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
