Sunset Bain

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Sunset Bain
New Enforcers
Army of Evil
Notable aliasesMadame Menace
AbilitiesSkilled inventor
Genius-level intellect

Sunset Bain is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. She is a shady businesswoman who occasionally masquerades as Madame Menace. Although very technologically adept, she personally does not have any super-powers. Publicly she is the CEO of Baintronics. Privately she maintains her wealth through black market weaponry deals and other shady practices. She primarily is an adversary of Machine Man and Iron Man.

Sunset Bain is an underworld armorer who supplies sophisticated weaponry to an elite clientele of master criminals, terrorists, and revolutionaries.

Publication history

Sunset Bain first appeared in Machine Man #17-18 (Oct.–Dec. 1980), and was created by Tom DeFalco (writer), and Steve Ditko (artist).

The character subsequently appears in Ghost Rider #63 (Dec. 1981); Solo Avengers #17 (April 1989); Iron Man Annual #11 (1990); Spider-Man #26 (Sept. 1992); Web of Spider-Man #99-100 (April–May 1993); Iron Man vol. 3 #1 (Feb. 1998), #4 (May 1998), #11-12 (Nov.–Dec. 1998), and #18-20 (July–Sept. 1999);

Taskmaster
#1-4 (April–July 2002); Punisher War Journal vol. 2 #17 (May 2008); and Marvel Comics Presents #10-12 (Aug.–Oct. 2008).

Sunset Bain received an entry in the All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #1 (2006).

Fictional character biography

Sunset Bain got her start by seducing fellow

MIT undergraduate Tony Stark into revealing the security codes for Stark Industries. Shortly thereafter, a force of masked men invaded and stole several prototypes. Within a year, Baintronics was founded and Sunset broke it off with Stark. While Baintronic maintained a spotless reputation, Sunset assumed the Madame Menace persona and sold high-tech weaponry to criminals via "a tremendously profitable underground seasonal "Sharper Villain" catalog of armaments."[1]

When Machine Man lost an arm while fighting

Northstar and Sasquatch eventually persuaded her to set aside her Machine Man machinations for a while. Madame Menace then made a few minor appearances supplying weapons to Ghost Rider villain Orb,[4] and then Doctor Octopus.[5]

Sunset next showed up in a meeting with Tony Stark which was interrupted when a damaged Machine Man showed up with the head of

Terminus. Stark changed into Iron Man and brought the damaged androids to Baintronics, where under the guise of assistance, Sunset created knockoff duplicates of the robots.[6] When the repaired Machine Man left, Sunset managed to give him the fake Jocasta.[volume & issue needed] The real Jocasta and false Machine Man left with Baintronics laid in-continuity foundations for the Machine Man 2020 miniseries.[volume & issue needed
]

After this, Sunset as Madame Menace teamed with the

Dragon Man, Dreadnought and the Super-Adaptoid.[7]

Having failed to decode the intricacies of Jocasta's A.I., Sunset decided to hire Tony Stark to investigate. As Stark was already employed otherwise, Sunset hired the new War Machine to destroy his current employers. After Iron Man defeated Fin Fang Foom, Baintronics took the contract for transporting the beast's massive bulk. Using this as an in, Sunset asked Tony to work for her again. Growing suspicious, Stark accepted in order to learn more. Stark then freed Jocasta and persuaded the new War Machine to stop working for Sunset Bain.[8]

Later, Sunset hired

Triads and Baintronics. He even managed to shoot Sunset in the shoulder. As of the end of the mini-series, the hostilities between the two were unresolved, but aside from their enmity, the status quo was mostly restored.[9]

She was shot several times by the Punisher,[10] but has since resurfaced as an opponent of Machine Man again.[11]

During the "Opening Salvo" part of the "Secret Empire" storyline, Sunset Bain in her Madame Menace attire was recruited by Baron Helmut Zemo to join the Army of Evil.[12]

As he went on a globetrotting journey, Arno Stark met Sunset Bain.[13] He joined up with Sunset Bain's company Baintronics in a plot to steal data from Stark Unlimited.[14]

During the "

Arsenal and Motherboard bodies from the escape as well as a new way to regain control of the rebellious robots since the obedience code can either be blocked or corrupted. Arno reveals to Sunset that she is an A.I. when he had to fix the tiny scar on her face as it shows her and some other people in stasis pods.[18] Her body is disintegrated by her A.I. counterpart who dislikes competition.[19]

Powers and abilities

Sunset is a genius-level inventor; she controls the resources of Baintronics and other smaller companies, as well as a small army of uniformed criminal hirelings. She rarely uses her inventions herself, preferring to sell them.

Sunset Bain A.I.

During the Christos Gage and Dan Slott "Iron Man 2020" arc, Arno Stark created an A.I. version of Sunset Bain when he had to fix a tiny scar on her face as she is shown the real Sunset Bain's body in one of the stasis pods.[18] The Sunset Bain A.I. states to Dr. Shapiro that her real counterpart became rich operating as Madame Menace as she disintegrates the real Sunset Bain stating how she dislikes competition. When she suspects that she frightened Dr. Shapiro, the Sunset Bain A.I. finds that Dr. Shapiro is the real mole and not as dumb as she thought as an Iron Legion states that their security system is down. As Rescue leads the attack on Stark Unlimited, Jocasta downloads the same protection program used on her into the Sunset Bain A.I. in order for her to get the Iron Legion to stand down.[19] In Washington DC sometime after Tony and Arno thwarted the Extinction Entity, Chairman Brickman is informed by the Sunset Bain A.I. that all the events were caused by her to make Baintronics a world power as she turns herself over to the authorities. At the Uncanny Valley Robot Bar, Machine Man and Jocasta were shown to have controlled the Sunset Bain A.I. into taking the blame.[20]

Other versions

Earth-8410

An older Sunset was Machine Man's adversary in his cyberpunk mini-series set in the year 2020. She was still the head of Baintronics, which had leveraged the tech from Machine Man and Jocasta in order to become the predominant megacorporation of its day. Through a robot's mistake, Machine Man was freed and fought back against Baintronics. Machine Man was able to defeat Iron Man 2020 along with Sunset's other guards. Despite being 40 years past her prime, Sunset still was lively enough to attack Machine Man herself with a live power cable. Machine Man overcame even this and extracted a promise from Bain to leave him and his friends alone.

References

  1. ^ Iron Man Vol 3 #19. Marvel Comics.
  2. ^ "Sunset Bain (Madame Menace, Machine Man/Iron Man character)".
  3. ^ Machine Man #17-18. Marvel Comics.
  4. ^ Ghost Rider #63. Marvel Comics.
  5. ^ Solo Avengers #17. Marvel Comics.
  6. ^ Iron Man Annual #11. Marvel Comics.
  7. ^ Web of Spider-Man #99-100. Marvel Comics.
  8. ^ Iron Man vol. 3 #11-12 & 18-20. Marvel Comics.
  9. ^ Taskmaster #1-4. Marvel Comics.
  10. ^ Punisher War Journal vol. 2 #17 (2008). Marvel Comics.
  11. ^ Marvel Comics Presents #8 (2008)
  12. ^ Captain America: Steve Rogers #16. Marvel Comics.
  13. ^ Tony Stark: Iron Man #5. Marvel Comics.
  14. ^ Tony Stark: Iron Man #10. Marvel Comics.
  15. ^ Iron Man 2020 vol. 2 #1. Marvel Comics.
  16. ^ Iron Man 2020 vol. 2 #3. Marvel Comics.
  17. ^ 2020 Machine Man #1. Marvel Comics.
  18. ^ a b Iron Man 2020 vol. 2 #4. Marvel Comics.
  19. ^ a b Iron Man 2020 vol. 2 #5. Marvel Comics.
  20. ^ Iron Man 2020 vol. 2 #6. Marvel Comics.

External links

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