Issue(s): Machine Man #11
Cover Date: Oct 79
Title: "Byte of the Binary Bug!"
Credits:
Marv Wolfman - Writer
Steve Ditko - Penciler
Steve Ditko - Inker

Review/plot:
Machine Man's a robot, so we should be talking computer stuff, right? With footnotes about what RAM and bytes are? And a villain called the Binary Bug?

There's a lot of interesting stuff in this issue, though. By fighting off the Binary Bug, Machine Man secures a job at Peter Spaulding's friend Byron Benjamin's insurance company.

But Machine Man learns that getting a job, especially at an insurance company, requires giving up your sense of individuality. Dressing for the role...

...talk of how the office is "without individuality" and "dehumanizing"...

...and about how it's inequality that leads to fraud.

Interesting stuff.

Notice above the reference to Brock Jones, who is the Torpedo. He doesn't appear in this issue, but it's already been established that he's an insurance company executive.

Not to belabor the Kirby/Ditko comparison, i could see the Kirby Machine Man complaining about those things, too. But i think he'd be less likely to complain that watching a movie is a waste of time. I have to imagine even Abel Stack went to see a movie every so often.

Also at Delmar Insurance is Maggie Jones, who we'll later learn is Brock's sister. She is a piece of work.

I guess the "notches on the bedpost" comment is a sign of gender equality, right? Still, that's sexual harassment, and she probably gets away with it thanks to her brother being an executive. Nepotism!

Binary Bug is deliberately targeting objects insured by Delmar, and Machine Man eventually gets into it with him again, this time in the "flying castle" of "Kahn of Xanadu", a organized crime boss.

We learn he was behind the attack on Machine Man last issue. But this issue, Machine Man saves him from Binary Bug.

We learn that Binary Bug got his equipment from the Tinkerer.

I wondered if that was supposed to be "Toy", the Tinkerer's assistant. And the MCP does list Toy as appearing in this issue. But it's a flashback scene, so i haven't included him below.

Someone's running a campaign to destroy Machine Man (as seen in the opening splash panel towards the top of this entry). Senator Brickman is not happy about it, because he wants to demagogue his way to the presidency using Machine Man. And he's still a spittle-flicking maniac.

I dunno. I'm kind of intrigued by "Machine Man gets a job at an insurance company", but Binary Bug and Kahn and Senator Brickman are all kind of awful, and the total presentation, thanks to Ditko's very old school layouting and poses, is pretty off-putting.

Quality Rating: D+

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - Machine Man gets a job at an insurance company

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A