Bowen Machine Man Bust

Moving on to the Machine Man bust, I never was the biggest Machine Man fan, but this bust seems pretty lifeless. I know he's supposed to be an android, but he's a living android. And those nostrils. They stick out more than Baby New Year's ears in Rudoph's Happy New Year. For me this is a PASS.

Why does he deserve better than this? My only exposure to Machine man before Next WAVE (by Warren Ellis) was in a Marvel Comics Presents (issue 10 according to www.comicbookdb.com) and in the four issue mini series by Barry Windsor-Smith from the mid 80s (and reprinted as a two issue mini series in the early 90s). But he was pretty cool in those appearances.

A little history: He was the 51st prototype of a series of androids built to server as replacement for humans as soldiers. He was created by Jack Kirby who introduced him in the Marvel adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey and given a follow up series shortly after. Unlike the other 50 prototypes, Machine Man was treated as a human by his "father"/creator Abel Stack. Stack even began to have fatherly feelings for his creation and made an artificial skin for him so he could pass as human and named him Machine Man.

Unfortunately, the military had installed self destruct devices in all of the prototypes and in the process for removing Machine Man's Doctor Stack was killed. Machine Man then went on a Fugitive like run while the military searched for him. Like many Kirby projects the plot was ripped right out of whatever he was watching or reading at the moment, but with a Kirby flair.

So does he deserve better than this Bowen bust? I'm not sure. But he looks way cooler on the printed page than he does in this bust.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.