BHOC: MACHINE MAN #11

In addition to now being able to regularly get my hands on Annuals and other oversized comics such as Anniversary issues or WHAT IF and the like, my new Stationery Store outlet also gave me access to titles that I didn’t even know existed, such as this revival of MACHINE MAN. I had sampled one early Jack Kirby issue of the book that I’d gotten off of a spinner rack in far-off Ronkonkoma, but I knew the series had been discontinued. So it was a surprise to find this issue, #11, among the new releases that week. My experience with the prior issue wasn’t all that wonderful, for all that it still had that strange mesmeric power that all of Kirby’s work held for me in this time period. So I think I waited a week or two before risking my 40 cents on this issue. But buy it I eventually did.

MACHINE MAN was a strange series and a strange character. The lead character, X-51, sometimes known as Aaron Stack, had made his debut as Mister Machine in the pages of the final three issues of Kirby’s ongoing 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY series, which itself was a bizarre little title. It appeared to be a way of introducing a recurring regular lead into a series that had up to that point been more anthology than anything. Marvel’s licensing deal for 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY ran out, but rather than abandon the idea, the firm simply had Jack continue on with his narrative in a new series, MACHINE MAN. This only lasted for nine issues–distribution of new titles was spotty in those days, at least in my neck of the woods, so it was really hard to make a running success out of something new. But somebody had really liked MACHINE MAN, and so only a year or so later, the book was picked up again.

That somebody was writer/editor Marv Wolfman, who saw potential in the character. With Kirby unavailable to continue (not that Jack would have wanted o work with another writer in the first place) Marv instead recruited the other big powerhouse Marvel creator of the 1960s, Steve Ditko, to work on the revived series. This gives MACHINE MAN a strange pedigree, in that it’s the only new concept that both artists worked on in the 1970s and beyond. Looking at this issue, it certainly seems as though Ditko had a strong hand in the plotting as well, though that could simply be the Marvel approach at work, where the artist would draw the book from a written plot and then the writer would come back afterwards and add the copy to the finished art. This put much of the responsibility for the pacing and the specifics of the storytelling into the hands of the artist, which led in at least certain instances to better, more visually striking comic book stories.

Whereas Jack Kirby’s version of MACHINE MAN was more overtly a science fiction adventure series, Wolfman and Ditko’s version was recast in more of a traditional super hero mold. I’m sure this was to make it more appealing to Marvel’s core audience, and it seemed to work, at least for a short while. (The series ran through #19, just slightly longer than the Kirby version) But it meant that Machine Man was put up against super-villains rather than alien menaces and the like, and that he began to have secret identity concerns and attract a cast of supporting players around him. Much in the way that Ditko had refined the concept of the Incredible Hulk to make it more appealing, here Wolfman and Ditko were attempting to do the same thing with Aaron Stack. Stack was also emblematic of the sorts of characters that Ditko wanted to work on at that point, an uncomplicated all-good hero with a lack of the typical Marvel self-doubts or weaknesses. On that level, an artificial, robotic man was a good fit.

The issue opens with a strange flying green figure that the title identifies as the Binary Bug breaking in to rob a millionaire’s penthouse. He’s a high-tech felon loaded with gimmicks, and the regular security forces cannot stop him. Fortunately, Aaron Stack and his friend Peter Spaulding have come seeking the millionaire’s aid, and so Machine Man launches himself against the criminal Bug. He’s unable to prevent the felon from escaping but he does save the bearer bonds the Bug had been targeting, which means the millionaire owes him a favor. What Stack is looking for is employment so that he can live among regular human beings as one of them. Consequently, his new benefactor sets him up as an Insurance Investigator at Delmar Insurance, which he has a stake in. Elsewhere, X-51’s recurring nemesis Senator Miles Brickman fumes that somebody else has begun a public relations campaign proclaiming Machine Man to be dangerous, as that’s been Brickman’s political meal ticket up to this point.

Aaron Stack makes a typically Ditko impression on his Delmar co-workers: he’s dismissive of office vamp Maggie Jones and contemptuous of office joker Edward White. He’s entirely focused on figuring out where the Binary Bug will strike next. All of the Bug’s robberies are of clients of Delmar, so there’s clearly a connection. We learn that the Bug is actually the man that Aaron Stack replaced, former Insurance Investigator Joseph Rambo, who’s been using his knowledge of Delmar’s clients to enrich himself while damaging the employer who fired him. His tech was provided by the Spider-Man foe, the Tinkerer, something that Wolfman adds in the dialogue that I’m guessing Ditko knew nothing about. Anyway, the Bug goes after his biggest score, wealth held by the crimelord known only as Khan of Xanadu whom Machine Man had encountered in the previous issue. Khan isn’t intimidated by the Bug in the slightest, but he doesn’t have to take action himself as it’s at this point that Machine Man shows up and launches into the fight.

The battle continues beyond the confines of Kahn’s dirigible headquarters and into the skies, with Machine Man able to counter every attack that the Bug makes against him. In the end, however, the criminal loses track of his surroundings and flies directly into some high-tension power lines, electrocuting himself. Khan, meanwhile, has now developed a greater interest in Machine Man. And that’s where the story ends. I can remember as a reader being underwhelmed by this issue. It was completely different from the Kirby one I had sampled, but different wasn’t necessarily better. All of the characters felt a bit stock to me, lifeless, for all that the Ditko artwork held some appeal. Consequently, I skipped the next two issues of the series, though I contemplated each one when it arrived at my Stationery Store. It was only at a point where I had some spare coinage that I wound up coming back for #14.