Controller (Marvel Comics)

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Controller (Basil Sandhurst) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is usually depicted as an enemy of Iron Man.^[1]

Publication history

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2020)

Controller first appeared in Iron Man #12 and was created by Archie Goodwin and George Tuska.^[2]

Fictional character biography

Basil Sandhurst was born in Kittery Point, Maine. Sandhurst worked as an electro-mechanical/chemical research scientist. His obsession with control brought his downfall as a scientist when his refusal to obey ethical restraints got him banned from most research facilities. Sandhurst was prone to fits of rage and in an attempt to calm him, his brother Vincent inadvertently triggered a lab explosion, crippling Basil. Vincent, guilt-ridden, outfitted Basil with an automated lab in which Basil bonded a super-strong exoskeleton to his body, powered by the cerebral energies from those around him using his slave discs.^[3] As the Controller, he planned to invade and enslave New York City, but Iron Man and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jasper Sitwell foiled his scheme and left the Controller comatose.^[4][5] The Controller eventually came out of his coma and took over the Pinewood Sanitarium. He created an improved set of equipment but was again defeated by Iron Man.^[6]

Months later, he was released from prison by the alien

Returned to The Raft, the Controller escaped with dozens of others but was recaptured during a clash with the U-Foes and Avengers.^[10]

During the "

Maria Hill found the Controller holed up in the basement of a Futurepharm facility in Austin, Texas, while on orders from Tony Stark.^[12] He had been abducting members of the local populace for months to bolster a new army and attempted to brainwash Hill as well. However, she resisted his efforts and freed his drones, sabotaging the entire operation.^[13]

The Controller gave White Fang a new suit so that she could kill the Hood.^[14]

The Controller later appears in

At the time when Tony Stark rebranded his company as Stark Unlimited, Controller infiltrated it while enslaving Bethany Cabe.[16] He set his sights on the virtual reality program called the eScape.^[17] Controller proceeded to tamper with the eScape so he could enthrall the minds of those who use it, resulting in large numbers of the worst eScape users being banned, then let back into the eScape and armed with real weapons that they unknowingly used to wreak havoc all over the world, and whom he siphoned energy from. Tony and his allies were able to trace Controller's location and head there to confront him. By the time they arrived, Iron Man found that Controller had consumed enough energy to grow in size.^[18] Because of Controller's hacking, it damaged the Motherboard A.I. who served as the operating system. Motherboard proceeded to abduct Iron Man leaving the others underpowered against a giant-sized Controller. After Andy Bhang was able to encode a signal to shut off the tampered interfaces, upon returning to the real world, Tony hijacked Baintronics' factory to make a 3D print of the Godbuster armor which he used to defeat Controller.^[19]

Controller later accompanied Korvac, Blizzard, and Unicorn in fighting Iron Man and Hellcat.^[20]

Powers, abilities, and equipment

Basil Sandhurst had designed this armored exoskeleton, which is micro-surgically attached to his body from head and toe that granted him mobility, as well as augmented strength, stamina, and durability. By utilizing the microcircuitry in this helmet, he can drain

In the Earth X reality, Sandhurst was mentioned as one of the many who were killed when Norman Osborn rose to power.^[23]

In other media

Television

• The Controller appears in the Iron Man (1994) episode "The Armor Wars, Part 1", voiced by Jamie Horton. Using Iron Man's technology, he creates slave discs to mentally control his armor, which he uses on executives who visited the Center for Achievement and Bliss Spa. Once he learns of this, Iron Man defeats the Controller and uses a negator pack to destroy his armor.
• The Controller appears in
  Vault so he can help them trap Iron Man in a virtual reality world called the Mainframe. Using this, he discovers Iron Man's secret identity and use of the Extremis serum and attempts to recreate it for A.I.M. However, Iron Man is able to use his Extremis abilities to hack the Mainframe and shut it down. Waking up in an A.I.M. facility, the Controller takes control of War Machine to fight Iron Man, but the former is able to fight the disc and overload the Controller's helmet. Following the fight, Iron Man and War Machine hand over an amnesiac Controller to S.H.I.E.L.D.