Aaron scan a photograph of him to conserve forever in his memory bank. Aaron flew the nest, and was too far away to notice that the failsafe circuit had detonated, taking Abel with it. Introducing Machine Man
Machine Man was once caught in an earthquake which, unbeknown to him, was caused by Khan in an attempt to destroy him. Byte of the Binary Bug!
By the time Aaron was more than three years old, Xanadu! he had befriended Peter Spaulding, who tried to get him a job with his old friend Byron J. Benjamin. At Benjamin's apartment, the two found a robbery in progress by the Binary Bug; though they were subdued by the crook, Aaron managed to prevent the theft of Benjamin's bonds and, in gratitude, Benjamin hired him. Gussied up as a human, Aaron replaced a fired investigator at Delmar Insurance, though he strained in the office environment, finding the clientele's greed distasteful and his colleagues uninteresting.
After the Binary Bug hit James Anderson, a client of Delmar, Aaron reasoned that all of his thefts had centred around Delmar and, with a chat to the company's computerised records room, Compucord, began to suspect the man who had previously filled his position, Joseph Rambo. More sleuthing led Machine Man to the airship fortress Xanadu, where he caught Binary Bug threatening to take the ten million dollars' worth of valuables owned by reclusive businessman Khan. Machine Man pursued Binary Bug into the air, where the latter accidentally flew into live power lines. Aaron lamented the waste of human life. Byte of the Binary Bug!
Aaron's disillusionment with humanity reached a boiling point one night in the Bowery. As Machine Man, he stopped a mugging, but was called a monster by the lady he helped. He captured a motorist guilty of a hit and run, and was disgusted to learn that it was a deliberate hit on the victim, who had stolen from the mob. It was the senseless shooting of a man simply for money that really made Aaron mad, violently attacking the gunman and raising into the sky for a electrical and melodramatic outburst.
The shot man's son implored Machine Man to help his dad, and Machine Man mused that if he failed to help, he would only be proving humanity right that he was a monster. Aaron used the magnetic current in his hand to remove the bullet. After the gunman came to, Aaron resumed his attack on him, but was stopped by a group of evolved humans empowered by Machine Man's energy, who told him that violence wasn't the answer.
Over the course of their conversation, Machine Man discovered that the beings – who thought of themselves as his children – were immune to his powers, and that they could foresee a utopia in Earth's future... but were unsure if Aaron's behaviour would impede its progress. Aaron, at the height of his cynicism, refused to defend himself from his own death sentence, but he was saved by the boy, who argued that he couldn't be beyond salvation if he still did the right thing when pressed. Aaron realised he was seeing the worst in people, and learned that, for all his supposed superiorities, he was just as fallible as humanity. The glowing beings, satisfied by Aaron's change of heart, ascended to their destiny elsewhere in the universe. Where Walk the Gods!
Machine Man found himself caught in an lift shaft, with the elevator car hurtling down towards him at 55 miles per hour. Unable to stop it with his telescoped limbs, he instead used the power of the lift's generator to create a positive magnetic flow, repelling the elevator car back up the shaft from his position at the bottom. On exiting the building, he was confronted by armed mercenaries, but was unable to glean any clues from his attackers, as explosive devices implanted in their necks detonated.
At Delmar, Aaron was once again caught by the unwanted attention of Eddie Harris and Maggie Jones. When he snapped at the two that he was trying to work, he was called into Benjamin's office, where the boss told him his co-workers were beginning to sense something strange about his mechanical personality. As he left the office, Aaron took the suggestion to associate with his colleagues to heart, as he immediately accepted an invite to a party for Tom and Ginny Williams. At the party that evening, Eddie and Maggie pranked him by giving him a glass of 190 proof alcohol, knocking him out.
Aaron awoke almost nineteen hours later in Peter's apartment, where his friend diagnosed him with a hangover. As Aaron tried to right himself, he was attacked by a sonic blast audible only to his delicate sensors, and was instructed by a voice to follow its instructions. As with the lift shaft, he was put to the test in a junkyard, where he was attacked by a wrecking ball and flying, laser beam-equipped derelict cars, and in the Catskill Mountains, where he was trapped in a retractable maze. His captor was impressed by his endurance and intelligence, and drew him to Xanadu, finally revealing identity as Khan.
On the dirigible, Machine Man was apparently disabled in a fight with Khan's new henchman, Tong, who was enhanced to feel no pain. Machine Man and Khan were attached to a device designed to transfer their consciousnesses, allowing Khan to have an immortal body to match his powerful intellect. Machine Man feigned the device's success to get the drop on Tong, who he realised could still be harmed despite not feeling it, and in reality he had sent an electric backlash into the lab's instruments. With Tong downed and the dirigible exploding, Machine Man taunted Khan that if he wanted to escape such a nasty accident, he would have to save himself. As he escaped the exploding blimp, Machine Man pondered on how Khan's greed and vainglory reminded him of the worst of humanity. Aaron disregarded his despair to instead move on and, as always, hope for a better future for mankind. Xanadu!
On one occasion, Machine Man saved a bus full of school children from crashing off a bridge into the ocean. Machine Man helped to repair the bridge, though Peter encouraged him to take it slowly for the benefit of the assembled press and paparazzi. Peter readily admitted when asked by a journo that this was in response to Miles Brickman's anti-Machine Man crusade, as Machine Man would have no need to take jobs from workers. TV reporter Dorothy Mayson argued that Machine Man was at that moment taking a job from a derrick operator, and that with a hundred Machine Men, there'd be thousands fewer employees in construction. The press dispersed, and Machine Man, who found the whole situation unnecessary, departed for the job he already had. Arriving at Delmar, Aaron was pounced upon by an amorous Maggie, so he stranded her on top of a tall filing cabinet.
That evening, Aaron was at home re-energising his cells when he received a call from Peter to put the TV on. The top news, as reported by Mrs Mayson, concerned a break-in of a Wall Street vault – with the security guards claiming the assailant to be Machine Man! Aaron could only listen over the phone as police showed up at Peter's apartment with a warrant for both his and Machine Man's arrest. Distressed by this travesty of justice, Machine Man departed to patrol the city looking for the real culprit, though he had to modify his flight path to avoid Maggie, who was staking his apartment out.
Noticing a high-pitched frequency, Machine Man found his impersonator bursting through the wall of a jewellery store, stolen goods in hand. He was surprised to find the crook shrugged off his super strength, showed no response to thirty thousand volts of electricity, and reacted and responded unnaturally. Machine Man was overcome, partially due to the effect of the frequency affecting his gyro and gravity centres, and the phony escaped in a van. He regained consciousness to find the police had him dead to rights at the crime scene, but escaped, protesting his innocence. Atop a building, Aaron wondered if a life of persecution was what his father had envisioned for him, before he visited Peter at the window of his prison cell.
The next morning, a photo taken by Mrs Mayson of Machine Man "invading" the prison was all over the papers. A frustrated Aaron suited up and handed himself in to the authorities. His impersonator committed another crime while Machine Man spent the night imprisoned, proving his and Peter's innocence. They regrouped at Peter's apartment, but were interrupted by Archie Goldsmith bursting through the door, chased by the fake Machine Man, who had orders to kill him. The two Machine Men fought, with the bout ending when the impostor took them both through the window and landing in the sewers. Machine Man followed him to Fred Greenfield and his getaway van, where he took Fred's supersonic device that was controlling the fake and apprehended him. The next day, realising that the impersonator, Barry Witherspoon, was being mind controlled, Machine Man called in a favour with Dr Oliver Broadhurst, who restored Witherspoon back to normal. With the real crooks serving justice and Peter out of jail, Machine Man watched as his doppelganger reunited with his loving wife and children and solemnly wondered, "What else could anyone want?" The Man Who Could Walk Through Walls
Aaron apparently became Peter's roommate, though Peter found his mechanical side a bit much when they got ready in the morning. Aaron's work ethic once again caught the ire of Eddie and Maggie, but he was defended by file clerk Pamela Quinn. Later that day, Pamela gave Aaron the message that Benjamin wanted to see him in his office, where the bossman told Aaron of the fire at the Alternative Resources Centre, encouraging Aaron to assess the damage and offer help. Aaron learned from an attending firefighter that people could still be trapped in the building, so he entered as Machine Man.
After saving two lab technicians – and once again facing anti-robot prejudice – Machine Man encountered Dr Voletta Todd, whose experiments with hydrogen fusion had accidentally metamorphosed her into an inhuman monster. Dr Todd demanded help with her affliction, but went berserk when she felt patronised by a being she recognised as a mere machine. After failing to contain the Dr Todd creature under a sheet of computer insulation, she trapped him in the rubble of the burning building and escaped.
Machine Man broke free, despite the damage he had sustained to three of his limbs; however, his injuries affected the trajectory of his gravity negation, and an internal fail-safe mechanism deactivated it completely, forcing him to make an emergency landing in an empty auto yard to avoid human casualties. There he was met by mechanic Gears Garvin who, despite Machine Man's dissuasion, insisted on fixing up the robot, and impressed him by rewiring his arm muscles and lashing together a unicycled assembly to keep him mobile.
After thanking Gears, Machine Man monitored radio frequencies for news on "Ion", as the press were now calling Dr Todd. A police report tipped him off to a break-in at the Baxter Building, home of the Fantastic Four. After entering via the scenic route – a broken window – Machine Man met the Human Torch, who immediately fought him, thinking he was Ion's accomplice. By lowering the temperature of his hand to absolute zero, Machine Man gave the Torch the cold shoulder – literally. Ion escaped in the confusion, and Machine Man had to abruptly trip the Thing in order to chase her.
Machine Man tapped into the power source of a street lamp, using the resulting beam to force Ion into a nearby meat market. Though he found difficulty in dodging Ion's electro-magnetic blasts in such close quarters, he successfully lured her into the meat locker, where the low temperature caused Dr Todd to stabilise back into human form. Machine Man left her for the Fantastic Four to find, complete with precise instructions on how to keep Dr Todd cryogenically sealed until a cure could be found for her condition. Despite that, the Thing still held a grudge. Kill Me or Cure Me
In 1985, The Chromobots issue 23 comics fan Dudley had a poster of Machine Man. The Chromobots issue 12
Notes
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- "Baron Brimstone and his Sinister Satan Squad!" reveals that, when a quick change is necessary, Machine Man keeps his civilian clothes in the hollow sections of his legs.
- Machine Man was one of the many robot and cyborg characters pictured as part of the Techno-X pitch.
