In my youth, we would be entertained by tales of Colonel Steve Austin, astronaut, a man who lived through a terrible accident only to gain bionic implants that gave him superhuman abilities. Worse off, though, was Vic Stone, the Teen Titan known as Cyborg, whose external machine parts are highly visible and inescapably not just human limbs. Vic’s angst over his partially machine nature drove many a plot back in the Wolfman/Perez days, but young me questioned why it was such a big deal. After all, he had superhuman strength, agility, various attachments, computer scanners and more, which would seem to at least make it more tolerable to be a cybernetic organism, leading to today’s nanomachine query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) won’t even start on the questions of Cyborg never having been a Titan in New 52 continuity, an alteration I still can’t quite get used to, asking: If given the option of becoming a visibly mechanical cyborg but gaining cool super-powers, would you consider it?
4 Comments
Absolutely.
Unless of course I have to be the newest Robocop then I’d be sad. The helmet was a nice updated but the oddity of keeping the one hand still sits awkwardly with me.
Cable, Cyborg, Robocop, any of the cyborg variants from the RPG Rifts, cybernetics from the Shadowrun RPG. All of these are pretty friggin awesome. Then again I’m a single lazy fat man who would love to not have to work out to maintain my physique. Plus powers are what I’ve been dreaming of since being introduced to comics and movies as a young child.
Like things are now, nope. If there really were alien invasions and super villains every week, sure!
cool super-powers Yes, DC cyborgs 3nd rate at every generic list nope.
I would prefer something more along the lines of the original Kamen Rider or similarly “still looks like a human most of the time” cyborg characters. But if I’m being honest, I’ll take the whole Cyborg/Robocop route without hesitation. I would even be willing to transfer my mind/soul/whatever into a completely mechanical body if it meant I had the ability to help people.
But I’m in a crappy body that has been sick and weak since childhood, so I’m probably in a minority in my willingness to ditch my meatbag form for something that actually works.