Cobalt Man
The Cobalt Man is a male comic supervillain who features in Marvel Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Ralph Roberts
It was known that he had a younger brother named Ted Roberts. Ralph came to be an alumnus of Metro College, where he set the school record for both pole-vaulting and touchdown passes in football. After graduating, he worked at Stark Industries for a short time, where he experimented with cobalt, among other things. Roberts was interested in the Iron Man Armor, but Tony Stark refused to divulge the secrets of the armor. He decided to branch out on his own, and he formed Roberts Research Lab. His top priority project was the development of a suit of armor, patterned after Iron Man's, but made of a cobalt alloy. Once successful, he planned to turn the blueprints over to the U.S. government. (X-Men v1 #31)
Ralph visited his younger brother, Ted, who was also a student at Metro College. Once together, their rivalry led them into a pole vaulting competition, during which Ralph's pole broker, and he smacked his head against the bar. After recovering, he took his brother Ted's would-be girlfriend, Jean Grey, and Scott Summers on a tour of his lab. Ralph took his brother aside and showed him his armor. He put the armor on and began demonstrating its powers, smashing the roof of his building in the process. When Ted questioned his behavior, Ralph became violent. After punching Ted out, he then found the molds for the armor and destroyed them, so that no one else could match his power. The commotion caused by Ralph drew the attention of the other two present at the lab, and soon Marvel Girl and Cyclops confronted the Cobalt Man. Roberts attacked them, and after a short battle, buried them under tons of debris. His mind becoming progressively more unstable from his minor concussion, the energies of the armor, and his anger towards Stark, he decided that his next mission would be to destroy the traitors at Stark Industries. Marvel Girl and Cyclops got free, contacted Professor X, and stowed away in Ted Roberts car as he followed his crazed brother. With Stark out on a date that night, it was up to the X-Men to protect the new Stark Industries plant. After being activated for nearly two hours, the armor began to glow with radioactive energy. The X-Men teamed up to keep the Cobalt Man off balance, while Iceman froze over his power pack, and then Cyclops melted some of the ice into the pack, shorting it out. His power cut, the Cobalt Man dropped instantly, and only the Angel saved him from falling into a river and sinking to the bottom. Once they removed the armor, Ralph quickly came back to his senses and realized it was too dangerous to be used again. (X-Men v1 #31) Ralph later came to show Ted his new super-cobalt alloy, which he had designed in order to build a craft that could travel to Earth's core. However, his lab was invaded and he was kidnapped by the subterranean ruler, Tyrannus. Tyrannus forced Roberts to construct a giant Super-Cobalt Robot for him, with which he could conquer his rival, the Mole Man, who had built a giant robot out of diamond. Under threat of death, Roberts acquiesced, but he refused when Tyrannus demanded he build an army of such robots, and was thus thrown into a dungeon. The Super-Cobalt Robot, under Tyrannus' control, destroyed the Mole Man's diamond robot, but was in turn destroyed by the X-Men. Roberts had sabotaged the robot by mixing the Super-Cobalt alloy with substances with low heat resistance. Knowing he would be slain for his defiance, Roberts punched out Tyrannus, but before he could escape, he was nabbed by a group of Tyrannoids. However, he was rescued by the X-Men and returned to the surface with them in his Earth-Borer. (X-Men v1 #34)
During a test of his old Cobalt armor at Roberts Research Labs, Ralph was exposed to a nearly fatal bath of radiation. The doctor told him that this exposure, combined with the radiation he had already picked up from his work, would kill him within a year. A month later, Roberts, decided to show the world the true danger of nuclear energy by destroying a major city in a nuclear explosion as the Cobalt Man. Five months later, Roberts arranged to be aboard a radiation-shielded ship that was going to be close to the detonation of an above-ground nuclear explosion. Roberts had made the arrangement by having plans to wear his Cobalt armor for protection. However, when the explosion occurred, he stood on the ship's deck, sans armor, and soaked up a butt load of hard radiation. Of course, the radiation mutated him into a giant blue form, and he then donned his armor and began to rampage. Bruce Banner happened to be on that very same ship, and soon the Hulk and the all-new, all-different Cobalt-Man were going at it. The potent radiation given off by the Cobalt Man weakened even the radiation-spawned Hulk, and he turned back into Banner and collapsed, right after throwing the Cobalt Man through the bottom of the ship. (Incredible Hulk v2 #174)
Overview
Personality and attributes
After developing his armor, he came to go by the name of the Cobalt Man. (X-Men v1 #31)
It was known that he had a younger brother named Ted Roberts. (X-Men v1 #31)
Powers and abilities
Roberts came to develop a powered suit that resembled a silver-blue version of Iron Man's armor. Ralph's version though was composed of newly developed cobalt-based alloys. Many of its functions were based on the capabilities of Iron Man with Ralph believing that it was better due to being constructed from superior cobalt material. When activated, transistors resulted in energy cascading through the armor to power it. The transistors operated under Stark's own principles with them increasing the wearers physical strength by a hundred times. In addition, the boots provided him the power of flight. In terms of armaments, recoil-beams that were energy beams that were nearly as strong as repulsor beams. (X-Men v1 #31)
A danger faced in initial versions of the Cobalt Man armor that it produced deadly radioactive Cobalt-60 following 2 hours of usage. This effectively turned the suit into a walking C-Bomb if it detonated. (X-Men v1 #31)
Notes
- The Cobalt Man was created by Roy Thomas and Werner Roth where he made his first appearance in X-Men v1 #31 (April, 1967)
Alternate Versions
In other media
Television
Appearances
- X-Men v1: (April, 1967)
External Links
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