User blog:Nausiated/Project 11/61: The Thinker and the Android!

Earlier this week I completed a complete chornology of both the Mad Thinker and the Awesome Android. Here are some contribution notes on this work:

(1) So far as I can tell, all these appearances are up to date as May 2014.

(2) It's interesting to note that while the Mad Thinker makes many many appearances throughout Marvel's history, the Awesome Android has not. In fact, he only appears in a small amount of comics that actually feature the Mad Thinker. When you go back and read these stories in their publication order the Mad Thinker basically abandons the Awesome Android after encountering Iron Man in and the Android doesn't make an appearance again until, about 15 years! Since then there have been a number of retcons and flashback stories ( and are good examples) that show him using him at other times.

(3) The Awesome Android also didn't always operate under the Mad Thinker's say so. Like when it was being controlled by the Super-Adaptiod from through, as well as when he became "Awesome Andy" through the run of She-Hulk Vol 1 and 2.

(4) Usually I use the Marvel Chronology Project as a guide to figuring out appearances, but I don't always agree with where they place events and happenings. However in this case, their chronology research stopped at their appearances during She-Hulk Vol 2 so I had to make some educated guesses and figure these appearances out for myself. I suppose one of the hardest ones was an appearance of the Awesome Android in. This story features a flashback that depicts the Awesome Android breaking out of the Vault. The narrative states that he was captured by the Avengers. The only Avenger depicted in the flashback story was Moondragon. The Chronology page has no listing for this issue under either their entries for the Android or Moondragon. The weird thing about this story is that Moondragon had been booted out of the Avengers in when Henry Peter Gyrich restructured the team. That was in 1979, and the Vault wasn't introduced until in 1986. She has been a reserve member for years. I placed this appearance after the Android's defeat at the hands of Iron Man in Suspense #72 and before the Mad Thinker uses him with the Intelligencia to loot Olympia (that event happens chronologically between Suspense #72 and Rom #14). Why? Because there was a LOT of time between those two periods and it would explain where the Awesome Android was all this time. Ah, but Rom #14 was published in 1981, 5 years before the first appearance of the Vault in Avengers Annual #15, so why put it before the Vault first appeared? Simple logic. While the Vault first appeared in Avengers Annual #15, it wasn't "opened" in that story. In fact when Freedom Force captures the Avengers and they are incarcerated there, the place is well prepared to deal with super-hero prisoners. Who is to say that it was not in operation prior to this point? Moondragon was unlikely using her Avengers reserve status in "1985" (topical reference) because at the time she was with the Defenders. Also in reading Avengers Annual #15 there is no indication that the Avengers were unaware of the Vault prior to this story. So it seemed to be the most logical place to put that appearance. Gotta love trying to make sense for a toss out one-panel flashback.

So that concludes my chronologies of these two characters, next up on the list are Ant-Man and the Wasp who made an appearance in. I will be covering their first 10 years of continuity, and these will be expanded history pages.