MACH-Day, Part Two

In my last blog entry I talked about MACH-1 and MACH-2, two Thunderbolts characters I'd like to make custom figures of. But I'm actually near completion on a MACH-III custom, representing the armor that Abe gets in TBolts issue Continuing a look at the various MACH armors that Abner Jenkins has worn over the years in the Thunderbolts comic, we come to MACH-III.

MACH-III is probably a Patrick Zircher design; Zircher drew him first, anyway. There’s parts of it that are definite Bagley homages, like the faux-rebreather and the fused fingers. This design is has the only element in all four armors that pisses me off: the asymmetrical slant in the chest armor. What the hell? Does Abe need to lean to his right all the time? Is he always body-checking people in the left? Well, I’ve read every Thunderbolts issue, and he is does not and is not. I always got the sense that he’d stab himself in the hips with that thing.

Anyway, this helmet’s kind of busy, but is symmetrical; why, sometimes it has two antennae (but normally not). The chest is armored, with a big Iron Man exhaust thing in the front. Zircher would always draw MACH-III basically leaking red light, from the chest, the helmet, and the wings. The wings are back to conventional aircraft things, but have these turbine-esque circles at their base. I really liked that when I was reading Thunderbolts, if only because I thought a toy would build a joint in there. A customizer thinks primarily in plastic.

The armor has these weird shoulderpads that look like squares of armor that drape down. They tend to change shape a lot, so I wasn’t’ sure how to interpret them. The legs have jets, but they’re now in the back of the calf, rather than the side. And the legs are armored now, instead of spandexed.

It was this leg design that led me to make a MACH-III instead of the classic or recent armor. The Hasbro Ultimate Iron Man had calf jets just like MACH-III, and the rest looked pretty good, so I wedded Ultimate Iron Man legs with a Deathlok torso (with double cybernetic arms). I sculpted an armored chest over Deathlok’s musculature, using a rubber band along the bottom as a guide. Look, it’s symmetrical! Mostly symmetrical, it kind of bunched up on the left, but the point is he’s not a Nike Swoosh. The Deathlok arms end in Ultimate Iron Man hands, chosen for their weapons modules. I could easily have glued on something like this to Deathlok’s hands, but this seemed more stable. I might still replace the barrels, though, they look like machine guns. The head is a Plan B SWAT helmet, complete with goggles, using a Japanese figure’s rebreather (heavily modified), some sculpting, and an Exosquad antennae underneath a Zoids plug. The shoulderpads also come from Zoids, they were leg armor to a, and I’ll mess this up, Cannon Spider? They’re not very accurate, but look great and mirror the helmet design.

The backpack is a MegaBloks Bionicle knock-off robot hip, to give ball joints to the Sigma Six wings. I need to add something to the back of that pack, because it currently looks too plain and lego-y. I added the rocket from the back of the ML11 Ultron glider… it’s not in the art, but the Megabloks piece seemed to end too far up on the back. The wings terminate in gatling guns, which is a Sigma Six Duke design element, not a MACH-III element. This is staying, though, due to awesomeness. Obviously the wings were chosen for their turbines, as otherwise they’re not a great fit to the art. If I was feeling more faithful I’d cut an Air Strike Wolverine wing pack in half.




MACH-IV is a great Todd Grummet design (I think… probably… I don’t know! Marvel, please publish Thunderbolts hardcovers, for the benefit of myself and like, five other guys). The armor now has full banded “Comic Bionics” arms, terminating in five-finger gloves. The wings are pretty conventional too, and the helmet has no rebreather, just a “Y” of red glass. The armor goes to spandex below the waist, save some jet boots. It’s a nice simple design., the closest thing Abe’s ever had to “elegant.”

The definitive MACH-IV custom was done by Church of Zod on the Fwooshnet, here. His upper torso is dead on: a great sculpt and great use of fodder. The legs, from a Ruby Armor Cyclops, are off model, but are all black anyway, so it doesn’t matter. He went for techno-detail over artistic matching, and in my opinion made the right choice. When I get around to MACH-IV, I’ll be emulating this custom heavily.

And that’s the most anyone’s ever written about Abe Jenkins. He’s also got three major Beetle armors, one of which Toy Biz made and it’s awesome. Oh, and Ultimate Beetle, which is very MACH-esque. It’s even got Bagley Bubbles!

I plan to have MACH-III painted by mid-next week, and that’s another post derived from this material...