At what point does a superpower become a disability? Does
Daredevil’s super-hearing, smell and touch make up for his inability to see
like a normal person? What about Batman, who is as close to superhuman as a
human can be, and yet is pretty much emotionally dead inside? No more is this
question more apparent than with Victor Stone, a man who had about 85% of his
body replaced with machinery. Without further ado, Cyborg.
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| His organic bits include: Half of face, heart, and brain. That's about it. |
Victor Stone was one of those guys
that could never quiet live up to his parents expectations. But, then, when you
are the average intelligence child of two super geniuses, I can understand
having difficulty living up to expectations. Though, his parents did cross a
line in “helping” Victor smarten up. His father, Silas, and his mother,
Elinore, use Victor as a test subject for various projects designed to increase
his intellect. While the various procedures did make Victor markedly smarter,
it did lead to Victor pretty much hating his parents for treating him more like
a science project than a son. He begins hanging out with local troublemaker,
Ron Evers, and starts saying “screw you” to academics. He thrives as a football
player, and let’s his grades drop to the barely respectable C’s. Life at the
Stone household was tense, but things were still relatively normal.
A short time later, he visited at
their lab in the famous S.T.A.R. Labs. Things were going fine, until an
inter-dimensional portal experiment accidently pulled a massive goo monster
into the Lab. People, leave interdimensional travel to guys like Rick Sanchez
from Rick and Morty. Only a deeply
disturbed, alcoholic seems to be able to travel between realities without
horrible repercussions… usually. I’m getting off track again. So monster kills
Elinore, and… well, there’s no nice way to put it, he mutilates Victor. Silas
sends the monster back and rushes to save his son. He gives Victor a number of
experimental prosthetics that Silas had been working on. When Victor awakened,
he was…less than thrilled with the results. But then if I were to wake up and
discover 80% of my body, including half my face, was replaced by shiny
faux-chrome I’d be pretty upset, too. Victor, while suicidal at first, adjusted
to his new body rather quickly. Now if only the rest of the world could adjust
to Victor. People were…put off by his appearance. Like folks were put off by
Frankenstein’s Monster. His girlfriend left him, he was kicked off the football
team, and every one else was just being a dick to him. Ron was the only one to
stick by him, and that was just part of an insane plot to manipulate Victor
into performing a terrorist attack on the UN. Victor, rather annoyed by this,
fought his former friend and saved the UN. After that, Victor decided to put
his new upgrades to use, and became the heroic Cyborg.
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| Yeah, comic Cyborg wishes he looked this good. Rest in Peace, Lee Thompson Young. |
His first order of business was to
seek out and join the Teen Titans. It’s like a junior Justice League, it’s
members being mostly former sidekicks. He forms strong and lifelong friendships
with many of his teammates. The other young heroes pretty much idealize Cyborg
for his fancy tech and courageous spirit. He thrives with these young heroes,
and saves the world on a few occasions. He was seriously injured in a missile
crash, leaving him largely brain dead. His body was repaired by a group of
Russian scientists, but his mind was seemingly beyond repair. He was eventually
saved by a group of alien beings called the Technis, who repaired his mind in
exchange for Cyborg becoming, well, an ambassador of Earth to the Technis. He
eventually returns, going by the name Cyberion, to Earth, but isn’t really
Victor Stone anymore. The human side of Victor was largely suppressed, but his
subconscious desire for friends cause his techno-self to start seeking out his
former friends and kidnapping them. The Technis put each of the heroes into a
“perfect” world simulator, for example buddy Beast Boy was back with his
original team the Doom Patrol, and Nightwing (aka Robin) got to have a heartfelt
conversation with his father figure, Batman. Just to highlight how…damaged
Victor is at this point, his Cyberion persona had sent out a probe to find
Cyborg. So, yeah, he’s really not right in the head at the moment.
Eventually the Titans he was holding
were freed by the Justice League. There was a bit of an argument between the JL
and the TT on how to hold the Cyberion situation. Most of the Justice League
argued that there was nothing left of Victor to save, while Robin and Beast Boy
along with the Titans argued the opposite. In the end, they were able to save
the real Victor from his Cyberion form, and placed him in a new mechanized
body. Since, Victor has been killed, destroyed, reborn and rebuilt on numerous
occasions. He’s become one of the most iconic DC superheroes, and perhaps one
of the most iconic Black superheroes of all time. He’s trained a number of
newer heroes, like Tim Drake the third Robin. He led the Teen Titans for a long
time. As of the New 52, Victor became a founding member of the Justice League.
He’s come along way.
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| Wonder how big a hole that will punch in a tank? |
Victor’s powers stem from the
advanced machinery that keep him alive. The robotic prosthetics give him
superhuman strength, stamina, speed, and the ability to fly. His left eye was
replaced with a highly advanced electronic camera that mimics natural vision,
but allows him to do things like see into the electromagnetic spectrum. As well
as zooming in and enhancing images. His metal body is largely bullet proof. His
body hides a number of tools, from a grappling hook, various power tools, and a
finger mounted laser. His most well-known weapon is a sound amplifier. The
amplifier can do things like release an ultrasonic pulse that can disorientate
his foes, or fire a concentrated sonic burst that can shatter rock or dent
steel. He can also interface wirelessly with most forms of technology and
control them. Over the years, his body has been upgraded, the most impressive
upgrade being that his internal systems are able to repair themselves.
Basically, no matter how banged up he gets, give him enough time and his
machinery will recover, better than ever.
Cyborg is one of the most
well-known DC superheroes. He’s appeared in a number of series.
His first major appearance, to my
knowledge, was in the animated Teen
Titans. He’s one of the five main characters. One of his most important
episodes being the fifth episode, “The Sum of His Parts.” During a battle
against an evil magician named Mumbo, Cyborg’s body shuts down due to a failing
battery. He’s discovered by a strange machine mechanic named Fixit. Fixit
intends to remove the “flaws” in Cyborg’s body, namely his organic bits. It
takes a bit, but Cyborg does convince Fixit to let him go, and to try and see
what’s so good about being Human. Over the course of the series, he develops a
bitter mutual hatred for Brother Blood, a supervillain that ran the HIVE. Think
of the HIVE like an anti-Teen Titans. They battle on a number of occasions, and
Blood begins to obsessively trying to break down Cyborg and steal his
technology. We also get to see an interesting bit side of Cyborg in “Troq” the
45th episode. In it, the Titans team up with an alien named Val-Yor.
Yor continually refers to the alien Titan, Starfire, as Troq. She initially
plays it off, but when Cyborg jokingly refers to her as “Troqy” she flips out,
and then explains that the word literally means “nothing” and is used as racial
slur against her species. Cyborg sympathizes, since he knows a lot about
prejudice, given that he’s a half robot. Cyborg is often seen as the Titans
second-in-command and would occasionally buttheads with team leader Robin.
Friendly rivalries are like that.
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| I'm just going to lie down and play dead. |
A live action version of Cyborg is
introduced in the fifth season of Smallville.
He’s portrayed by late actor Lee Thompson Young. This version of Victor Stone
was a Metropolis Football star who was supposedly killed in a car crash along
with his family. In actuality, he was saved and rebuilt by a Dr. Kreig. This
version of Cyborg’s robotics are all internal, but we get a snapshot of his
usual skull covering when young Clark Kent looks him over with his X-Ray
vision. Clark and his friends save Victor, and even reunite him with his
girlfriend, due to the annoying assistance of Clark’s on-again off-again
girlfriend Lana Lang. He returns in the sixth season episode “Justice” as part
of a team assembled by Smallville’s
version of Batman, Green Arrow. He admits that Oliver and his team were what
kept him from committing suicide when his girlfriend left. He and the Team are
attacking and destroying Luthor Corp’s labs that are committing illegal
experiments. They team up with Clark Kent to rescue their Flash, Bart Allen,
after he’s kidnapped by Lex Luthor. This is the last time we see Victor in
action, though he’s mentioned several times in later episodes. Thems the breaks
when you’re just a recurring character.
Cyborg is appears in Justice League: Doom. This version is a
sort of unofficial aid to the Justice League, helping the team beat the
technologically advanced Royal Flush Gang. Batman enlists his aid again to help
save the Justice League from deadly versions of the contingency plans concocted
by Vandal Savage and the Legion of Doom. He then helps them stop Vandal’s
genocidal plan and is officially made a part of the Justice League.
An alternate version of Cyborg
appears in the animated film in Justice
League: The Flashpoint Paradox. The original helps the League defeat the
Flash’s enemies the Rogues, and Professor Zoom. In the alternate timeline the
Flash unwittingly creates, Cyborg is America’s greatest superhero and works for
the US Government. After a disastrous mission ends with the death of Lex Luthor
and Deathstroke, two important assets, he’s relieved of duty. He somewhat
begrudgingly works with Batman (in this universe he’s Bruce Wayne’s father,
Thomas Wayne) and the Flash. The three break into an “unofficial” government
facility which had been keeping Kal-El in prison since he arrived on Earth. Kal
flies off, and Cyborg and the other heroes agree to help the Flash try and stop
the Atlantian/Amazonian war. He personally battles Aquaman, and despite holding
his own for some time, is nearly killed. Kal-El flies in and beats Aquaman
back, but he’s unable to save Victor. He’s assumedly restored when the Flash
fixes the timeline. Fun fact, Victor in this movie is played by Michael B.
Jordan, who will soon be appearing in the new Fantastic Four movie as the Human Torch.
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| Booyah! Teen Titans Go! is an affront to you, sir. |
The “New 52” version of Cyborg
appears in Justice League: War. He’s
an excellent football star who has to deal with his workaholic and dismissive
father, Silas Stone. He storms into his father’s lab, and berates his dad for
missing his big game. When Silas again dismisses Victor, because of the
potential alien invasion, Victor grabs the device his father was studying and
tries to smash it. Unfortunately, the machine was a nigh-indestructible Mother
Box, and that was the moment the alien invasion started. Victor is blasted with
energy and irradiated. He’s taken by Silas into a sort of advanced medical
machine to keep him alive. The Apokoliptian tech that irradiated his body
caused the machinery to fuse with his body, creating a giant metallic titan. He
joins the other heroes that become the Justice League, and save the world from
Apokolips and its master Darkseid.
The same Cyborg is seen in the Justice League sequel Throne of Atlantis. He’s more or less
come into his own as a hero, and is the one to discover that an America Sub was
attacked by an Atlantian battalion. He works hard to stop the war between the
surface World and Atlantis. The relationship with his father has pretty much
deteriorated to nothing, and he has a trippy dream or two where he’s got his
real body back and rudely awakened by his robotic enhancements.
Cyborg is one of the more
interesting characters. He’s one of those guys whose powers are as much a curse
as a gift. He’s so much more than human, but is stripped of a lot of the parts
that make him human. He can lift trucks over his head, and yet can’t even feel
the breeze on his face. If the Justice
League: War movie storyline is more or less canon, then all he has of his
internal organs are his left eye, his brain and heart. So, yeah, he doesn’t
really eat or breathe. He can dream, but only when his body is recharging. Kind
of sucks, right? And yet, he doesn’t let it stop him. He keeps on trying, keeps
on moving, and keeps on living as best he can. To answer the question I raised
in the beginning, yes in many ways Victor is disabled, and yet he’s still
superpowered. Sometimes to gain something you have to give something up in
return. He’s the tinman with a heart, the broken but whole, the super-human
robot, Cyborg. Next time, the sequel to Justice
League: War, Justice League: Throne
of Atlantis.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/41/Cyborg_%28The_New_52%29.jpg
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/smallville/images/d/dd/VictorDVDcap.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100305225302
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/File:Infinite-crisis-game-cyborg.jpg
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/powerlisting/images/d/d2/Cyborg_arm_cannon.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150303034828
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/teentitans/images/c/c6/Cyborg-teen-titans2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131231095447
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