The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: giant robot

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 034: ELECTRO

    (Marvel Mystery Comics 004-019, 1940-1941) 

    Hey look, it’s Electro, Marvel of the Age! I love that guy!

    Or rather I love Electro’s creator/ mental pilot, Professor Philo Zog (later amended to Zogolowski because heaven forfend that someone have a weird name). It’s not often that a weird nerd with a scraggly beard gets to be the hero.

    I also love Zog’s plan: hire a bunch of husky young men to act as his agents in various parts of the US, who then call in Electro as necessary. They eventually get phased out in favour of more Zog-time but I love them while they last. Also, in their first appearance they’re referred to as Zog’s “Machine of Righteousness” and that’s what I think of them as because as a name, it rules.

    Zog later shows up in a period piece or two, but it’s Electro who eventually gets brung back by J. Michael Straczynski in The Twelve, making this the inaugural edition of THE TWELVE REPORT, a review of just how our pals fared in that book.

    Electro got done somewhat dirty by J. Michael: The incident that put the other eleven heroes in suspended animation also severed the mental connection required to drive the robot. and Zog subsequently died of mental withdrawal. It might have taken a while though? His daughter Elizabeth shows up in the series and she is definitely not drown or styled as the 60+ year-old she would have to be if Zog kicked the bucket in 1945.

    As for Electro itself, it was basically a narrative device in the book, acting as a combo murder weapon and witness. Ultimately it ends up being driven around the Middle East by the Laughing Mask. Ho hum.

    Maybe I’ll work out a 1-12 scale of how well I reckon the characters in The Twelve ended up being treated but it’s hard to do with only one of them, you know?

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 212: ECHO

    (Detective Comics v1 049, 1941)

    The story elements of this aren’t anything special: a mad scientist builds a giant robot (or something) and sends it to get revenge on the world what shunned him for his wild ideas about building giant robots (or something). Eventually he gets sloppy and the Crimson Avenger tracks him back to his lair and in a twist of mild irony the order that was meant to cause the ultra-literal Echo to kill the Crimson instead results in the death of the scientist.

    Echo is a perfectly fine example of the giant robot but the only really interesting part of this whole story is that it’s a bit ambiguous what exactly he is? Like he’s probably a robot, but read this:

    “A horrible experiment,” “a man-made giant.” He could be a frankenstein, or a weird clone beast or a cybernetic humanoid toadstool! He’s almost certainly supposed to be a robot, but the mind boggles at the possibilities! If only the Crimson Avenger hadn’t tossed him off a cliff!