the machine man of 12 20 2010: Corin (RoboPop, part 2)

So what happens when my intended audience is...my friend?

Here's part two of RoboPop, regarding the origin of Corin, our machine man of today.

You know, Don B.,J. T., T.J., & everybody: this link follows the scattered evolution of my Buddha A.I. I call Corin. I think he may share existence, and switch places ala Shazam with a young fellow (name under consideration. Will he have parents from---where?) At present, what I think of as Corin, the character experiment, begins as an artifical intelligence created to be the decision making engine of a volcano-exploring unit.

I thought of the consciousness being surgically linked to a head injury patient with cognitive damage; through stem cells, his brain's trained to recreate decision making ability. The retrained brain, however, can access a fifth d "weight station" by which the futuristic robot Corin can exchange places via the Portal Immortal.

Everything else, is still not considered permanent:

So what I'm thinking is: young man, or young woman? At one point, Janaka, Abbey and Nathan were considered his family/ parents (from Phenomenal Experience) but I'm using my coincidences sparingly. I like that, though.

Then I thought: what if our young accident victim is crippled? I think the Jesus high vibrational energy would heal him. I wonder if there might be some time before that happens because they are not in the same physcial space save via the link. If he starts handicapped and then changes, that might sell the real life deal short, but some people do recover, you know, too. He doesn't have to be daredevil, but I don't want to give up anything important in him, but it's a whole creation beyond my ability to do more than discern the truth.

Then there was the matter of him being at least half Indian. But, then again...

Then what: what if he is, say , a Mexican child who is kidnapped by the "wolves" that offer to sneak people over the border and sometimes sell them into slavery. Now that way, we have commentary on a social phenomenon. You know what I think? Maybe if I was a curious Indian reader, of Johann balasuriya's famous line of Indian comics one day, I would still be interested int eh story of a literal immigrant, and he would not have to be an Indian boy to keep my interest. At any rate, he becomes a lab rat, and we have a person of questionable scruples used to help generate our hero's travail and origin.

Now, to some degree this involves Mysti Hazel. Either she initiated it---and I will not say even if I know!---or she became aware Corin was on Earth and calls him to aid the Triplets, who are exploring the world of their birth, too, from the past, just as Corin is from the future. Since they are female, male, male, I did consider Corin sharing space with a young girl (their team goes to balance of genders), which might even open a romance (or two? Crushes!). Same time, I consider their vampire ally, the 150 year old party girl Miracalla, kind of part of their team, as she shows up for high stakes encounters and even watches over them from afar. So we would have 3 male/ 2 female.

The Trips exchange places with Clay and frieda's twins, however, in times of danger to any of they four. So at least that adds another male/ female to each side. Same if they team up with Scarlet Dragon 9 and her quickly-new hubby's alter ego, the fuzzy sorcerer whose name escapes me (oh dear!). he was the one named in that story I sent around last fall. Oh, shoot, as a Stuckwayze I ask him to tell me his name, from across the universe. it's some good name...

Then again, we have the character who started life as the clever/ clumsily named "Black Science", Neneh Stonegrave, who appears as the scientist who tracks the fallen Red sTone in what has gone from #4 & #5 to being PORTAL IMMORTAL #1 (so the story about Clay discovering the twins replaced by the Triplets for the first time would then appear in #2.) #1 is one of those things that sets a status quo, where there's an awareness victory but it's the first strike back for survival as the Earth faces more Voidon intensity.


What I mean is, if CORIN's male, that is fine, and hey, the mortal he is can die someday and CORIN will be a new body's "co-pilot" I love for the human to be completely human; after the implantation takes, the cross dimensional swapping begins, so just as Claremont was absorbed with making the foe one's dark side, my theme of that strength so far is one of switching places and getting new perspectives.

So of course, I've been thinking about the Midpoofters, too. They illustrate the kind of swapping of self that populates Portal Immortal; characters often live parts of their lives in fantasies, which occasionally start coming true.

The question of getting custody to even do this procedure either means it will be done in a shady way or will be a very famous surgery (thought its super side effects are not known as yet to the general populace in PI #1)


I hope to be previewing PI at Comic Con, but right now completing the first arcs of Dna, the first Stuckwayze adventure, and the first NACB are primary, if for no other reason than they are the bridges to doing a super hero book, which will not be so scary by then, right? Gulp! I want to make maybe the last truly great superhero franchise, so I need to know more about that. If we succeed, it just might even be reborn for the first time in 50 years, blah blah blah.


Any way, I am thinking 20 pages of Stucks, 22 of NACB, and 31 or so for Dna to retell Jan.- May 1995 of our lives---I gave myself an alternating 4-3=2 pace for each week, and found if I only plan the four weeks (and leave the remainder of each month for my need to not work) and take off one week each for the Apr 1st Convention Wonder Con in SF and then June 3-5 where we meet my Mommie in Charlotte, NC, for Heroes Online Convention. I am also planning at least something for Comic Con, and then hope to attend Dragon Con and APE, and by then I hope we have Portal Immortal One.

See, I know the indy con, APE, would be ideal for DnA, and the reason I considered placing it ahead of Portal was two fold. Aside from evolving into that style, there's the question of producing enough pages to justify printing all existing DnA in a larger volume, yet a small trade available for maybe 8.95 if we could print enough of them, with about 48 to 64 pages. I'd be more likely to have the larger number if we waited until around APE (probably October/ November) to print.

My goal is to try to knock out pencils, inks and letters plus script for 73 co-plotted pages, so that is where doing dna mountain's sequel, a redrawn NACB and a redrawn STuckwayze Forev-ugh between here and mid -July--also for an allowance of two weeks completely disrupted by two conventions! I think Mom loved the idea of coming to Charlotte to meet up with us, and you know we've been thinking Wonder Con quite sometime.



I just mean the art needs time to grow into that style and its cemands or we need to find our other drawer for the staff!

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Kirby helped me, of course

Here, I'm going to conduct a thought experiment: if I were working with Jack Kirby, starting with issue ten, could I help him as a writer on his Marvel Comics Group strip, Machine Man? His first nine issues, from 1978, were very fun; it's apparent he wanted to explore characterization, as well as his trademark hi-tech and alien races.

Well, we'll just put aside personal conflicts a minute, imagine he's made it over that with the help of a little friendship and the advice not to take crap personally, and, having won his trust, he's listening, prepared to draw and write, as I put down the first story arc:


So, our Machine Man starts off teamed next with Captain America, two generations of Super Soldier. They face a machine man named X-Tinction that was the grand daddy prototype of the X models before the military built them. X-Tinction became sentient, went insane, and arises like some kind of Sixth Sleeper.

Next: MM needs to face some kind of Dinosaur Man. I am trying to think of a name for something that sounds like it could eat a puny Machine Man like a drum of thanksgiving turkey. Carnivex was where I stopped, and thought, "not terrible! But somethin that eats meat?" It gets a two issue arc.

It can't be a knock-off of the Lizard; I think it could be a hyper-intelligent mutant, or to go very wild, a mutated creature brought back through time, or if that's too absurd, how about, he's cloned from some bones discovered on a dig, a Jurassic Man? Oh, wow, that's too good, The Jurassic Man. The Past has come to the Present to murder the Future! But what's his motivation? Is reptilian aggression really enough? Perhaps it should be personal: he wants to use Machine Man's brain to create bionic dinosaur-based hybrid creatures. It is, at least, something Kirby could draw. Social commentary on man's treatment of the planet could abound! It'd be nice to draw Peter Spaulding into this. I also wonder if, upon reflection, there's a way to begin tying these elements together into an underlying arc?


So, in other words, if it's so much easy to be doing better, then you do it!

So what you thinkie?

Next up: Doc Ock. And the Defenders. Channeling Steve Gerber AND Jack Kirby, who I wish could've been doing this run in my place. Man, the comics THOSE guys could've thought up! If only they'd had free reign on Thundarr The Barbarian. They did, in fact, team up to create the satirical Destroyer Duck!

Only, with Doctor Strange and Doc Ock both in the picture, guest art by Steve Ditko! Steve and Jack did work on the Hulk at different times for several issue runs in the 1960s. Steve Ditko, as you know from past posts or elsewhere, took over Machine Man when Kirby left for the animation field.

And here, introduce future 2020 villainess Sunset Bain, later co-created with Tom DeFalco. I kinda liked Gears Garvin, too, but I would've kept Tracey Warner, the reporter (what to do with her?). Maybe she will be the real primary character; that's what STeve GErber would do if he were writing this issue.

Doc would probably have a smaller role, though I really need to put Machine Man and Dr. Strange together in a scene, right? But Strange may be called on to face some horror in a dimension outside space and time.

Then I want to turn Machine Man loose with Valkyrie, Black Panther, and Power Man & Iron Fist as his fellow Defenders. Let's take some inspiration from ideas we know Kirby already had, as they appear when he takes over the Black Panther strip around this time.

The villain struggling with Doc Ock behind the scenes is Klaw. I'd been saving Klaw and Black Panther, but this soon after Cap in #10, it would be an effort to attract Marvel readers, plus ask Kirby to revisit two of his creations that he did, in fact, draw and write earlier in his return to Marvel.

All it needs is a plot. If only we could see what Kirby would do with the idea! The whole thing would probably hinge upon a Vibranium heist. I like the idea of Aaron Stack (Machine Man) running around in Africa, particularly Wakanda, where the ancient masks the futuristic. It could be the whole thing should slow down long enough to become a story about identity; it's the recurrent theme in this magazine.

So that's 10-13.

Now...I'd talk to Jim Starlin about Magus...and ask Kirby if he's in the mood to draw some Eternals...maybe a Celestial? Ooo...and I'm not out of ideas, yet! Two more original characters would be coming soon. Tell you more later!

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New Creator: fun yields original characters

Integr8dFix: I gave myself a creative exercise: brainstorm more Machine man stories and pitch an arc to his creator Jack Kirby to write and draw, then see what happens!
By the end of this experiment, I'll be able to take all the licensed characters back out of the picture and be left with the original ideas, which can then be fit later to work together, framed by a different story.




Jack Kirby created---wrote, drew and edited---the first nine issues of his late Marvel creation, Machine Man, all published in 1979. He left Marvel for the animation field, in the twilight decade of a long career. After Machine Man #9, cover December, 1978, the co-creator of the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Hulk, Mighty Thor, the original X-Men, and so many classic super villains and the entire genre of romance comics in the ‘50s, never drew the insides of a Marvel Comic magazine again, though he did contribute a few covers.




I gave myself a creative exercise: brainstorm more Machine man stories and pitch an arc to his creator Jack Kirby to write and draw, then see what happens!
By the end of this experiment, I'll be able to take all the licensed characters back out of the picture and be left with the original ideas, which can then be fit later to work together, framed by a different story.

So, let's just say I'm Kirby's co-conspirator for issue #10, someone Jack hand-picked on a hunch or took on a suggestion or met at the grocery store, for all I care. For this run, I've convinced him to go back to some of his classic characters while we still do originals as well.


So, our Machine Man title starts off teamed next with Captain America, two generations of Super Soldier. They face a machine man named X-Tinction that was the grand daddy prototype of the X models before the military built them. X-Tinction became sentient, went insane, and arises like some kind of Sixth Sleeper.
Next: MM needs to face some kind of Dinosaur Man. I am trying to think of a name for something that sounds like it could eat a puny Machine Man like a drum of thanksgiving turkey. Carnivex was where I stopped, and thought, "not terrible! But somethin that eats meat?" It gets a two issue arc.
So, in other words, if it's so much easy to be doing better, then you do it!

So what you thinkie?

Next up: Doc Ock. And the Defenders. Channeling Steve GErber AND Jack Kirby, who I wish could've been doing this run in my place.
Only, with Doctor Strange and Doc Ock both in the picture, guest art by STeve Ditko! And here, introduce future 2020 villainess Sunset Bain, created with Tom DeFalco. I kinda liked Gears Garvin, too, but I would've kept Tracey Warner. Maybe she will be the real primary character; that's what STeve GErber would do if he were writing this issue.

Then Jack's back (or Steve Rude, or Marcus) in time for Magus, and the Eternals. Though Jim Starlin would have to play some part. And then the Eternals meet...Aye Eye?

I think I nailed a look for my outrageous artificial intelligence creation, dubbed "Aye Eye" in honor of Jack Kirby's unique notions of character names. (He was created for the "What if I'd been Jack Kirby's partner?" challenge, to help him create a continuation of his little-known last Marvel series.) I'm sure we can put it atop an awesome mechanoid body. I had a lot of fun being imaginative with these designs!

I won't get into Klaw, the Panther, the FF at Project Pegasus vs. the Squadron Sinister in 19, Magneto and Alpha Flight in 20, Nightmare in 21, X-Tinction in 22, Absorbing Man in 23, Thor, Asgard, and the Leader in 24. And then the villain revealed behind the Magus encounter, maybe even Aye Eye if that wasn't an 'accident, is Kang, who appears in 25 along with the Inhumans.

Then the Controller and the badass Dinosaur Man get into a crossfire in 26, and wow, just imagine what the supporting characters are doing, how Aaron is growing, and all the surprises that grow out of what once was...a flash of vision, made to see intrigues, to no harm of anyone here in the "real world." And he gets to address things like why the Marines need sexual slurs to browbeat their troops, and developing a sense of humor so he doesn't sound so disgusted and preachy all the time. Snark, but also sincerity. All created with Jack Kirby, finally (oops, it's the dream again isn't it?) drawing Cap, Panther, the FF, and more. What does he think is fun when he's not in battle?
WE'd find out!

But is CArnivex, Dinosaur Man, the right name?

haha. Hope you enjoyed.

(I think Jack would like that name.) conscious.

Part Two: What can I do with what I've got here?
Yah!! They lead straight from one rip roaring encounter to its consequences in the next, writing for the trades be damned!
I imagine he always hopes he will get X-Tinction to find peace instead of the madness of war without empathy. But yes, I absolutely couldn't see it not going back to one of those eras of the world: and yet, somehow, all of them.


Now, my one-two:

The Defenders: Valkyrie, Power Man, Iron Fist, working with Machine Man vs. Doctor Octopus and Sunset Bain, who are probably also versus each other, though I'd rather they were attracted to one another or something offbeat... Clea, Doctor Strange, Hulk, Nighthawk round out the appearing Defenders, I just know those first four with those two villains on the scene is a match-up that keeps the good guys on their toes.

And of course, Velveteen. Because isn't Velveteen Lives just precious to death as a title? My job would be to avoid excessive schmaltzery and make it about awareness and the end of logic processes being that peace is the simplest conclusion for everyone to agree upon.

I am going to keep this message, because I enjoyed your reply as much as I enjoyed reciting my notes from the cover of my Multitracker Owner's Manual.

So now you know specific ways Jack Kirby inspired me with that character, to create characters who can easily climb out of their womb in the cosmos and explore the future brains of writers every where. But then, I inspired you, and you inspired me. Awesome!

And I'm going to say it again, you just witnessed me falling completely for the name Carnivex, which just arose from the subconscious, without my intelligence getting in its way. The ultimate cold blooded killer: another distorted image of Machine Man. And boy, the hi=tech cutting edge and
and what about sixteen months later when technology begins to catch up around Machine Man? Even he would have to refit himself so as to remain up to date. What a perfect moment in his career to visit
"the savagest time!" of all! And "the Savagest Time!" will do for a title.

And boy, for you to bring X-Tinction back to make history: that is so very grand, epic, so very Kirby, so very comic books. I DIDN'T know hwere he had vanished to after meeting Cap and Machine Man, but with that suggestion I realize that if he and Carnivex the Dinosaur Man are both back ther in the past, Machine Man is in a lot of trouble!

That was so awesome: As I first brainstormed the contents of the second Imaginary Kirby story, I saw the Dinosaur Man killing dinosaurs, but it was you who had the brainstorm that this sixth sleeper, X-Tinction, absolutely had to go back in time, too.

In fact, he was just an overlooked x-model when I created him a few weeks back. Then I wrote to you and in explaining i realized he must be a predecessor, with a mind like War Games. This would fit in maybe with that "dimensional transfer" ability Machine Man used on Ten-For. But X-Tinction would be loose back there and Machine Man would feel like it is his responsiblity to kibosh him. But X-Tinction was bound to kill whatever was the dominant species, and it's nothing personal against human kind. it's just a war machine thing, you wouldn't understand!

So you helped make an idea (3 Super Soldier generations in battle, rather than Jack leaving Marvel interiors forever) connect so we can keep developing the villain, and now that you've turned him loose in the past with that blurb, well, Jason Powell, you just killed all the dinosaurs, congratulations!



Gee, personally, I'd love it if Jack threw in Captain America, too!

I think I'll replace Machine Man, in my own original material, with Corin, perhaps. Corin is the Artificial Intelligence who achieves sentience and comes to the conclusion that Jesus and other avatars were basically right and the logical thing to do is to love our enemies and love our neighbors as our selves, do unto others, an 'it harm none. I had him evolve from an explorer unit that dives into plate crust deeply to explore volcanos for science, and the A.I. on board just has this epiphany, basically, its Plato's Cave allegory moment. I first imagined him as a futuristic being followed by those hungering to hear his words in the spiritual wrathscape that was once Kolpar, home of the people who evolve into their own star ships. I could just do his origin in these times, lay the lines to tie it together and become part of my novel Tranzmetamorphosis, and then start setting him loose.

But I will say this: those playful ideas, not done at all for money, have yielded stunning possibilities that could create excellent work.



Aside from having a nice idea using existing characters, while brainstorming I came up with a female cast number, the empathic creation who is truly "the living robot" in the two part "Velveteen Lives." here, my imagining has given me three original characters and now I must mention this one, for I have settle upon thinking of her as Vel.

This was a living robot designed for espionage, with great empathy rather than Superman weapons. But her intelligence quotient and enormous feeling led to an enthusiasm for life that led Velveteen to abandon her programming to be manipulative and run away.

She lives beside the sea and takes pictures all day, and draws, and trains her sensors on her surroundings, and grows.

Now, imagine this character meeting Aaron Stack. VEry good stuff! Then throw in Klaw and then Next Issue: the Black Panther. This would 've made a nice 17 and 18 for Jack to draw and write (with a little help from his friends from the future alternative reality, us!).

So, strip away Marvel's property, to reveal: three super villains, one declared combat neutral (it's too painful to hurt anything). They fit nicely into the Marvel universe, but they stand ready to walk free of their molds into their own light.

That cover blurb idea would be declared awesome by thousands of people.
So holy cow, Jason. Let me tell you the truth.

YUou are absolutely right: Carnivex is, in fact, the public executioner in Latin.
It. was. a . blind. guess. at. a . name. I . swear.
Carnivore., play off Aaron's x-51 name, cool futuristic in 1980 X, and vex, to vex the hero, and here I wondered, "if it's a meat eater, it doesn't eat machine men, does it? and can it?" Can you glimpse how child like the reasoning that led to that name? Yes, the dinosaur man kiling dinosaurs image came all at once, and I thought, "hey, Machine Man didn't get to travel in time!" It must be an idea that is actually irresistible as a suggestion! We both had it, so that must be exactly how the story should go!

So, in conclusion: I give you Power Man/ Iron Fist as Defenders with Val and Machine Man: a cool idea I'd like to write for Marvel.

And, most importantly, for Integr8d soul Productions, we emerge with: X-Tinction, Carnivex, Aye Eye, and Velveteen, four original characters free to roam in our our own property.
And my friend Jason helped me by listening and seeing how incredibly cool the imagination really is.
It's like finding a secret formula encoded all around you, bumbling and deciphering in turns.

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