Killer Robots! Giant Cross-Dressing Robots! Sweet Nurturing Almost-Robots!; The Wednesday List No 5

In which the blogger takes the theme of robots from yesterday's post about Lee and Kirby's X-Men and their enemies The Sentinels - find it here - and offers up a baker's dozen of artificial life-forms -  or largely artificial life-forms -  to serve as a momentary distraction from your day. Reader beware, the following is both saturated with the blogger's digressions and marked by several significant spoilers;

1. The Cylons, as seen in Roger McKenzie & Ernie Colon's Battlestar Galactica #2, 1979, Marvel, and #5 by McKenzie, Walt Simonson & Klaus Jansen

Ernie Colon only worked on Marvel's Battlestar Galactica for a single Treasury edition, which was then adapted for the first three issues of the subsequent monthly series. It's a shame, because Colon's European-evoking style worked wonders in places with the photo-reference the studio had provided. In particular, his Cylons remain far more impressive than anything seen of them in the series itself.

Fans of Walt Simonson's work sometimes seem to overlook his two separate runs on Battlestar, and yet there's some lovely work there. The wonderful evocation of Lucifer in the above panel, for one, shows Simonson and Jansen making something sinister out of a character who often seems anything but on the TV screen. The last few issues of the title featured Simonson on both script and pencils, which resulted in a genuinely entertaining run of adventures with some tellingly Kirby-esque moments.

2. Robotman by Grant Morrison & Richard Case, from The Doom Patrol, volumes 1 & 6, DC Comics, 1987-1993

Two scenes starring Cliff Steele and Crazy Jane in the rain, one from the very first of Morrison and Case's Doom Patrol issues - #19, 1989 - and one from the very last - #66, 1993. While other creators might choose to focus disproportionately upon the "Robot" part of Steele's identity, Morrison knew to concentrate on how the character's fundamental humanity remained even in the absence of anything of his body. There's rarely if ever been a more convincing and moving relationship in the super-book than that between Jane and Cliff.

Mind you, James Robinson & Paul Smith's take on Robert Crane, the Golden-Age Robotman, in their wonderful "Golden Age" does focus on exactly the opposite process, and it does so brilliantly well too. The long-term consequences of the loss of his body causes Crane to chillingly degenerate into a murdering fascist blackshirt in the service of a thoroughly unexpected master villain. "Golden Age" is a tremendously under-rated book, and an Absolute edition would surely be its due.

  
3. The Super-Adaptoid by Roy Thomas & Werner Roth's The X-Men #29, 1967, Marvel

There's no accounting for how a kid can be frightened of a daft idea if they come across it when they're young and susceptible enough. I thought the Super-Adaptoid a terrifying character when I was still short of my eighth birthday. Now of course, he looks like a camp classic, though some slight traces of that deliciously childish, quick-behind-the-sofa fear remains. (I adore the way in which the creature has absorbed Hawkeye's pokey eye-mask and a WWII take on Captain America's shield. Who'd design a creature that would steal elements of a super-heroes' costume as well as their abilities and hardware? And why didn't it just hunt down the likes of Thor and the Hulk and duplicate a far more significant level of power? Still, it was an endearingly odd thing, spending its life chin-stroking in an under-ground cave when it could have been out absorbing the world-shattering capabilities of premier division super-people.)

          
4. Charlie The Pilot Robot Of Northpool, by Pat Mills & Dave Gibbons from Ro-Busters, 2000AD #98/9, 1979

It's hard to choose a single robot from the cast of  "Ro-Busters", but for all I adore the likes of Ro-Jaws, there's never been anything like Mills and Gibbons' tale of how robot Charlie bravely won the gratitude of the citizens of Northpool. By the time the creators showed the crowd singing "You'll never walk alone" ... well, eyes do have a tendency to moisten.

5. Computo, by Jerry Seigel, Curt Swan & George Klein, from The Legion Of Super-Heroes, Adventure Comics, 340/1, 1966

Computo looked almost as unconvincing in 1966 as it does now, and yet juxtaposed with that was fact that this ridiculous creature was shown doing some explicitly unsettling - and even quite terrible - things. In the above cover, for example, one of Triplicate Girl's bodies is shown being executed in a remarkably unambiguous fashion. To show a death of a character in such a direct way was just one of the gruesome aspects of the two-part tale, which also included scenes of human beings being turned into data processing units for Computo and his robot fellows. This was kids' comics with a darker edge, and its worth noting that the same year's Sentinels tale in the X-Men featured nothing so disturbing. Marvel was often far ahead of the curve, but in this case, it was Seigel, Superman's co-creator, and the perennially under-rated Swan who were pushing the envelope just a tiny fraction in the direction of the uneasy.

6. Robot Acid Archie by Grant Morrison & Steve Yeowell, from Zenith Phase III, 2000AD, 1989, as well as from Lion, 1966

The fact that legal problems are still preventing the reprinting of Morrison and Yeowell's masterpiece is of no little regret. Though I picked up the Titan collections in the day, it feels wrong that only a relatively small number of folks should have access to this material. Phase III of Zenith in particular is one of the finest super-book tales ever told, and the appearance there-in of a blissed-out Robot Archie, an E-casualty of the Second Summer Of Love, is only one of many joys that the tale offers. To those folks in 1989 who'd grown up with a far more staid version of good old Archie, the idea of his robot mind having been irreversibly blown by an already-redundant youth cult was all too playful to be able to resist. There were, the cultural histories tell us, alot of hard men who found their more violent sides rewired - at least temporarily - by the specific excesses of the period. Who'd have thought that Archie was one of them?

And here's the pre-E Archie, in a page by George Cowan from the "Lion" of 13/8/66, as reproduced in Gravett & Stanbury's "Great British Comics", which, for whatever it's worth,  I'd highly recommend.

   
7. Atomic Robo by Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener et al (2007 onwards, Red 5 Press)

I'm a late-comer to the cult of Atomic Robo, but all those kind commentators who recommended the character and his adventures were - as of course they'll know - quite right.

    
8. The Vision, as created by Roy Thomas and John Buscema, from Avengers #102, by Thomas, Rich Buckler & Joe Sinnott, and Avengers #96, by Thomas, Neal Adams & Tom Palmer

What's often forgotten today is the status which the Vision held where the readers of Marvel comics prior to the arrival of the likes of the Punisher and Wolverine were concerned. A regular favourite where polls were concerned, the Vision was - in the context of the ime - an intense, pitiable and often disturbing character. The decision to gradually turn him into a well-balanced, sunny-minded suburban house-husband was a brave one, but it killed the appeal of the character almost stone dead. Subsequent revivals have rarely touched upon the traits which made the first incarnation of the character so appealing, although Kurt Busiek and George Perez did succeed in showing how The Vision might still be a major player in their post-Millenium Avengers run.

I've already posted a detail of this on the TooBusyThinking Tumblr - here - but it's such a dramatic, and thoroughly disturbing, scene. Anyone who parrots the folk-myth that super-hero comics only became bleak and perturbing with the arrival of the likes of Frank Castle and Logan ought to look again at the above sequence from the Kree/Skrull War.

         
9. General Jumbo's Radio-Controlled Mechanical Troops from The Beano

Both the above images, which I believe were drawn by Paddy Brennan, have been appropriated from the Beano's own site

From the last ever General Jumbo story in the original run, with art by Sandy Calder, from the Beano 11/10.75, as reproduced in The History Of The Beano, editor Christopher Riches, 1975.

     
 10. Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka, 1952.

As reproduced in Paul Gravett's "Manga: Sixty Years Of Japanese Comics", whose books have been more than hepful for this blogger.

        
11. Cross-Dressing Trev, from Rob Williams & D'Israeli's Low Life: Hostile Takeover, 2000AD, 2010-11

D'Israeli's site has a lovely post - here - on the topic of this particular cross-dressing giant robot. I'd highly recommend that you leap over there immediately.

Low-Life: Hostile Takeover was reprinted in Mega City Undercover: Living The Low Life volume 2, Rebellion, 2012. Q gave it a four star review earlier this year, you know...

Of course, "Cross-Dressing Trev! He is all woman!" is perhaps the single greatest expression of praise ever uttered to a robot in the history of comics. Three cheers for writer Rob Williams, then ...

         
12. The Sentinels, by (a) Roy Thomas & Neal Adams, X-Men #58, 1969, (b) X-Men #142, by Chris  Claremont, John Byrne & Terry Austin, 1981, (c) New X-Men #114, by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely, 2001 & (d) Avengers #102, by Thomas, Rich Buckler & Joe Sinnott, 1972,

Until they were over-used to the point that every house in the Marvel Universe had its own guard Sentinel, Doctor Trask's creations were some of the most intimidating protagonists to be found in the super-book. In the Adam's page above, the artist succeeds in suggesting just how massive the Sentinels are, and accentuates their power without ever having to fall back upon grimaces and dramatic poses. These are implacable, irresistible machines, and it's quite frankly hard to believe that the Angel ever survived this moment.

The two-issue comic book which launched a thousand wretched "homages"; the benighted future, the triumphant protagonists, the brave and very dead future super-heroes. Though much of what now passes for the super-book can be traced to a poor understanding of the work of the class of 1986 - Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns - the Days Of The Future Past tale remains one of the sub-genre's most influential and ill-thieved-from texts. (That it did so while bearing a title lifted from a Moody Blues' prog-rock concept album is, to those of us who remember the culture wars of the 70s & 80s, still a shocking business.)

From the afore-mentioned Avengers #102, in a time when a single Sentinel could face down an entire team of Avengers - including Thor and Iron Man - and do whatever it wanted to without even being slowed down.

        
13. Awesome Andy, once but no longer the Mad Thinker's Android, by Dan Slott et al, in She-Hulk (2004-7)

By San Slott, Paul Pelletier & Rick Magyar, from "She-Hulk" #12, 2005

Written by Dan Slott & Ty Templeton, art by Rick Burchett & Cliff Rathburn, "She-Hulk" #20, 2007

As time passes, Slott's run on She-Hulk in the first decades of the 00s becomes more and more impressive and missed. Even if he'd done nothing more than re-cast the Mad Thinker's Android as the entirely adorable Awesome Andy, Slott's work on this title would've been worth treasuring. That the collected editions of the run are now out of print is surely a crime. Perhaps an Omnibus edition is on the way, as it really should be. (By Dan Slott, Juan Bobilla, Marcela Sosa, "She-Hulk" #5, 2005

As always, your suggestions for the artificial, or largely artificial, life-forms which I've not referenced would be warmly welcomed. I picked the first 13 names I brainstormed, but I did go on to add another two dozen examples before giving up  when I realised that the original and modern-era Machine Man, the Sentry and the Miller/Simonson Robocop/Terminator tales had all been remembered too late to make the cut ....

But because I shamefully can't resist it, and because I can break my own rules since there's obviously no-one around, and who could care?

14. The Daleks, from TV21, 1965-66

From TV21#48, December 1965

From TV21#38, October 1965

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