Mainframe's Robotic Shells

Usually I title this series ‘(Character)’s Costumes’ but given the subject of this latest entry, it didn’t seem to apply, nor did I think ‘Mainframe’s Body’ sounded appropriate, especially given what we worked out last time for A-Next Ages. So, this upload we’ll look at all of the program’s appearances in an effort to cover all variants of Mainframe’s Robot Shells.

Mainframe’s iconic and rarely changed armoured exterior first debuted in A-Next #1, where the character notably proposed the founding of the new Avengers team alongside Thunderstrike, J2 and Stinger after Jubilee, Jolt and Speedball bowed out of full-time membership. Here’s what co-creator and artist extraordinaire Ron Frenz had to say about the design of Mainframe on episode 744 of Adam Chapman’s Comic Shenanigan’s podcast:

 ‘Design wise- I mentioned this in one of our last letter columns in A-Next- when I was originally designing A-Next, there’s a guy I went to art school with, he’s one of my oldest, dearest friends who is terrific at design. He actually did a few jobs for Marvel in the late 80’s or early 90’s. His name is Rich Yanizeski and I think he has a terrific outside-the-box design sense where he’ll try a little bit of everything. He of course, being a separate entity has a separate pool to draw from of inspiration and designs he’s seen and things like that. So usually when I’m called upon to design new characters, I will actually ask Yan if he’d be willing and able to step in and pitch some stuff to me. Quite often the final design ends up being some amalgamation of what Rich pitched to me and my own ideas and tailoring them to the specifics of what we know about the story or the character at that point.

Mainframe was one of those characters. We went through a couple of different designs, the early designs still had red and yellow in them and everything. I’ll be perfectly honest with you, what occurred to me about what I like about black and gold is that I’m from Pittsburgh and that’s the colour of all of our sports teams. When I put it on paper it looked really good so we were fine with that. I do remember being at a convention one time when Jim Shooter was doing a slide presentation about Iron Man’s new armour and everybody in the crowd was just crazy about the idea of Iron Man’s armour being black and silver. I never understood it. That’s basically what they ended up using for War Machine. But I never understood it because it’s a four-colour medium at the time, it’s a full colour medium now. Why would you do that?

 But, like I said, with my own affinity for black and gold I went ahead and gave it a shot and I liked what it looked like. I probably wouldn’t have liked it as much if not for the red eyes because I think the red eyes kind of pop and hold everything together. It always frustrated me when the eyes didn’t get colour red because I always considered that a part of the design. He was very much a cross between what was going on in the Iron Man book at the time, meaning he was a cross between Iron Man and War Machine because I liked the bulk of War Machine. I had gotten the chance to draw War Machine in an issue of Thunderstrike and I liked the weightier feel of War Machine. That’s what I was kind of trying to do more with the forearms and through the shoulders and everything of Mainframe.’

The earliest chronological appearance of Mainframe is a flashback in Spider-Girl #95, which seems to depicts Tony Stark building the first of Mainframe’s robot shells. Unless I’m mistaken this first model doesn’t appear to deviate from the standard Mainframe armoured shell.

I’m not really sure if this one counts but here is what I believe is the computer Mainframe’s consciousness dwelt in before being activated, as depicted in A-Next #1.

While I won’t note every time Mainframe loses a robotic shell in battle, I would like to point out the first time this occurs from A-Next #3, where Sub-Mariner and the Hulk tear it in two. It would appear this is traumatic event is the first ever occasion in which Mainframe’s physical body had been compromised beyond repair. Mainframe seems pretty nonchalant about the event, or at least is playing it down by referring to it as only a ‘lifeless shell’.

This ‘lifeless shell’ is also seen in J2 #3 in a story depicting these same events. However, here Mainframe seems to have red-coloured ‘ear’ interiors. Yeah, I’m not sure what you’d call those things. 

Speaking of those robotic bodies, after expending all available manufactured shells we get a glimpse of Mainframe’s true self beneath both the exterior and core module. Better still, we get to witness the construction of a brand-new Mainframe robot shell (A-Next #8).

At the conclusion of the A-Next series, we see a slightly different design for Mainframe with A-Next #12 which carries over into other MC2 titles beginning within the pages of Spider-Girl #13. Artist Ron Frenz gives us a slightly different robotic shell design for Mainframe.  *Thanks to Ron Frenz for the correction*

Notably, the wrist areas are slimmer and have a visibly segmented design to them. In addition to this we get what I believe is the first of many, many future colouring mistakes on the lower leg or ‘greaves’ of Mainframe’s armoured exterior with Spider-Girl #13. Areas of the 'phase 2' gauntlets also alternate in colour between yellow and black on different pages

This black miscolouring on the lower legs of Mainframe’s various shells is seen in several future comics including Spider-Girl #31, 38, 46, 59, 71 and 81. The miscolouring occurs so frequently, I’m tempted to say it’s more than the correct colouring of Mainframe’s robot shell! Maybe it really is a different design?

Another apparent colouring error that is seen in both Spider-Girl #25 and Spider-Girl #31: Mainframe’s centre chest piece appears to be black and in the latter example, so are the raised shoulder pieces or ‘pauldrons.’

For what I believe is the first time, Mainframe’s wrist devices are shown to hold weaponry in Last Hero Standing #1. In the past, we’d seen other uses for these including interfacing with high tech equipment and plugging directly into the internet, but I don’t think he’d seen this particular function before. As the Last Hero Standing mini-series is pencilled by Pat Olliffe, the wrist devices are again of a slimmer design. Combining this slimmer design with the correct colouring on the lower legs, we actually get a unique look again, all be it one that was probably intended to be seen since Spider-Girl #13! This design returns under Mainframe co-creator Ron Frenz in later issues of Spider-Girl.

The Last Planet Standing mini-series again gives us more examples of the miscoloured black booted lower legs on Mainframe’s shell. But the cover to Last Hero Standing #1 seems to offer a different boot design entirely, inked darker and without the segmented sections we’ve always seen, miscoloured or otherwise, up to this point.

We actually get a few alternate designs for Mainframe in the Last Planet Standing mini-series. Here’s Mainframe soaking up extra electricity from the power grid from Last Planet Standing # 3.

This isn’t technically a new look so much as a sort of power up, but in the very next issue we get this upgrade which absolutely is a brand-new design (Last Planet Standing #4).

This is device that we see Mainframe piloting was designed by Reed Richards and modified on the fly with input from Tony Stark in an attempt to help defeat Galactus by multiplying Mainframe’s powers by a ‘a few hundred thousand times.’ While the upgrade allows Mainframe to pierce Galactus’ barrier, the robot shell is soon destroyed (Last Planet Standing #4).

 

Awakening aboard the orbiting satellite that houses and manufactures all the robotic bodies, Mainframe activates all of the available backup bodies, piloting them all at once as an assault force to counter Galactus’ Punisher robots (Last Planet Standing #4).

We get the natural extension and progression of this idea in Avengers Next #5 when Mainframe uses the orbiting satellite itself as a weapon against the Asgardian sorceress Sylene, piloting it on a collision course with her volcanic island base. This naturally eliminated Mainframe’s ability to replicate, at least for the time being.

Another notable design change appears only in Spider-Girl: The End where we see that Mainframe exists again as a computer program of some kind aiding an aged Stinger to develop humanity’s last hope, The Mulligan, a time travel platform. Perhaps in this possible timeline, Mainframe’s satellite was never rebuilt? It's a nice nod back to Mainframe's first appearance.

Finally, from the MC2 story in the Secret Wars Spider-Island mini-series, we get a cameo appearance by Mainframe, this time as only a hologram. For whatever reason, Mainframe is not a member of the Avengers team at this point (Spider-Island #1).

Due to Mainframe’s unique nature, I had to stretch the definition and parameters for this one! I hope it was comprehensive, but if you think I’ve missed anything let me know. I would love to see Mainframe begin to develop new body designs in the future. The use of all the robot backups at once has to be a highlight for the character, and certainly a personal favourite moment of awesome.

Until I manage to rebuild an entire satellite with enough materials to produce hundreds of duplicate robotic bodies, I remain

frogoat