Where Walk the Gods!

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I didn't even know comics could have bottle episodes.
Where Walk the Gods!
Publisher	Marvel Comics
Published in	The Transformers issue 4 issue 5
First published	1st November, 1984 (part 1) 17th November, 1984 (part 2)
Scripter	Marv Wolfman
Artist	Steve Ditko
Colourist	Bob Sharen
Colors	Bob Sharen
Letterer	Irv Watanabe
Editor	Marv Wolfman
Consulting editor	Jim Shooter

Man's inhumanity to man pushes Aaron over the edge, unintentionally manifesting a group of all-powerful and judgemental beings.

Synopsis

Part 1

Machine Man is in the Bowery when he overhears a mugging in progress. The mugger takes an old lady's purse; Machine Man criticises his lack of empathy as he traps him in a dustbin. But when he returns the purse, the old woman is frightened – he's no human, he's a monster, a thing! Machine Man is confused that she would shun her unfamiliar saviour, but he picks up the sound of another incident.

A man has been hit by a car, but the driver isn't stopping. Asking if the world has gone mad, Machine Man sprints with his hydraulic legs and uses his telescopic arms to crab the grille of the car, wrecking its back end with his super strength. The driver runs for it, but Aaron grabs a manhole cover and charges it using his interior power generator, magnetising it. He throws it at the driver, and it sticks to his massive belt buckle, and it returns to Machine Man like a boomerang. The driver admits to being a paid killer, his hit and run victim having stole something from the mob. Aaron is disgusted by this violence and greed, but he hears gunshots less than a mile away.

Arriving in another alley, Machine Man finds a boy slumped over his dad's body and a gunman fleeing the scene with his money. Sickened by the thought of money being worth more than a human life, Machine Man decides to punish the gunman, trapping him in a chain link fence that he has electrified... but he stops before killing him, as that would make him no better than he is. Has his time among humans corrupted his sense of judgement?

Aaron's anger overwhelms him, and he rises into the sky, releasing his rage into a burst of electricity. Unknown to him, an arc of energy oscillates into a laboratory, and five chemists are struck down... and, infused with chemicals, they glow with power, evolving into something new...

Machine Man returns to the boy, who implores him to do something to save his father. Aaron hesitates; why should he help a race that has always demonised him? The boy can't speak for all of humanity, only his love for his father. Aaron realises he'd be becoming what he is accused of being if he doesn't help, so he generates a magnetic current with his hand to remove the bullet from the man's chest.

The gunman regains consciousness, and threatens to call the police if Machine Man attacks him. Aaron is angered by the hypocrisy, threatening to take out all his bottled rage on the lowlife.

He is stopped by a shaft of light, as a group of five golden glowing humans address him as "father", telling him that life is sacred and that there must be no violence!

Part 2

Aaron is indignant that these beings tell him what to do when it's the behaviour of humans that make him act like this. The beings counter that a human, Abel Stack, made Aaron act the way he does – and if Abel could control his emotions, why can't Aaron? Affronted, Machine Man attacks them with electrical blasts, but they are born of his energy, and thus able to deflect his attacks.

They are also born of his programming, and point out the illogic of his actions as he continues to try and attack him. Trapping him in a stasis beam, the lead being tells Aaron that he is more human than perhaps he realises, and that he is squandering his powers by allowing his baser emotions to control him. After all, he is attacked by humans because he is different, just as he is now attacking them.

Continuing his assault, Aaron argues that he doesn't want their help to save humanity – humanity is a lost cause, destroying their own world and each other... and perhaps the world would be better off without it! Energy crackles from the beings, and they ensnare Aaron completely. Their evolved state has gifted them these abilities, including a limited perception of the future. Earth will go to ruin, they say, but from that ruin will arise a utopia... and for the future to come to pass, they must first decide whether Machine Man will be allowed to survive or be destroyed!

Two of the beings vote for his dismantlement, and two say that it is not in their providence to kill. The lead being is left with the casting vote, and encourages Aaron to speak in his own defence. Aaron refuses, not recognising their authority, and he insists that there is no good left in the world.

The lead being prepares to kill Aaron, but the boy interrupts them. He tells them that Machine Man helped his father survive the gunshot wound, and that he's no monster to be feared or destroyed – a monster wouldn't try to help people when it is shunned by society. Aaron asks what the boy would have done with the gunman, but the boy tells him it wouldn't help his dad get better any faster. Aaron realises the truth – having seen so much evil since his creation, he believed that all men were touched by darkness. His attitude that he is above humanity because of his abilities does mean he is more human than he realises, in that he subscribes to the fallacy that anyone can be better than anyone else.

Content that Aaron has learned the lesson that empathy lies in all people despite their differences, the beings ascend to the stars. They say that Aaron will learn more someday, on his own, but their destiny awaits elsewhere.

"Farewell, Aaron... farewell, father!"

Featured characters

Regular cast	Antagonists	Incidentals
Aaron Stack/Machine Man	Chemists/Ethicals (unnamed) Akra Kora	Unempathetic mugger Mugged old lady Vehicular hitman Hit and run victim Gunman Shot dad Shot dad's son

Quotes

"Perhaps I should allow my emotions to control me, eh? I can always justify my actions later... just as you humans do."

—Machine Man is right, we suck!

"I -- I can't move... You're holding me in some sort of stasis beam! Free me and I will show you what my powers can do!"

—Please don't put on the wiki that Machine Man got mad.

"Then you leave me with no choice, Aaron... I am forced to make a decision... the results of which may lie on my conscience till the end of time!"

—The lead Ethical prepares to kill Aaron.

"A monster wouldn't get mad when he sees that things are bad."

—The shot dad's son sums up Machine Man.

"Because I am faster, my reflexes sharper, my power stronger, I thought I was better. But like all who believe themselves to be better -- I was wrong. Aaron Stack is no better than any other man... Aaron Stack is merely somewhat different!"

—He just like me fr.

Notes

Where Walk the Gods! on Marvel Database, an external wiki

Original printing

• Machine Man (vol 1) issue 12, September 1979

Edits

• Pages 1-3 and 7-9 of part 1 are printed in black and white.
• On page 2 of part 1, "savior" is changed to "saviour". On page 3, "analyzing" becomes "analysing", and on page 4, "caliber" becomes "calibre".
• On page 4 of part 1, Machine Man refers to the manhole cover as a "disk". A perfectly acceptable word for a round, flat object in the U.S., in the UK the word is typically short for "diskette", and so it is re-lettered to "disc".
• Pages 1 and 4-6 of part 2 are printed in black and white.
• On page 5 of part 2, "savored" is changed to "savoured".

Artwork and technical errors

• An attempt is made to change Bob Sharen's credit from "colorist" to "colours", but the U.S. credit isn't actually removed, resulting in "colo" followed by a mess of overlapping letters.
• Several American spellings slip through in part 1, including "grill" instead of "grille", "magnetize" instead of "magnetise", "judgment" instead of "judgement", and "energized" instead of "energised".
• "...Machine Man is the one to insure he is punished!" Unless this is a pun on his day job, that should probably be ensure.
• Cards on the table, I don't know if "Everywhere grow monuments to man's inhumanity to his fellow man!" is grammatically correct or not, but it sounds weird.
• "––whatever the bands of energy accidentally touches..." If it's plural bands of energy, they accidentally touch.
• On page 3 of part 2, "proceed" is misspelled as "procede".
• The American spelling of "criticized" slips through on the final page of part 2.

Continuity errors

• The gunman boggles at the sight of the Ethicals... and then just disappears, absent from the rest of the story.

Continuity notes

• The Ethicals refer to Aaron's father, Abel Stack. Aaron takes it poorly, while also referring to his father in the past tense, so presumably he found out about his death.
• The name "Ethicals" doesn't actually appear in this story, instead coming from their next appearance in 1990's Quasar issue 14,  but hey, we've got to call them something.

Real-life references

• Aaron compares the manhole to a Frisbee and hopes his throw is worthy of a Major League pitcher.
• In his fit of anger, Aaron paraphrases "Man's inhumanity to man" from the Robert Burns poem "Man was made to Mourn".
• Threatening to beat the gunman, Aaron reminds him that the Bible preaches "An eye for an eye". This is from the Old Testament's Book of Exodus.
• The Ethicals also make Biblical and/or religious allusions:
  • "There must be no deaths" evokes "There will be no more death" from the New Testament's Book of Revelation.
  • "Thou shalt not kill" comes directly from the Ten Commandments.
  • "Violence must not beget violence" evokes the sentiment of "Violence begets violence", described in the Gospel of Matthew and also used in the rhetoric of Martin Luther King Jr..