Cobalt Man
| Cobalt Man | |
|---|---|
| File:Cobalt Man.jpg Ralph Roberts as Cobalt Man | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | X-Men #31 (April, 1967) |
| Created by | Roy Thomas Werner Roth |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Ralph Roberts |
| Team affiliations | Emissaries of Evil |
| Abilities | Power armor |
Cobalt Man is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.
Publication history
Cobalt Man was created by writer Roy Thomas and penciller Werner Roth in X-Men #31 (April, 1967).
The character subsequently appears in X-Men #34 (July 1967), #79 (December 1973), The Incredible Hulk #173-175 (March–May 1974), The Defenders #42-43 (December 1976-January 1977), Hulk: Nightmerica #1 (August 2003), Avengers/Thunderbolts #1 (May 2004), and Civil War #1 (July 2006), in which he died. He appeared posthumously in Marvel Spotlight Civil War: Aftermath #1 (March 2007).
A Skrull version of Cobalt Man, for the Secret Invasion storyline, appears in Captain Marvel #2-3 (February–March 2008).
Cobalt Man received an entry in the Marvel Legacy: The 1970s Handbook #1 (2006).
Fictional character biography
Ralph Roberts
Ralph Roberts was an inventor who had been studying the effects of nuclear radiation involving cobalt. He sought to use this as a weapon and built a cobalt suit of armor in imitation of Iron Man's, and gave himself the "Cobalt Man" title. At the time, Ralph's younger brother Ted Roberts was dating Jean Grey. Ralph took Ted, Jean, and Scott Summers on a tour of his lab. He showed Ted his armor and became destructive. When Scott and Jean fought Cobalt Man, he buried them under rubble. As he was becoming more unstable, the X-Men fought and defeated him, and he realized that the armor was too dangerous to use.[1] However, Tyrannus soon kidnapped him to force him to build a giant super-cobalt robot. The X-Men fought Tyrannus and rescued Roberts and returned him to the surface world.[2]
He later achieved superhuman size and power due to radiation. This ends up slowly killing him; addled, he decides to show the world the dangers of nuclear power by destroying himself and the city of Sydney, Australia. In a confrontation with the Hulk, he seemingly dies, safely away from the Earth.[3] While on a mission with Egghead's Emissaries of Evil, he appeared to have been killed in a nuclear explosion.[4]
Some time later he was later revealed to have survived the explosion.[5]
Art by Lee Weeks.
Apparently, the original Cobalt Man was one of the many villains that escaped from The Raft prison.[6] The New Warriors located Cobalt Man hiding in Stamford with other escaped convicts.[7] The New Warriors were part of a reality show and decided to take down the villains. During the ensuing conflict, Nitro's powers demolished the entire neighborhood, causing the death of hundreds of men, women and children, most of the New Warriors, and apparently Cobalt Man as well beginning the events of the Civil War storyline.[8]
Ralph Roberts seemingly returned from the dead in the 2007-08 Captain Marvel mini-series, but it is revealed that this is really a Skrull impostor. When interrogated by Captain Marvel on the Skrull's Secret Invasion plans, the Cobalt Man Skrull tells Captain Marvel that the latter is not the real Captain Marvel.[9]
During the Dark Reign storyline, Hercules travels to the Underworld and Cobalt Man is among the dead characters in Erebus. Due to outside forces, this section of the afterlife was chaotic and breaking down. It is clarified that Cobalt Man and the other dead had a chance of returning to life by winning at gambling games.[10]
Cobalt Man somehow reappears alive and retired in Deadpool & the Mercs for Money, which has the eponymous characters capture him at the behest of a company called Umbral Dynamics.[11]
Tony Stark as Cobalt Man
During the 2004 Avengers/Thunderbolts six issue mini-series, Tony Stark infiltrated the Thunderbolts as Cobalt Man to learn their intentions and agenda. Eventually, Stark revealed his true identity and tossed the Cobalt Man armor away.[12]
Cobalt Men
A group of men in Cobalt Man armor attacked Speedball and a group of trainee Avengers when they visited Stamford. They were all defeated by Speedball who unleashed a powerful energy blast that disabled their armor. A local police officer revealed that the group were some pro-Norman Osborn fanatics who had fabricated copies of the Cobalt Man armor with plans to make the heroes look bad in public.[13]
Powers and abilities
Initially, Ralph Roberts wore the Cobalt Man armor to gain Iron Man-like abilities, including flight, superhuman strength (it multiplied his strength 100x) and durability, recoil beams, etc. The armor (at least the second version) also had oxygen tanks and could protect its wearer from the vacuum of space.
In other media
Television
- A version of Cobalt Man appears in Avengers: Ultron Revolution.[citation needed] This iteration is a robot with the ability to teleport, and presumably created by Ultron. In the episode "A Friend in Need", he fights the Avengers by teleporting away from attacks until the Vision arrives. Vision is able to disable Cobalt Man's teleportation device enough for the Avengers to defeat the android.
References
- ^ The X-Men #31
- ^ The X-Men #34
- ^ Incredible Hulk #174-175 (May–April 1974)
- ^ Defenders #42-43
- ^ Hulk: Nightmerica #1
- ^ New Avengers #1-3 (January - March 2005)
- ^ New Avengers: Illuminati #1 (May 2006) but which was originally produced as part of Civil War #1 (July 2006)
- ^ Civil War #1
- ^ Captain Marvel (vol. 7) #1
- ^ Incredible Hercules #129 (2009)
- ^ Cullen Bunn (w), Iban Coello (p), Iban Coello (i), Guru-eFX (col), VC's Joe Sabino (let), Heather Antos and Jordan D. White (ed). Deadpool & the Mercs for Money, vol. 2, no. 3 (7 September 2016). United States: Marvel Comics.
- ^ Avengers/Thunderbolts #1-6
- ^ Avengers Academy #10 (March 2011)
External links
- Cobalt Man at Marvel.com
- Cobalt Man at The Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe
- Marvel Database Cobalt Man entry
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