Robot (comics)

Robot is a fictional superhero appearing in the comic book Invincible, which is published by Image Comics.

History
Prior to the first issue of Invincible, Robot was the leader and founder of the Teen Team.

Robot was so effective as leader of the Teen Team that he was invited to join the Guardians of the Globe. However, the team was betrayed and most of their members murdered. At the invitation of The Pentagon, Robot assisted in the creation of the new Guardians of the Globe. As one of few senior heroes left, Robot became the leader of the team.

Robot did not show the same leadership proficiency with the Guardians and was replaced as leader by The Immortal. The reason for Robot's lack of focus was soon revealed; Robot was not, after all, a robot. Instead of a benevolent mechanical man with artificial intelligence, he was an automaton under the control of a disfigured man who was living in a tank of fluid. Rudy Conners, controlling the Robot body remotely, had been gathering genetic material to create himself a healthy new body. Robot used the villainous Mauler Twins to place the deformed man's mind into the freshly created body. Immediately afterwards, Rudy (his mind inside the new body, which was a juvenile clone of Rex Splode) allowed his deformed alter-ego to die. He then revealed that he was, in fact, controlling Robot remotely and had a small army of them under his control.

Robot soon revealed himself as a living creature to the Guardians of the Globe. Accepted by the team, he implanted a device into his head that allowed him to send a Robot body into combat with the team. He then turned his attention to Monster Girl, a teammate with an adult consciousness in a twelve-year-old body. Robot struck up a friendship with her, insisting that he could find a cure for her reversed aging. Although skeptical, Monster Girl nevertheless struck up a friendship with Robot and even showed some romantic interest in him after a successful "date" they had.

In Issue 58, Robot seemingly corrects Monster Girl's de-aging problem via a special belt she now wears.

In Issue 70, during the second sequid invasion, Robot realized that the One Mind must have an extra host hiding somewhere and went down into the sewers to investigate. Sure enough, he found a man infested with sequids and was able to fend the aliens off and transport himself and the man used as a host to safety. Later, Robot was ordered to the showers by Monster Girl to clean up from his sewer expedition, and there he coughed up a surviving sequid, which he promptly killed. It remains to be seen if any more sequids are hiding inside his body.

At various times throughout the series, Robot has referred to different phases of his "plan", which seems to somehow involve Monster Girl's abilities. It has been hinted that everything from his choice of body to befriending Monster Girl has been part of a larger plot. In keeping with this, several of the things Robot has said that could be in reference to romance could also be taken as referring to his master plan.

In Issue 108, Robot betrayed Invincible by trapping him in the Parallel Dimension stating that he knows that he will never allow Robot's plan for World Domination.

Powers and abilities
Robot is technically skilled in a variety of areas, including genetics and engineering as well as robotics. His genius-level intellect allows him to perform such feats as erasing memories, tracking both friends and villains, conducting forensic research, and scanning the records of various institutions. Robot's mechanical drone body is much stronger and more durable than that of a human. While Robot can be destroyed, he can easily be rebuilt or re-created. However, Rudy's consciousness is now in a human body; whether or not the body has any special abilities has yet to be revealed.