A-Next Ages: Mainframe

I thought it might be fun to work out the approximate ages of the various members of the MC2’s Avengers. Keep in mind this isn’t definitive unless it’s spelt out on the page and is merely a rough estimate based on in-universe information or- where necessary- statements from the creative teams involved in the characters creation and development.

 

For the fourth entry in this occasional series of A-Next Ages, it’s time to figure out the age of the team’s by the book mysterious machine-man: Mainframe!

 

Unlike my prior three post in the series, we don’t have to look to far to figure out the age of this artificial Avenger. Let’s revisit Mainframe’s debut to start with: A-Next #1. It’s here we get the first hint about Mainframe’s identity. When Loki’s magical energy bolt is detected by monitors built into the Avengers Compound defences, they bring online a ‘long dormant program’. The program sends out an emergency call to assemble to over a dozen locations, but which is only received by two former Avengers; Jubilee and Jolt.

 

This may seem a little pointless to mention, but shortly after when Jubilee asks who sent out the Avengers distress call, Mainframe’s responds ‘That would be me’. So, in the very first issue we had a major clue to Mainframe’s true identity right on the page.

 

After a few more clues, including Mainframe being seemingly killed when torn in half by Namor the Sub-Mariner and the Incredible Hulk in A-Next #3, we got answers in A-Next #7. Having exhausted all of their current supply of mechanical bodies during a battle with Ion Man, Mainframe reveals to Stinger (Cassie Lang) that they are in fact a program based on the encephalograms of Tony Stark to ensure there would always be Avengers.  Left unable to download into a new body and suffering a system-wide shut down, Mainframe is fortunately saved the by the intervention of Cassie and her father, Scott Lang (formerly Ant-Man) in A-Next #8.

 

So, when did Tony Stark create Mainframe? We learn from Jarvis in A-Next #7 that the Original Avengers disbanded some 10 years prior to the new team’s formation, and that the fateful mission which saw so many of the team perish occurred a year and a half prior. This places their final mission at around 11 and a half years prior to the events of A-Next #1 as I’ve discussed previously here.

 

Iron Man (Tony Stark) and the Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff) toiled away for months afterwards deep beneath the Avengers Mansion, eventually succeeding in closing the portal between worlds by sealing Wanda in a stasis pod which used her immense power to hold the aperture shut. Immediately after this event, Tony retires from super heroics, vowing to instead help the world using his other talents.

 

Around this time -though it's unclear whether it was before, after or both before and after the team's final mission- Tony Stark developed and completed work on Mainframe, the sophisticated robotic armour imbued with Tony's own brain patterns, designed to ensure there would always be someone to answer the call to assemble (A-Next #7, Spider-Girl #95). From this we know that Stark completed work on Mainframe around the time he left the Avengers, which was about 11 years prior to A-Next #1.

 

As a program inhabiting an armoured robot suit, it’s difficult to assess Mainframe’s age by human standards, but we do see hints throughout the MC2 titles of the character’s development and personality. This includes his strained relationship with his creator or ‘father,’ Tony Stark. But as for how long Mainframe has been in existence in-universe? Mainframe is only at most 11 years old in A-Next #1 and that’s probably the first ever time the being had been out in the really world. By the conclusion of the MC2 publication history, another full year may have passed, making Mainframe at most 11-12 years old and ironically the youngest member of the Avengers.

 

Until I spend 11 years sitting on a computer in a dark basement, I remain

 

frogoat

DC in the MC2

I had intended to do a more extensive write-up to celebrate the month of May, but work and family commitments have prevented me putting out anything. Instead, I present for your consideration this very brief offering.

 

In Spider-Girl #15 we first meet Mister Abnormal, a silly villain with a malleable body able to stretch and shift in comedic fashion much like the DC Comics character Patrick O’Brian aka Plastic Man. Mister Abnormal’s origin even bears some similarities with Plastic Man’s, with both comedy characters gaining their abilities after been doused with unknown chemicals during acts of theft.

 

It gets better: Mister Abnormal encounters the veteran super hero Speedball (and later Spider-Girl) following an attempted robbery of a comic book shop. We learn that Mr. Abnormal is an obsessive collector who has been stealing action figures, rare toys, trading cards, beanie babies and, of course, comics. What comic collection was he attempting to complete before being so rudely interrupted by Speedball? Police Comics.

 

If you didn’t know, Police Comics was a comic anthology series published by Quality Comics between 1941 and 1953. Police Comics #1 saw the first appearance of none other than Plastic Man, who became one of Quality Comics most popular characters. Eventually, Quality Comics’ characters and trademarks would be bought by National Comics Publications, now known as DC Comics, who publish comics featuring Plastic Man alongside other DC heroes such as Batman and Superman to this day.

 

So now the mind-bending question: Does this mean that within the MC2 Universe the entirety of the DC Comics’ pantheon is merely a collection of fictional characters published in comic books?!

 

Until I stop stretching jokes to illogical extremes to raise existential questions about a fictional universe within another fictional universe, I remain

 

frogoat

 

Benjy's Real First Appearance

Hey, really quick: remember when J.J. Abrams and his son Henry Abrams launched a new Spider-Man title that surprised everyone by being set in an alternate universe that introduced Peter Parker’s son, Benjamin ‘Benny’ Parker II? Remember how it caused the comic collectors market to suddenly drive up the value of Spider-Girl #59 because it was tangentially related by having also introduced Peter Parker’s son Benjamin ‘Benny/Benjy’ Parker II, our beloved Li’l Benjy of the MC2?

 

Well, what if I told you they got it wrong? I mean, obviously these two Ben’s are very different characters from completely different alternate realities. But what if I told you Spider-Girl #59 isn’t even Benjy’s real first appearance? That’s right, I’m going to be nit-picky here.

You see, Benjy actually makes his first appearance on-panel in Spider-Girl #57, two issues prior to his credited first appearance. Here, Mary Jane Parker and May ‘Mayday’ Parker pay a visit to the Fantastic Five Building for a prenatal check-up with the team’s Big Brain aka Reed Richards.

It’s here we see a full-term Ben shortly before his birth via Richards’ high-tech ‘diagnostagram’. It’s also here that Mayday get’s her first glimpse of her baby brother, which is a nice when you remember she will miss his birth in Spider-Girl #59. It’s also May who suggests to her mother Mary Jane the name Ben for her as-yet-unnamed brother.

 

Hope you’ve learned something today, and remember the value of a comic is what you get out of it, not how much money it makes in the collector’s market.

 

Until I stop revisiting my favourite series just to ruin things for collectors by picking nits, I remain

 

frogoat