Hoo boy.
You know that Colonel Computron dates back to a certain time: that brief moment of about five or six years when computers were both becoming increasingly familiar to the general public, but were still basically considered to be magic. His computer-suit gives him super-strength and super-intelligence because computers can do anything!
Plus, he looks godawful. Carmine Infantino was always the Silver Age artist who felt like he wanted to start the Golden Age over again: just look at his character designs. Other than the modern Flash costume, they are mostly terrible: either garish and ridiculous (Trickster, Pied Piper, Top, Rainbow Raider) or minimalist and dull (Heat Wave, Weather Wizard, Mirror Master). He only hit the sweet spot occasionally, with Captain Cold or Abra Kadabra, and Colonel Computron is far, far away from the sweet spot; on the page he manages to be just a big boring barely-articulated silver suit.
Of course, this means that, being a pathetic lame villain best relegated to the backbins of comic history, Colonel Computron was brought back multiple times, although eventually they just started calling him “Computron” because, I don’t know, maybe that was less pathetic if you looked at it the right way. I’m pretty sure he got killed off in an issue of Checkmate. I’m sure that made the comic FIVE TIMES AS THRILLING.
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So, along with Captain Boomerang, this would make two Flash villains that the Wiggins Toy Corporation is responsible for?
So this segment has become a fashion show, then.
Pretty sure Don Heck designed RR, but it’s possible Carmine tweaked the costume, and making it worse.
I love how no one even cared enough to follow through with a storyline for this one. Obviously they were going somewhere with the “maybe it’s his wife, or daughter!” thing… sorta did a little later on, and then gave up and killed the character off in Checkmate.
Obligatory “what is this i don’t even” post.
Are you nuts? Infantino’s classic Rogues costumes are (mostly) great! They’re 50 years old now and many are still being used! Okay, Piper’s was a bit silly and a few are a somewhat garish, but we are not the audience they were designed for. Also, ‘garish’ suits Trickster’s personality perfectly.
I won’t defend Computron’s look, as he was designed long after Infantino’s prime.
And yes, Don Heck designed Rainbow Raider.
1) Gotta like how Computron’s first evil scheme was to rip off the premise of TRON.
2) Speaking of which, didn’t you see TRON Legacy? People STILL think computers are magic.
3) Obviously Colonel Computron is really Basil. You can tell by the positioning of the handy whiz-grate.
Trickster makes his particular brand of garish cool.
The only ones that are basically unchanged from the classic look are Mirror Master and Captain Cold. Abra Kadabra (which was one of the better ones) gets redesigned frequently; Piper was redesigned, as was Boomerang; Weather Wizard and Heat Wave have been altered to make them more dynamic over the years. The Top was dead for a long time so he doesn’t really count.
Trickster is an interesting case because he got a great redesign by Howard Porter in Underworld Unleashed which kept the core concepts of the costume and theme without being extravagantly ugly, then he got his old sucky costume back, then got killed off, and now Axel is the new Trickster and also has a purposely garish costume, but one that has significantly better design sensibility than the old one.
And then there was the time that they just embraced the idiocy of the characters. I believe it was first in the issues of JLA where the evil Earth 2 counterparts had supplanted them, the evil Flash and Green Lantern (Johny Quick and Power Ring? Whatever) ran into Computron and the Rainbow Raiders. Now Computron was just a random floating head and the raiders were… well, still lame.
http://www.hyperborea.org/flash/rainbow-raiders.html
http://www.hyperborea.org/flash/col-computron.html
Heat Wave is essentially the same; anyone looking at his modern incarnation would recognize him as the same guy from 1963. The Top has indeed been dead for many years, but he was still wearing the same basic getup (the stripes have changed somewhat) during Johns’ first run as he did during the Silver Age.
Boomerang has been changed now, but only very recently, so that wasn’t a bad run for Infantino’s design. Kadabra’s costume has changed a lot (probably at least in part because his own physical appearance has changed several times), but generally stays with the motif Infantino came up with.
Axel’s new costume works better for us because it suits our more modern sensibilities. You can argue that the Silver Age Trickster costume isn’t suitable now, but I think it was just fine 50 years ago (and for at least a few decades afterward).
Hey kid. I’m a computer.
So it’s probably not a coincidence that he reminds me of that rotund Tron super-fan you see around the internet every time Tron is brought up.
He’s pretty much the first guy I think of when young fans wonder “why did Barry Allen’s book get cancelled in the first place?”
That outfit does not say “Fear me!” so much as “Help! Someone put me in a silver gimp suit and I can’t find the zippers!”
What, no credit for potential? He at least managed to get promoted from Captain to Colonel, that’s got to be worth something.
Ah, the Rainbow Raiders! So much youthful potential gone to waste… It broke my heart when they were killed in that one issue of that thing they did. Seriously, it was a single panel and it didn’t even name them! It was a Blackest Night tie-in and they were pointedly NOT resurrected as Black Lanterns because no-one had any emotional ties with them!
That’s just mean. Like the villain team the Spectre killed in the first issue of his Final Crisis mini, the whatstheirnames… No damn respect…
I’m having fun just thinking of all the ways this guy could be beaten.
1. Plug the air vents and watch the fat bastard overheat
2. electromagnetic charge
3. water
4. Store bought magnets
5. spray him with any kind of oil or grease.
Maybe this character could be improved if they made him into a southern colonel with a bolo tie and a 10-gallon hat.
“I have so many paper cuts, it’s like I have twelve normal cuts!”
Judging by the size of his outfit, he must’ve had a remarkable memory cache of 64 KB and 32 RAM. Very impressive in those days! If he was rebooted for today, he would be the size of a paperclip.
If I’m recalling correctly, the good Colonel was eventually revealed to be the daughter of the family of suspects whose heads are floating in the background. Meaning CC should be referred to as “she” rather than “he”.
For the record, and my own desire to be sure… weren’t the Rainbow Raiders killed off off-panel only in the director’s cut of Blackest Night, rather than in the actual issue? Meaning they are still around. I kinda liked them too.
Didn’t Infantino also create Kid Flash’s yellow & red costume? Best. Costume. Ever.
@American Hawkman, the deaths of the Rainbow Raiders were later shown in Untold Tales of Blackest Night. So it’s canon now.
Almost any character could be improved in that manner, Zenrage.
Whoa that rating clearly ignores the ‘fled’ part of the description for how that walking refrigerator escaped from the Flash the first time. He ran away. From the Flash. Successfully. That has to be worth ten extra points.
Come on, the Calculator started out as a guy in a blue jumpsuit, 4th string Green Lantern who had the ability to make light-construct boxing gloves emit from the giant visor on his head the the POWER OF MATH (which is accessed via a giant number-pad vest)!
Then he went bald and got a paunch, had a mid-life crisis, and became a criminal for-hire Oracle. That’s a pretty good character arc. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have the good Colonel to reinvent him/herself as bad-guy supertech support (“Have you tried restarting the Fatherbox in safe mode?”).
And, you know, Calculator was killed off in Final Crisis, so there a niche to be filled in the Supervillian economy.
Wait. There’s a girl in that refrigerator?
Lia!! Fancy seeing you here XDDD Now what was it, the Top or just Rogues in general? I bet it was the Top. I swear, somebody says “the Top” and you come spinnin’ outta nowhere XDDD *HUG*
Watch out, MGK! – this is one of those most dangerous of fans, the Canonista! One of those walking encyclopedias who knows EVERYTHING about the characters, stretching back to their original appearances and even their predecessors. She’s also one of the people responsible for keeping Rogue love alive and well on the ‘net and has been instrumental in converting an awful lot of people into Flash fans. Seriously, Geoff Johns should be paying her royalties. Enjoy your discussions, ’cause this woman knows her stuff! *goes to get popcorn*
I also love how one of the Colonel’s computer-powers is the ability to deduce EXACTLY how much force is needed to accomplish something.
This would be more impressive if EVERYONE didn’t do this ALL DAY, ALL THE TIME, without even thinking about it… this is how, for instance, you can pick up a cup of coffee without spraying scalding hot liquid all over the room, or open a book without tearing it all to shreds. “For you see, my computer brain calculated EXACTLY how much force I needed to open that book, and then delivered that PRECISE amount of force to my hands. BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!”
I just love the idea of Captain Boomerang going through multiple face-heel turns during that fight. I think it’s because I’m imagining people repeatedly getting hit in the back of the head with an unexpected boomerang, and that’s always funny.
Okay, hold up, does that say Computron has a computer that figures out the least necessary effort needed to do something, and a robot exoskeleton to do it? I didn’t think it was possible to program a machine to help you be lazy, but apparently I am not writing comics.
@Katzedecimal, you flatter me, although I’m really just a huge nerd :> Actually, I regularly read MGK through LJ’s RSS feed, and comment on the posts now and then.
@RandomChance, even better, what the Who’s Who doesn’t mention is that Captain Boomerang and the Flash were sent back in time by Computron, and they fought pirates. And in the end Digger was defeated by a chessboard.
The geometry of his legs and feet are a pretty obvious TRON lift, too. So, he schemes to suck someone into computerland, he looks like one of those menacing Space Invaders antagonists from the movie, and TRON is actually a substring of his name.
Three strikes?
If the TV show can make Rainbow Raider a believable threat, they could do it with this guy.
From the facial expression in her costume, the daughter knows how ridiculous her idea is.
Coaching Secret
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