Despite all of our planet's greatest minds, we still have no idea what truly is in a galaxy far, far, away. It could be beam-waving heroes, talking rodents, pink puffballs with unlimited hunger, or maybe, just maybe, all there is is a black slab. A monolith, if you will. Today we cover Marvel Comic's Z-List hero, Machine Man. Oh, and giant space babies. Those could be out there too.
In 1951, author Arthur C. Clarke wrote a short story called "The Sentinel", elements from this story were infused into Clarke and director Stanley Kurbick's 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey". And in 2011, my video production teacher Mr. Shillingburg showed me and my fellow classmates that aforementioned film, and my first words upon the ending of that film were "wow". Like, not an amazed "wow", but like, a "taking it all in" kind of "wow". You're probably wondering what this shallow peak into my epic backstory has to do with Mr Machinery-Pants up there. Well, in 1976 Marvel Comics legend Jack Kirby took inspiration from the film, the short story and the early drafts of the film to craft the official "2001: A Space Odyssey" comic book series. Kirby carried on the iconic elements of the film, while also adding in factors that'd set the comic apart from it.
In issue #8 of the series, Kirby created a new character named The Machine Man. A robotics scientist named Abel Stack was hired by The U.S. Army to create a series of robots that could be use for unmanned missions. He created these robots at California's Broadhurst Center for the Advancement of Mechanized Research, but fifty of the fifty-one models Stack created gained sentience and went insane from their lack of identity. With only one being stable, Stack left model Z2P45-9-X-51 activated and raised him as a son. He even gave the robot the name Aaron Stack, a human-like faceplate and direct access to a monolith Stack acquired from the events of "2001: A Space Odyssey". The U.S. Army had heard that one of Stack's robots was capable of serving them, and Abel Stack gave his life to defend Aaron. Aaron escaped the Army and used his abilities to benefit mankind as "Machine Man".
Gaining allies like psychiatrist Peter Spaulding, Doctor Oliver Broadhurst, and mechanic Gears Garvin, Aaron made a cover as an insurance investigator. Machine Man had worked among The Fantastic Four and The Avengers, he was included in else-world stories like "Marvel Zombies" and "Nextwave", and was last seen teaming up with Red Hulk. Who had a mustache as General Thunderbolt Ross and did not as The Red Hulk.
Despite his only connection to that film being that one time he saw a monolith, I think Machine Man is a decent idea for a character. The generic "I am a man, but I am also a robot, oh what I am really" trope is played very often in science fiction, but The Marvel Universe's only robotic characters-Jocasta, Ultron, The Vision-at least aren't shy about looking like robots, Machine Man was one of the first robot superheroes in Marvel to take on a human appearance. Not before The Human Torch. Hmm? Oh, no, there was another Human Torch before the guy from The Fantastic Four. He was a robot too. An android technically. The Android Torch. We'll talk about him some other time. Machine Man is the spawn of a movie craze and a cog in the Marvel Universe machine, and I do hope to see the character take on a greater importance in the future. Like in 2021!
Thanks for reading!
Heh, this guy is kind of like Inspector Gadget.
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