Miles Brickman: Difference between revisions
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That evening, the senator was overjoyed at the news report that Machine Man had allegedly been on a crime spree, including being caught by police at a jewellery store. He told his assembled supporters that as long as Machine Man was perceived of being guilty of ''something'', that made him a righteous prosecutor.
A couple of days later, Machine Man caught the actual perpetrator, the hypnotised [[Barry Witherspoon]], and
A later campaign rally, held at a posh [[New York City#Manhattan|mid-Manhattan]] hotel, once again focussed on Machine Man's threat to the American way of life. At this point, however, even Brickman's own supporters noted that he was falling in popularity and scoring poorly in the primaries. As Brickman left the stage, the supporters advised him to focus on inflation, unemployment, and foreign policy rather than just Machine Man and the automation he represented. The senator assured them that he had already taken steps to destroy Machine Man as part of a plan to cement his reputation as society's saviour. The following day, Brickman was the guest of honour at a high society party organised by [[Sunset Bain]]. The hostess introduced herself to him, telling him that they had something of a "mutual friend"...
In the meantime, the secret section of the Canadian ministry of defence codenamed [[Department H]] had received a dossier from an anonymous source. The documents and slides alleged that, some months ago, Machine Man had deliberately sent the [[Hulk]] to cause wide-scale destruction in Canadian timberland on the orders of the U.S. government. To determine the dossier's veracity, a minister dispatched the super-team [[Alpha Flight]] to apprehend Machine Man, and the covert operative [[Agent K]] to trace its origin. By searching every federal premises within the radius of the post office from which the dossier was sent, K discovered that the quirks of Brickman's personal typewriter matched those seen on the documents. When the media caught wind of his plot to rig his own election, the Brickman campaign deflated. As his advisors abandoned him, Brickman vowed that they hadn't seen the last of him. In the eyes of the Canadian government, Machine Man was exonerated... but Brickman's rhetoric had already cut deep for the living robot who, when caught in a trap by [[Madam Menace]], had lost his temper and lashed out at ally and foe alike, nearly becoming the monster his persecutors believed him to be. {{storylink|Alone Against Alpha Flight!}}
==Related characters==
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Two supporters joined Brickman on stage at the subsequent press conference. {{storylink|The Man Who Could Walk Through Walls}}
A pair of supporters discussed Brickman's floundering campaign during one of his speeches. When he came off stage, they advised him that he couldn't keep coasting on the public's paranoia of automation as represented by Machine Man. A few days later, Brickman's political career went up in flames when it was revealed he was trying to sour Canada's relations with the U.S.. One of the supporters quipped that, after this scandal, Brickman couldn't even get elected as [[Nixon]]'s butler. {{storylink|Alone Against Alpha Flight!}}
==Notes==
{{MarvelWiki|Miles_Brickman_(Earth-616)|Miles Brickman}}
*Brickman's actually a pretty big signifier for fitting the [[robot universe]] into a single cohesive timeline. When ''Machine Man'' was first published in the U.S., Brickman's political ambitions synced up with the real-world [[w:1980 United States presidential election|1980 presidential election]] and primaries thereof, with him specifically mentioning [[w:Jimmy Carter|Carter]] and [[w:Ted Kennedy|Kennedy]] as political opponents in "[[The Man Who Could Walk Through Walls]]". The TFUK printing removed the reference to Carter, who had no interest in running again after getting ''bodied'' by [[w:Ronald Reagan|Reagan]], to reflect a more contemporary understanding of American politics. The nearest real-world U.S. election to its UK publishing was
*Incidentally, Brickman's political party is never explicitly specified; Carter and Kennedy could be rivals for the nomination as much as for the presidency, and only "his party" is mentioned in "Alone Against Alpha Flight!". A charitable reading of ''Machine Man'' could interpret Brickman as a Democrat... a very, ''very'' charitable reading.
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