Machinesmith

Machinesmith (Samuel "Starr" Saxon) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, most notably as a regular enemy of Captain America. He specializes in robotics, and is able to make convincing robotic doubles of other superhumans. His own mind was ultimately transferred to a robotic body.

Publication history

The character first appeared in Daredevil #49 (Feb. 1969),^[1] and briefly appeared as a character using the Mister Fear identity shortly thereafter in Daredevil #54 (July 1969).^[2] The character first appeared as Machinesmith in Marvel Two-in-One #47 (Jan. 1979).

His robotic features looked nothing like his human ones, and it was not established until later in Captain America #249 (Sept. 1980) that Machinesmith and Starr Saxon are the same character. Barry Windsor-Smith has stated that the character was supposed to be presented as gay in Daredevil #50; however, the early art was not good enough to get the point across.^[3] Other issues have since revealed the character's sexuality more directly, such as Captain America #368 and Iron Man #320.

Fictional character biography

Starr Saxon was born in Memphis, Tennessee, but his family was living in Queens, New York, by his teenage years. At 14 years old, he discovered an abandoned Doombot in a NYC subway tunnel, and snuck the robot home piece by piece to deconstruct to learn robotics.^[4] His original efforts saw to his use of robotics and engineering abilities to be a professional criminal robot maker and construct a variety of androids to be used as assassins for hire/personal gain. At some point during this period, he constructs a facsimile of Magneto and a variety of robotic "mutant" drones who went on to battle the X-Men. Magneto's robot appears several times over the years, believing itself to be the true Magneto until being destroyed by a Sentinel. As of this writing, his employer(s) for the robot's creation is unrevealed.

In his first actual appearance, Saxon is hired by Biggie Benson to kill Daredevil. Saxon dispatches a powerful android to do so, and to commit a series of crimes in New York. He discovers Daredevil's secret identity, and kidnaps Karen Page (Daredevil's girlfriend). He blackmails Daredevil into allowing him to escape.^[5][6] Deciding to confront Daredevil directly, Saxon murders Zoltan Drago and steals the man's costume and weaponry. As "Mister Fear", he challenges Daredevil to a public duel in New York City. He rigs Daredevil's billy club to release fear-gas pellets, and begins a crime spree. However, Saxon battles Daredevil and loses, breaking his neck in a fall from a flying hovercraft platform.^[7]

Saxon's robots find his dying body and transfer his brain patterns and consciousness into a computer, from which he could control a variety of android bodies. Now calling himself the "Machinesmith", he is hired by the

A portion of the Machinesmith's consciousness is eventually captured (assumed to be Saxon's entire consciousness), and enslaved by Tony Stark under Kang the Conqueror's thrall.^{[volume & issue needed]} Machinesmith later claims to have easily recovered the lost fragment which he re-assimilated.^{[volume & issue needed]}

When the Red Skull is blasted apart by Kubekult's Cosmic Cube destruction, Machinesmith enacts a series of protocols dictated by the Red Skull to kill Captain America and plunge the world into nuclear holocaust. Machinesmith is defeated.^{[volume & issue needed]}

Later, Machinesmith is employed by the

He later resurfaces and appears battling the New Warriors while developing a techno-organic virus.^[15]

Machinesmith later appears in

During the "Secret Empire" storyline, Machinesmith and Grizzly join up with the Army of Evil during Hydra's rise to power.^[20]

After the fall of which, Saxon would turn his attention towards attacking a tech symposium in Nagayo, Japan; held in honor of

Machinesmith exists as a living, cybernetic-system program (artificial consciousness), which is equipped to transmit its program along an infrared laser beam into virtually any electronics system at will; thus he can transfer from one robotic body to another within .25 seconds. Machinesmith can even place his personal program (personality) into multiple bodies at the same time, though the number of complex motions he can make his automata perform simultaneously is limited. Saxon can even use his mind transference abilities to siphon information from digitized mainframes and store them elsewhere for later use, even being able to steal sensitive data from organic minds, but this leaves him disoriented and he does not do so very often.[28]

His physical properties vary in accordance with the robot form he is inside. Certain robots possess superhuman capacities such as telescoping arms and legs, explosive launchers, special infrared or telescopic eyes. He has yet to inhabit a robot body greatly superior to a standard human-mimicking robot's capacity.^{[citation needed]} If an electronics system shuts down before he has a chance to project out of it, he can be trapped inside of it.^[29] Machinesmith is a genius at creating complex behavioral programs and bionic systems.

Machinesmith has also created a vast arsenal of weaponry, defense systems, and surveillance devices, whose specifications are constantly upgraded.

A couple of bionic chassis he's incorporated gave him vast control over cybernetics, electronics and machinery similar to

A technique he has perfected to the point of transforming himself into a techno-organic virus, using himself as a nanite conversion algorithm to roboticize and convert living tissue into replicas of his own A.I. programming.[31]

References