—The Stilt-Man[source]So long as I am master of my stilts, I'm unbeatable! I'm completely invincible!
History
Wilbur Day was a scientist employed by Carl Kaxton who invented a hydraulic ram device. Wilbur stole Kaxton's designs and used them to engineered a pair of extremely long, telescopic metal legs, which allowed him to tower high above the ground. Lawyer Matt Murdock was hired by Wilbur, who contacted Kaxton to tell him that his former employee intended to sue him, a threat which Kaxton encouraged them to follow through on. Later in his Daredevil guise, Murdock unsuccessfully battled the Stilt-Man, who managed to get away. Later, when meeting with Wilbur again, Kaxton arrived at the Nelson and Murdock offices to contest the lawsuit. While the two argued over who owned the rights to the hydraulic device, Matt noticed that one of them was lying due to an irregular heart beat, but could not figure out which one was the liar because they were too close together.
Battling Daredevil
Following Kaxton as Daredevil, he was quickly shaken by Kaxton, who realized he was being followed. Daredevil could not resume tailing because of reports that the Stilt-Man was causing havoc again. He again failed to stop the Stilt-Man. Returning to Day, the two went to confront Kaxton directly. There they found the hydraulic lifts, which turned out to be the Stilt-Man's stilts. Attacked by Kaxton with a gun, Day managed to knock Kaxton out, and then revealed to Murdock that he was really the Stilt-Man, and that he came to steal a shrinking device from Kaxton before knocking Murdock out. Taking the device and making a run for it in his stilts, Day was followed by Daredevil, and in the ensuing battle the shrinking ray was turned on Day, who shrank so small that he disappeared from sight. Returning to the Nelson and Murdock law office, Matt was confronted by Kaxton, but Murdock told him that Day had dropped the lawsuit and they decided to let the whole thing go.[1]
He was once saved by the Masked Marauder and teamed up with him to kidnap the Nelson and Murdock law firm employees.[2] After fighting Spider-Man, he went to fire a ray gun as he was standing in water and shorted out his electrical systems leaving him unconscious and ready to be picked up by the police.[6]
However, he was rescued by the supervillain Electro and joined his Emissaries of Evil. Their plan was to defeat Daredevil as a team, but they were in turn defeated themselves.[7][8] Wilbur was later hired to kill district attorney candidate Foggy Nelson, but was stopped by Daredevil.[9] Wilbur then disguised himself as the Stunt-Master and attacked Daredevil on a Hollywood movie set.[3]
In San Francisco, the Stilt-Man kidnapped Carl Kaxton and his daughter to force him to re-create his molecular condenser. Kaxton kept working, but ran out of parts, so the Stilt-Man had to arrange for others to be brought in. The Stilt-Man brought back the new parts and forced Kaxton to get back to work. When Kaxton briefly refused, the Stilt-Man struck him and reminded him that Barbara could be turned over to Endros. The Stilt-Man soon took the finished condenser, with which he planned to shrink the Golden Gate Bridge, taking Barbara with him. Daredevil soon arrived and defeated Endros. The hero had to strike Kaxton to get useful information from him about Barbara, then he rescued her with the Black Widow. They picked Kaxton up and took him to breakfast with Barbara after the Stilt-Man was defeated. Later, a homeless man, Eddie, found the condenser and planned to sell it to Jonny the Rake, but chose to throw it away instead.[10]
The Stilt-Man came across the still-hovering Trapster and took his weaponry. As the Falcon was about to testify against his former associates, the Stilt-Man attacked. The heroes eventually managed to topple the Stilt-Man and defeat him, despite his advantage of the Trapster's weapons.[11] The Stilt-Man continued his criminal career and fought several superheroes, such as Black Goliath,[12] but without much success.[13] He battled the Champions as well.[14] Wilbur freed Blastaar and F.A.U.S.T., and was given a special new battlesuit constructed of secondary Adamantium.[15] He stole some radioactive isotopes and battled Thor, but lost the fight and was stripped of his suit.[16]
When his armor was stolen by a small-time crook named Turk Barrett, Wilbur contacted Daredevil and informed him of a weakness in the armor. Thanks to Wilbur's information, Daredevil easily disabled the auto-gyroscopes necessary for the armor to keep its balance and brought Turk down. Wilbur later modified the armor to prevent Daredevil from using this newfound knowledge against him.[17] In an attempt to regain his reputation, the Stilt-Man set out to defeat Spider-Man. He turned an automated Cordco factory against the Wall-Crawler. When Spider-Man saved his life from an automatic sonic disruptor, Wilbur decided not to kill him. He delivered Spider-Man's unconscious body to Vincent Martinelli's security detail and left the premises.[18]
Wilbur was one of the many armored villains whose technology had been upgraded from stolen plans from Stark Industries. He was intercepted by Iron Man during a robbery, and Wilbur attempted to flee using newly-implemented failsafe bootjets that ejected him from his hydraulic legs. Iron Man took one of the legs and used it to club the Stilt-Man, knocking him out. Afterward, Iron Man used a negator pack on the unconscious Stilt-Man, which neutralized any trace of Stark tech in his armor.[19]
The Stilt-Man later attempted to kill D.A. Blake Tower for sending him to prison, but was captured by the She-Hulk.[20] During the Acts of Vengeance enacted by a cabal of super-villains, the Stilt-Man fell under the mind control of Doctor Doom and was ordered, alongside many other villains, to attack the Fantastic Four in Washington, D.C. while they were giving a speech to the congress. He and his fellow attackers were defeated by the Thing, the Human Torch and the She-Thing.[21]
Wilbur was one of the villains who attempted to attack the Avengers at the site of their reconstructed mansion, but was foiled by the construction workers.[22] Wilbur was a regular visitor to the Bar With No Name.[23] The Stilt-Man is listed in one of Spider-Man's most embarrassing moments.[24] Wilbur and various other criminals witnessed Captain America disguised as Crossbones battle Batroc the Leaper.[25]
The Stilt-Man joined the Hobgoblin's team when they battled Alpha Flight.[26] He then appeared in the gallery during the Tinkerer's court case.[27]Phil Sheldon captured an image of the Stilt-Man during a crime at some point.[28] The Stilt-Man later attended the wedding of the Absorbing Man and Titania.[29] While the heroes were away fighting the Secret Wars, the New York Police Department faced many super-villains, such as the Stilt-Man.[30][31] Wilbur would later join the Kingpin's Emissaries of Evil, along with Le Concierge and Synapse.[32]
When Daredevil's secret identity as Matt Murdock was exposed by a local newspaper, Wilbur visited the law offices of Nelson and Murdock, announcing he was sick of the whole ordeal and that he was retiring as the Stilt-Man. He left his armor in a suitcase on Murdock's desk, and was forcibly removed when he began yelling his paranoid conclusion that Murdock was the real Kingpin. Murdock then jokingly asked his law partner, Foggy Nelson, if he would like to be the next Stilt-Man, an offer he quickly declined.[33] However, Wilbur returned to his old ways.[34][35] He was eventually arrested again and locked up in the Raft.[36]
Death and Legacy[]
When the Superhuman Registration Act was implemented, Wilbur signed up with the government and was outfitted with a new suit to serve as a law enforcer during the ensuing superhuman civil war.[37] Fashioning himself a reformed hero, the Stilt-Man ran into the Punisher while both were targeting child pornographer Fulvio Morsella. Wilbur offered to team up with the vigilante, but the Punisher held him accountable for his past life of crime and blew his legs up. Wilbur attempted to surrender, having realized that he and the Punisher were not on the same page, but the Punisher shot and killed him.[4] After his death, many super-villains held a wake for him at a Bar with No Name, where it was revealed he had married Princess Python.[38]
Wilbur's death became a cause célèbre for an anti-technology anarchist terrorist cell who called themselves the Bastard Sons of Wilbur Day, despite Spider-Man pointing out that their beliefs and goals had very little to do with anything that Wilbur had believed.[39] Another criminal, Lady Stilt-Man, paid homage to him posthumously.[40]
Dead No More[]
Several years later, the new Jackal brought many of Spider-Man's dead friends and foes back to life, including the Stilt-Man, as part of a scheme to turn the Web-Slinger to his side. After being presented with this while under the Jackal's custody, Spider-Man fled from his base with the help of the Spider-Woman of Earth-65.[5] The Stilt-Man and the other revived villains were sent out to look for them.[41] When the Jackal's ally, Doctor Octopus, turned against him, he triggered the decay of all the people he had cloned back to life.[42] Spider-Man managed to stop this, but not before many people had died. The Stilt-Man was one of the survivors.[43]
Inferno[]
As part of a plan to sow chaos in revenge for the loss of their fortune, the criminal Stromwyn siblings hired a group of super-villains to wreak havoc in Hell's Kitchen. The Stilt-Man was one of the villains alongside Crossbones, Bullseye, the Rhino, and Bullet.[44] Wilbur terrorized the neighbor using explosives, and when Daredevil confronted the villains, he stopped the Stilt-Man by using one of his explosives against him, destroying his robotic legs.[45]
Megiddo[]
Tired of the constant humiliation he endured, the Stilt-Man devised a plan to prove himself a leader. Finding the planet where the race of robotic giants known as the Ultimos originated, Wilbur learned to reprogram them. Using an "interference beam" under his command, Wilbur routinely abducted random people from across the universe to this planet. Pretending that the same thing had inexplicably happened to him, Wilbur used his intellect to establish and run Megiddo, a small and peaceful colony where its inhabitants lived an unburdened life. In order give the colony something to bond over to avoid dissension, Wilbur also regularly controlled the Ultimos remotely to attack the village and keep them as a looming threat.[46] Due to his reputation as a super-villain, Wilbur operated mostly from the shadows, using a Kree soldier named Yar as the public leader.[47]
After hearing an S.O.S. signal from a spaceship piloted by Iron Man when the hero was pursuing the power-hungry android Korvac, the Stilt-Man decided to abduct Stark to show him the fruits of his labors.[46] Iron Man was initially captivated by the Megiddans' humble lifestyle, as well as the Stilt-Man's apparent change of heart,[47] but the constant threat of the Ultimos prompted him to look into them, and he ultimately discovered that Wilbur was remotely controlling the killer robots. Together with another Megiddan, Avro-X, Iron Man confronted and defeated the Stilt-Man. Afterward, the Megiddans took Wilbur away to punish him. In the aftermath of the Stilt-Man's ruse being exposed, the Living Tribunal sought Iron Man to continue his pursuit of Korvac, and the hero asked him in exchange to return everyone on Megiddo home.[46] Upon being imprisoned when returning to Earth, the Stilt-Man was then briefly recruited to the Fist. [48]Attributes
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Paraphernalia
Equipment
See Also
- 87 appearance(s) of Wilbur Day (Earth-616)
- 12 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Wilbur Day (Earth-616)
- 15 minor appearance(s) of Wilbur Day (Earth-616)
- 50 mention(s) of Wilbur Day (Earth-616)
- 2 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Wilbur Day (Earth-616)
- 64 image(s) of Wilbur Day (Earth-616)
- 5 quotation(s) by or about Wilbur Day (Earth-616)
- 2 item(s) used/owned by Wilbur Day (Earth-616)
Links and References
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Daredevil #8
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Daredevil #26
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Daredevil #67
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Punisher War Journal (Vol. 2) #1
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Clone Conspiracy #2
- ↑ Daredevil #27
- ↑ Daredevil Annual #1
- ↑ Giant-Size Daredevil #1
- ↑ Daredevil #48
- ↑ Daredevil #102
- ↑ Captain America #191
- ↑ Black Goliath #4
- ↑ Black Goliath #5
- ↑ Champions #11–12
- ↑ Thor #268–269
- ↑ Thor #270–271
- ↑ Daredevil #186
- ↑ Amazing Spider-Man #237
- ↑ Iron Man #225
- ↑ Sensational She-Hulk #4
- ↑ Fantastic Four #336
- ↑ Avengers Annual #19
- ↑ Marvel Comics Presents #97
- ↑ Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #12
- ↑ Captain America #411–413
- ↑ Alpha Flight #121
- ↑ Sensational She-Hulk #59
- ↑ Marvels #2
- ↑ Avengers: Unplugged #4
- ↑ Code of Honor #3
- ↑ Cable #56
- ↑ Daredevil #377–380
- ↑ Daredevil (Vol. 2) #41
- ↑ Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #6
- ↑ Spider-Man Human Torch #3
- ↑ Spider-Man: Breakout #1
- ↑ Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #533
- ↑ Punisher War Journal (Vol. 2) #4
- ↑ Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 2) #500
- ↑ Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #611
- ↑ Clone Conspiracy #3
- ↑ Clone Conspiracy #4
- ↑ Clone Conspiracy #5
- ↑ Daredevil (Vol. 6) #19
- ↑ Daredevil (Vol. 6) #20
- ↑ 46.0 46.1 46.2 Iron Man (Vol. 5) #11
- ↑ 47.0 47.1 Iron Man (Vol. 5) #10
- ↑ Daredevil (Vol. 7) #6
- ↑ Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z Vol 1 11