Bionic Man #16

[Guest]

Has anybody read Bionic Man #16? This was a great issue. Hester and Gillespie did a great job. I know the main focus was Jamie's accident, but we got to see some character development for Steve Austin, a returning villain and Maskatron is back. This was a one shot, but it has really set up so many storylines. I am really looking forward to the next issue and see how these come together.

I have to give credit to Ed Tadeo. I am hard on artists. Tadeo started out a little rough, but is really coming around. I enjoy the realism in the figures and backgrounds. Incredible detail. Granted, we still have the occasional 'flat face' or 'blockhead', I am really enjoying the art on this title.

I hope this title keeps on this trajectory.

[positronic]

Heh. So Maskatron is back, eh? The question would be, back from where?, since he hasn't appeared either in DE's Bionic Man series or on the old 6M$M TV series. "Maskatron" was an invention of Kenner Toys, although arguably somewhat based on the John Saxon-portrayed android from an episode of the TV series (but they didn't have the rights to Saxon's likeness for the toy figure). Haven't read this yet, but did they actually use the name "Maskatron"? Or (and here I can't recall the name of Steve's friend that the android replaced in the TV episode...)? Because I was hoping to see the words "Bionic Bigfoot" tossed in somewhere in the previous story arc, but alas, it never happened...

Have to agree that Tadeo's art, which I didn't much care for at first, has been slowly getting better issue by issue, if still somewhat inconsistently from page to page and panel to panel.

[Guest]

Yes, Maskatron is a to, and one of my favorites. Yes, they used the name Maskatron in the issue. I think we will see a lot more of Maskatron coming up.

Maybe we will get Farrah Fawcett next?

[positronic]

Maybe we will get Farrah Fawcett next?

Well, you won't get Farrah any more than you got John Saxon, or for that matter, Lee Majors, Lindsay Wagner or Richard Anderson in DE's Bionic Man. I mention this only because I remember a few people complaining on early BM threads that DE didn't get the likenesses of the actors right. But of course, DE's version is Kevin Smith's unproduced movie treatment of The Bionic Man (which obviously would have been cast with younger actors).

Besides, the "major" attraction of that episode was the nudge-and-a-wink insider knowledge that Lee Majors and Farrah Fawcett were a real-life couple at the time, while their characters had an adversarial attraction to each other.

I wonder how much longer they can keep referring to Steve Austin's astronaut past, when America sadly no longer has a manned space program. As that former manned space program recedes into the past, it makes Steve Austin older and older. Perhaps at some point he has to become just a test pilot, not a former astronaut.

We do have Fembots in DE's current Bionic Woman story arc.