Robot X

History: In a world where robots existed only as lifeless, mindless puppets (much like The Human Robot before it was reprogrammed for independent thought), Professor Jonathan Wilkes created “Robot X”, the first conscious robot capable of creative thought. Professor Wilkes demonstrated the robot's mental abilities to the world governing council. Charles J. Wentworth, the publisher of the “Daily Clarion” newspaper, fostered fear and suspicion of thinking robots, warning that they might decide to attack mankind. Seeing the angry mobs, Robot X ran off, acquired a factory, and began construction of more thinking robots like itself. Armed forces attacked Robot X's factory, but X's intelligent mechanical men easily beat their human-controlled non-thinking robots, and disarmed the human soldiers. Robot X led his forces to attack the Daily Clarion building. They captured Wentworth and his staff, unmasked them, revealling them to be “Martians” who were sent to undermine Earth's defenses for conquest. Robot X pointed out that thinking robots were not affected by the Daily Clairon's propaganda. Since humans would always mistrust anything more powerful and intelligent than themselves, Robot X and his robot forces self-destructed, thus removing the cause of man's fear.

Height: 8 ft.
Demonstrated Powers: Robot X was strong enough to smash through a steel door. It also had great levels of artificial intelligence and could easily perform complex calculations.

Comment: The “Martians” in this story bear a strong resemblence to The Skrulls from Fantastic Four # 2.

Comment: Speculation - It is possible that “Robot X” was the first in a series of intelligent “X” robots which eventually culminated in X-51 aka Machine Man. Other examples of “X” robots can be found with X-13 from Strange Tales # 93 and “X-22” from the story “The One Who Isn't Human” from Tales of Suspense # 32 (art by Don Heck). There was also a “Robot X” which preceded this character in Tales of Suspense # 7 (art by Paul Reinman).

In the story “The Inhuman!” from Strange Tales # 90 (art by Don Heck), robot soldiers are featured, among them “X-35”, “X-1” and “X-2”; these soldiers had a slight resemblence to Machine Man's robotic “relatives” (gray skin, red eyes) introduced in 2001: A Space Odyssey # 8. Could these robots be part of the same government program that created Machine Man?

Comment: There is no apparent connection between “Robot X” and “The X-Men”.

For another entry on Robot X, click HERE

Interestingly, the Marvel “story number” (those little letter - number combinations at the bottom of the splash page) for the first appearance of Iron Man in Tales of Suspense #38 is: X-51 … very interesting.

Maybe there is some connection between these robots and a future version of Stark Enterprises?

The robophobia in this story might have been due to the rampage of the former “Killer Robot.” The one who became a founding member of the short-lived 1950's Avengers.* *Unofficially ret-conned to “the G-men.” * If such is the case, then the so-called “Martians” could very well have been a task force of Skrull Normals. Hence, the use of regular disguises rather than super-powered shape-changing.

Speaking of the “50s Avengers”, here is a nifty little sight devoted to them and their adventures… Enjoy!

I love these type of stories. This one in particular. The Robophobia angle is taken right out of the better Asimov robot stories.

Its too bad that Stan (with Kirby, Ditko or Heck) never directly adapted any of Asimov's robot short stories the way that EC had adapted some of Bradbury's stories - they really could have had something there.

Was it Bradbury or Asimov who wrote the story ” I, Robot” which was later adapted by the original OUTER LIMITS?

Actually it was neither. That Outer Limits eposide was based on a story by comicdom's own Otto Binder (who not only wrote many a Superman tale in the 50s & 60s, but helped create the original Captain Marvel in the 40s) !

Thanks for the prompt reply. P.S.—I know it's digressing. But, did you know that the original OL's Control Voice was done by the same character actor who voiced-over for Nomad ( in the “Changeling” episode of STAR TREK: TOS)? His name was Vic Perrin. He also did “Dr. Zin” on the original JONNY QUEST. And, if anyone could have brought the Yellow Claw to sinister vocal life on some of those Marvel-made cartoons from the early Nineties, it would have been him!

Robot X was one of the best SF stories from Marvel Comics. I always thought SF magazines such as Amazing Adventures, Strange Worlds, Tales to Astonish, etc. were much more interesting than the super-hero series that took over about 1964, although a few of them were interesting as well, particularly if they had an SF motif. Also, my favorites from the DC series were Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures with my favorite writers being Otto Binder and Gardner Fox.
(By the way, I don't think of these magazines as “comics” as such - more like “Illustrated Science Fiction”).

Going back to Marvel, the period 1958 - 1963 was a golden time for them because of the high quality of their SF and Fantasy stories, of which Robot X was one of the best as well as the other five-page stores that appears in the same issue, namely, “Who - or What was the Bootblack” and “What Lurks Within”, both of which held you spellbound to the last panel - really great stories.

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