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Machine Man (1984) #1-4
Machine Man
Trade paperback.
Comic
First published January 1, 1988
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About the author
Tom DeFalco
2,477 books107 followersTom DeFalco is an American comics writer and editor, well-known for his association with Marvel Comics and Spider-Man.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
December 14, 2012
who was created by Dr. Abel Stack? whose real name is Z2P45-9-X-51? who was given sentience by the monolith of 2001: A Space Odyssey? who had an ill-fated romance with an Avenger? who joined Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E.? who finally killed off Fin Fang Foom? who fought the Marvel Zombies? who started off as an angst-filled, overly empathetic human wannabe and then finally realized his interests were best served by being a beer-guzzling douchebag - just like most humans? who was one of my childhood heroes? who is the hottest android around?
MACHINE MAN!
for a character with such a unique backstory and a history filled with so many twists and turns, he is certainly one of the most unknown of super-heroes. sad! i didn't read a lot of comics as a kid - i had maybe a half dozen that i read over and again whenever i felt the need. a few of them were issues of "Marvel Two-in-One", and some of those featured my boy Machine Man. and so since childhood i've found the idea of relating to an android's issues to have much - shall we say - personal relevance. i love Machine Man. he's a complicated guy. or "guy".
this graphic novel is all about Machine Man waking up in the far, far, far-flung future of... 2020. it is a fully mechanized society. Machine Man is reborn and finds he's been given the short end of the stick, per usual. he also finds that many of his old enemies and allies are still quite relevant to this futuristic world - including his old love Jocasta (who, oddly, has been given a boxy and i suppose more maternal figure than the shapely one i remember from years back... aging is unkind to all, even hot android ladies). the world of 2020 is a place where robots, computers, and video are everything. the story jumps straight into the cyberpunk style that was so popular in the 80s. which, here in 2012, comes across as rather quaint.
the comic is not so great. apparently a wildly popular miniseries upon its release, its tired jokes & predictable plot & stale characterization have not worn particularly well. it is a 2 star read. eh, whatever. i have such affection for the character that i am giving it an extra star for being extra relevant to me. go, Machine Man, go! you'll outlive all these annoying humans.
MACHINE MAN!
for a character with such a unique backstory and a history filled with so many twists and turns, he is certainly one of the most unknown of super-heroes. sad! i didn't read a lot of comics as a kid - i had maybe a half dozen that i read over and again whenever i felt the need. a few of them were issues of "Marvel Two-in-One", and some of those featured my boy Machine Man. and so since childhood i've found the idea of relating to an android's issues to have much - shall we say - personal relevance. i love Machine Man. he's a complicated guy. or "guy".
this graphic novel is all about Machine Man waking up in the far, far, far-flung future of... 2020. it is a fully mechanized society. Machine Man is reborn and finds he's been given the short end of the stick, per usual. he also finds that many of his old enemies and allies are still quite relevant to this futuristic world - including his old love Jocasta (who, oddly, has been given a boxy and i suppose more maternal figure than the shapely one i remember from years back... aging is unkind to all, even hot android ladies). the world of 2020 is a place where robots, computers, and video are everything. the story jumps straight into the cyberpunk style that was so popular in the 80s. which, here in 2012, comes across as rather quaint.
the comic is not so great. apparently a wildly popular miniseries upon its release, its tired jokes & predictable plot & stale characterization have not worn particularly well. it is a 2 star read. eh, whatever. i have such affection for the character that i am giving it an extra star for being extra relevant to me. go, Machine Man, go! you'll outlive all these annoying humans.
May 23, 2022
Way back in 1984, Machine Man woke up in 2020, one MUCH more advanced than 2020 ended up being in actuality. Although people are addicted to their screens in both. Anyway Machine Man ends up getting resurrected by a gang that restores old robots. That's when Sunset Bain and Iron Man 2020 (Arno Stark) hunt him down. The story is pretty standard stuff. Barry Windsor-Smith's art, however, is gorgeous.
January 1, 2020
Here we have Machine Man 2020; a four-issue mini-series by Tom DeFalco, Herb Trimpe and Barry Windsor-Smith that saw Machine Man ‘resurrected’ in the futuristic world of 2020!
When I first read this in the mid-‘80s 2020 felt like a loooong way in the future but, somehow, incredibly, here we are!
This is still a cracking read with some absolutely beautiful artwork and it just felt appropriate to blow the dust off this one for my first comicbook read of 2020. Happy New Year to you all!
When I first read this in the mid-‘80s 2020 felt like a loooong way in the future but, somehow, incredibly, here we are!
This is still a cracking read with some absolutely beautiful artwork and it just felt appropriate to blow the dust off this one for my first comicbook read of 2020. Happy New Year to you all!
February 11, 2020
Maybe storyline aged not much well at all, but this classic cyberpunk tale is the ultimate Machine Man story ever and it totally blasted my mind when it was released in far away 1984.
Barry Windsor-Smith's wonderful inks and artworks are real ten stars ones, and the debut of original Iron Man 2020 makes this volume a must read to all Marvel fans.
'Nuff said.
July 10, 2024
I read - and loved - this title when it came out in France in 86. Not so much for the story - I was too young and didn't know enough about the world of comics to really appreciate it - but for the drawing. Machine Man was my first introduction to Barry Windsor-Smith and, at that young age, I immediately saw the immensity of his talent.
Fondly rereading this book almost 40 (!!) years later, I realise that even if the design of BWS's 2020 has suffered somewhat from the ravages of time - it's a 2020 that paradoxically smacks of the 80s - it's still just as beautiful and impressively fluid.
And DeFalco's plot is solid, even if it's also dated in its execution, with dialogue that's sometimes painful to hear these days. The 80s vision of 2020 must surely have made people smile at the time, but now that we're in the 20s who's laughing?
Let's be realistic; this book is unlikely to interest many people today. It's beautiful but visually dated, and the plot holds together well but doesn't reinvent the wheel and will sound odd to today's ears. But fans of oldies but goldies should find plenty to like.
Fondly rereading this book almost 40 (!!) years later, I realise that even if the design of BWS's 2020 has suffered somewhat from the ravages of time - it's a 2020 that paradoxically smacks of the 80s - it's still just as beautiful and impressively fluid.
And DeFalco's plot is solid, even if it's also dated in its execution, with dialogue that's sometimes painful to hear these days. The 80s vision of 2020 must surely have made people smile at the time, but now that we're in the 20s who's laughing?
Let's be realistic; this book is unlikely to interest many people today. It's beautiful but visually dated, and the plot holds together well but doesn't reinvent the wheel and will sound odd to today's ears. But fans of oldies but goldies should find plenty to like.
June 15, 2020
A simplistic mini-series churned out when it was all the rage, this comic did not deserve the artistry inker Barry Windsor-Smith brought to its pages. With his surprise return to comics, Windsor-Smith's finishing art and vibrant colors give this book an extra 2 stars.
September 12, 2022
A waste of Barry Windsor-Smith. It's a simplistic story that would be long-forgotten as a minor work in the grand archive of Marvel comics... if it weren't for the beautiful art and colors of Smith. That alone makes this book standout on the shelves. Smith does finishes and color on the first 3, but on the final issue he takes over nearly everything including co-plotting credits. And I think it's pretty obvious, that final issue really sings with its beautiful complex layouts.
Marvel should include this as a bonus in Weapon X reprints. Fans of that may enjoy this too.
Marvel should include this as a bonus in Weapon X reprints. Fans of that may enjoy this too.
September 6, 2016
Con permiso de alguno de sus últimos Conan, el mejor trabajo de Barry Windsor Smith en cómic.
June 22, 2020
I was telling my dear brother about ‘Machine Man: The Complete Collection’ by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko. ‘Complete?’ said he. ‘So it’s got the Barry Smith stuff as well?’ No, I admitted. In fact, the ‘Complete Collection’ is quite incomplete as it doesn’t have the stories from Kirby’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ either but, never mind, my bro lent me this volume which contains a four-issue mini-series from 1988 with a story by Tom DeFalco set in 2020. With decade’s end looming nearer, it’s entertaining to see what was envisaged back then.
Society has changed. The machinery is much more advanced and most people have little work as the ubiquitous robots do nearly everything. Many are ‘vidiots’, who spend their time immersed in entertainment, not even perceiving the world around them. The biggest fish in the capitalist pond is Baintronics, founded by Machine Man’s old enemy Sunset Bain, using technology wrested from him. Machine Man has been dismantled and consigned to a packing case in a warehouse but an automated ‘bot scouring for rubbish, picks it up and discards it as obsolete.
At the dump, he’s recovered and reactivated by a gang of scavengers colloquially known as Midnight Wreckers, who are involved in the illegal robot trade. The midnight wreckers are regularly hunted down by Baintronics forces. When Sunset Bain discovers that Machine Man is reactivated, she fears for her business and safety and proceeds to hunt him down.
Machine Man is a Kirby concept, of course, and the Midnight Wreckers, though young adults, are somewhat reminiscent of those old Kirby kid gangs. The layouts for three-quarters of it are by Herb Trimpe who picked up a lot from Jim Steranko and has always been good at the storytelling aspects of comic books even if his illustration skills weren’t terrific. The finished art and colouring is by one-time Kirby clone Barry Windsor-Smith who turns in a beautiful job as usual. Early in his career, Windsor-Smith dropped Kirby for the Pre-Raphaelites and began doing very detailed line-work which established him as one of the greats. Odd that he chose to work over Trimpe layouts but maybe he was rusty on panel-to-panel art after doing those high class expensive limited edition paintings. At any rate, the two men combine beautifully and Barry did his own layouts for the last issue. The detailed and beautiful colouring is much better than you get in the standard comic books of the time.
The plot’s gripping enough and the dialogue is clever. When scripting the latter issues of Machine Man’s own title in 1978, DeFalco had him wisecracking like Spider-Man and also went in too heavy with alliteration in both dialogue and captions. That was annoying. A decade later, he had lost those bad habits and the script is very good. Several characters from our hero’s past show up as well as the 2020 version of Iron Man, a bad guy working for Bain in the future.
Serving up 93 pages of solid story this is an enjoyable read with excellent visuals. It retailed for US$ 6.95 or CAN $ 9.25 when it was issued. Unfortunately, it now costs £19.99 secondhand on the UK version of the world’s biggest book site. The price is probably due to art by the famous Barry Windsor-Smith but you might pick it up cheaper elsewhere. It’s worth trying.
Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/
Society has changed. The machinery is much more advanced and most people have little work as the ubiquitous robots do nearly everything. Many are ‘vidiots’, who spend their time immersed in entertainment, not even perceiving the world around them. The biggest fish in the capitalist pond is Baintronics, founded by Machine Man’s old enemy Sunset Bain, using technology wrested from him. Machine Man has been dismantled and consigned to a packing case in a warehouse but an automated ‘bot scouring for rubbish, picks it up and discards it as obsolete.
At the dump, he’s recovered and reactivated by a gang of scavengers colloquially known as Midnight Wreckers, who are involved in the illegal robot trade. The midnight wreckers are regularly hunted down by Baintronics forces. When Sunset Bain discovers that Machine Man is reactivated, she fears for her business and safety and proceeds to hunt him down.
Machine Man is a Kirby concept, of course, and the Midnight Wreckers, though young adults, are somewhat reminiscent of those old Kirby kid gangs. The layouts for three-quarters of it are by Herb Trimpe who picked up a lot from Jim Steranko and has always been good at the storytelling aspects of comic books even if his illustration skills weren’t terrific. The finished art and colouring is by one-time Kirby clone Barry Windsor-Smith who turns in a beautiful job as usual. Early in his career, Windsor-Smith dropped Kirby for the Pre-Raphaelites and began doing very detailed line-work which established him as one of the greats. Odd that he chose to work over Trimpe layouts but maybe he was rusty on panel-to-panel art after doing those high class expensive limited edition paintings. At any rate, the two men combine beautifully and Barry did his own layouts for the last issue. The detailed and beautiful colouring is much better than you get in the standard comic books of the time.
The plot’s gripping enough and the dialogue is clever. When scripting the latter issues of Machine Man’s own title in 1978, DeFalco had him wisecracking like Spider-Man and also went in too heavy with alliteration in both dialogue and captions. That was annoying. A decade later, he had lost those bad habits and the script is very good. Several characters from our hero’s past show up as well as the 2020 version of Iron Man, a bad guy working for Bain in the future.
Serving up 93 pages of solid story this is an enjoyable read with excellent visuals. It retailed for US$ 6.95 or CAN $ 9.25 when it was issued. Unfortunately, it now costs £19.99 secondhand on the UK version of the world’s biggest book site. The price is probably due to art by the famous Barry Windsor-Smith but you might pick it up cheaper elsewhere. It’s worth trying.
Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/
July 9, 2017
Fraco demais. Quando li a sinopse achei que teria alguma discussão interessante sobre a questão mesmo de homens e máquinas. Mas no fim é uma HQ apenas com uma história rasa de vingança e cenas de lutinhas.
January 21, 2020
I remember liking this when it first came out, in the mid-80s. Since it’s set in 2020, I thought I’d reread it ... and boy, has the style of comic books ever changed. This series is so clunky, so poorly scribed that the best I can give it is two stars.
November 6, 2021
Slightly odd reading a story written in 1984 about the far-flung future of 2020 in 2021! Some of the story and dialogue haven't aged too well, but the artwork is still incredible.
October 25, 2022
Rating: 3,5
La historia no era mala, pero 0 attachment al personaje
La historia no era mala, pero 0 attachment al personaje
March 5, 2023
5 star art. The story is equal parts annoying and boring. The last issue is so great with all the intricate machine parts exposed during the final fight.
November 30, 2025
Wonderful art from Windsor-Smith complements and enhances DeFalco's story
August 23, 2010
Decent bit of sci-fi, as the robotic hero, Machine man has been dismantled and then rebuilt in the future. One of his old foes is still around and running the world using her huge corporation and Machine man has joined up with a gang of teenage rebels, helping them in their struggle has he tries to piece together what happened to him and the world.
Very nice Barry Windsor-Smith art and nice use of MM's limited history.
Always liked MM. He was pretty second tier and never had much luck keeping a series going, but he was a fun character and tended to just get these kind of fun, short stories that were meant to relaunch him, but never did.
Very nice Barry Windsor-Smith art and nice use of MM's limited history.
Always liked MM. He was pretty second tier and never had much luck keeping a series going, but he was a fun character and tended to just get these kind of fun, short stories that were meant to relaunch him, but never did.
February 1, 2014
In un futuro distopico, Machine Man, noto anche come X-51, Aaron Stack, Mr. Machine, eroie robotico creato dal geniale Jack Kirby, viene riportato in azione grazie ad un gruppo di diseredati hacker. La storia di De Falco è debole, le matite di Herbe Trimpe anche, ma le chine di Barry Windsor-Smith nobilitano il tutto rendendolo più che accettabile.
wish-list
April 16, 2015Herbert William "Herb" Trimpe (May 26, 1939 – April 13, 2015)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Tr...
Blessed be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Tr...
Blessed be.
May 7, 2013
Very dated cyberpunk story, but beautiful art.
August 19, 2016
Simply amazing art and colors. The story is not "brilliant", but works and is really fun.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews