Fixer (comics)

The Fixer is the name of two different fictional characters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

Publication history

The first Marvel Comics character known as the Fixer was Roscoe Sweeney. He first appeared in Daredevil #1 (Apr. 1964), and was created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Bill Everett.

The second iteration of Fixer was long-time supervillain Paul Norbert Ebersol, first appearing in Strange Tales #141 (February 1966) and was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. After some time, he appeared as a regular character in Thunderbolts beginning with issue #144, until he was forced to leave the team in issue #174.

Fictional character biography

Roscoe Sweeney

Roscoe Sweeney was a gangster and crooked fight promoter who was involved in extortion and illegal gambling who operated as the "Fixer". He paid boxer "Battling Jack" Murdock to take a fall and lose a fight. Murdock accepted the money, however, the boxer became determined to continue the fight and eventually won by a knockout. The Fixer's right-hand man Slade killed Jack after the fight in retaliation. Learning of his father's murder and vowing to bring men like the Fixer to justice, Matt Murdock became a lawyer and also the superhero Daredevil to do so. Fixer and Slade went to Fogwell's Gym where they encountered Daredevil. When Fixer and Slade ran for it upon their being disarmed, Daredevil pursued them into the subway station. After Daredevil tripped Slade, Fixer had a fatal heart attack when confronted by Daredevil and died. As Fixer's body fell onto the subway tracks, Daredevil stopped a subway from running over Fixer's body. Slade was arrested and sentenced to death by the electric chair.^[1]

Paul Norbert Ebersol

Paul Norbert Ebersol was born in Dayton, Ohio. He was a scientist who held a number of odd jobs, including auto mechanic, television repairman, and electronics laboratory assistant. He then became the second and more prominent "Fixer", a supervillain and genius-level criminal inventor who has often worked for criminal cartels like HYDRA.

In his first appearance, he escaped from prison,^[2] teamed with his partner Mentallo in an attempted takeover of the New York S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, and even captured Nick Fury.^[3] Fixer and Mentallo were defeated by Tony Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. troops.^[4] His connection with THEM was revealed; and THEM was later revealed as part of HYDRA.^[5] Behind the scenes, he was even revealed as the chief of the HYDRA Science Division.^[6]

With Mentallo, the Fixer later escaped prison again. They invaded the New York S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and captured the Thing. They then invaded the Baxter Building, battled the Thing and Nick Fury, and used Doctor Doom's time machine to bring Deathlok from his alternate future.^[7] Mentallo then mind-controlled Deathlok in an attempted assassination of the U.S. President, but Fixer and Mentallo were defeated by the Fantastic Four and taken into custody by S.H.I.E.L.D.^[8] The pair was freed from prison by a HYDRA force controlled by Baron Karza. Fixer created the living machine-intelligence Computrex, which was destroyed by the Micronauts who then defeated Fixer and Mentallo.^[9]

Fixer and Mentallo then aided Professor Power in his attempt to add Professor X's powers to Mentallo's, but they were defeated by Spider-Man.^[10] Fixer attempted to loot Northwind Observatory of Bruce Banner's inventions, but was captured by Captain America.^[11] Fixer then invaded the West Coast Avengers Compound in an attempt to steal Iron Man's armor, but was defeated by Iron Man and Ka-Zar.^[12]

When Baron Helmut Zemo formed the fourth incarnation of the Masters of Evil, Fixer served as his right-hand man. When the Masters of Evil invaded Avengers Mansion, Fixer created a device enabling Baron Zemo to control Blackout. Fixer helped engineer the capture of Captain America, Black Knight, and Edwin Jarvis.^[13] Fixer was apprehended by Ant-Man. Behind the scenes, Fixer was overpowered by the Super-Adaptoid which changed places with him.^[14] The Super-Adaptoid disguised as the Fixer later escaped prison.^[15] The real Fixer was discovered by the Avengers in the Adaptoid's former confinement tube at Avengers Island.^[16] Fixer later escaped prison with Yellowjacket who then spurned his romantic advances. The Fixer followed Yellowjacket and battled Yellowjacket and the Black Knight before escaping.^[17]

In Zemo's second incarnation of the Masters of Evil, the team changed their identity to the Thunderbolts, while Fixer adopted the alias of Techno. He was then apparently killed when his neck was broken by Iron, one of the Elements of Doom, and he transferred his mind into a robotic body, and this Techno sided, alone among the Thunderbolts, with Zemo when he went ahead with his scheme to conquer the planet.

Zemo and Techno decamped to one of Zemo's bases, where Techno began to experiment with cloning, offering to clone Zemo an unscarred body, and even cloning Kevin Costner for fun at one point. After the two fell out, Techno infiltrated the Thunderbolts by replacing Ogre, while continuing his experiments behind-the-scenes, including recovering Jolt's body when she was killed and placing it in a healing tube.

Techno's impersonation of Ogre ended when Scourge of the Underworld stowed away inside him, shrunken, and destroyed his body from the inside, while he refused to kill Jolt again to allow him to construct a new body. However, his backup plan worked, and his consciousness was returned to his original human body—mostly healed, although the nerve damage in his neck meant he required his tech-pac to bypass the damage—and the human Ebersol, initially amnesiac of the robot's exploits, returned to calling himself the Fixer.

Fixer then became one of the Redeemers, a government-backed team whereby criminals could use it to accelerate their sentences and clear their record, until most of that team was slaughtered by Graviton. He joined with the reunited Thunderbolts to stop Graviton, and he was one of the team members exiled to Counter-Earth. By a complicated series of events, at the end of the trip to Counter-Earth, Zemo's consciousness ended up in Fixer's tech-pac. By threatening to disable it and leave him quadriplegic, Zemo managed to force Fixer to transfer the Baron's consciousness to his Counter-Earth counterpart's body.

The team remained on Counter-Earth for some time, until, in sealing a rift, they returned home, leaving Jolt (whom Fixer saved from burning out in helping to seal the rift) behind. Finally, after Moonstone went insane, Fixer furnished a device that could give the combined Avengers and Thunderbolts a couple of seconds to make their move; he then left.

Later, Deadpool visited Fixer at his holiday home to enlist his help in saving Cable. After a brief fight, Fixer accepted the challenge (and Deadpool's monetary inducement), and successfully bonded new, benign, techno-organic mesh to Cable. Some time after this, Fixer suddenly reappeared to save his former teammate MACH-IV from a fall. Fixer recruited MACH-IV to join a secretive group headed by Zemo to combat and destroy Genis-Vell, a member of the Thunderbolts whom Zemo had brought back to life. The process was flawed, however, and Genis' existence now threatened the universe.

After Genis was destroyed, Fixer remained with the Thunderbolts, who were now helmed by Zemo. He helped the team recruit supervillains to the pro-registration cause during the Civil War. He also helped Zemo save the Wellspring of Power from the Grandmaster. After Zemo was betrayed and the Thunderbolts were placed under S.H.I.E.L.D. control, Fixer and MACH-IV were offered jobs with the Commission on Superhuman Activities.

Ebersol has been identified as one of the 142 registered superheroes who appear on the cover of the comic book.^[18]

During the Heroic Age storyline, Fixer works as the Raft's supervisor in its section for male supervillains when Captain Steve Rogers and Luke Cage arrive to recruit Ghost.^[19]

As well as working with the Thunderbolts, Fixer has also been seen working with Baron Zemo.^[20]

During the Fear Itself storyline, Fixer was seen working on a forcefield to secure the rounded up prisoners that escaped from the Raft after Juggernaut, in the form of Kuurth: Breaker of Stone, leveled it.^[21]

After escaping the Raft by time-traveling, the Thunderbolts wound up meeting their counterparts - the first Thunderbolts team.^[22] Being as arrogant as they are, present-Fixer and past-Fixer got into an argument in which Fixer impulsively killed his past self.^[23] In order to preserve the timeline, Fixer surgically changed himself to restore his younger appearance and preserved his age by a blood-transfusion from Centurius. Fixer and the past Thunderbolts' memories were wiped, stranding Fixer in a stable time-loop and preserving the timeline after his mistake.^[24]

During the Avengers: Standoff! storyline, Fixer resurfaces where is shown to be a prisoner of the S.H.I.E.L.D.-established gated community Pleasant Hill where Kobik, fragments of a Cosmic Cube transformed into a nigh-omnipotent child, turned him into a mild-mannered mechanic named Phil. Phil was able to see through this and arranged a meet-up with a man named Jim. Upon showing the training video he stole that featured the details about Pleasant Hill by Mayor Maria Hill to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Cadets, Phil used a machine he invented to turn himself back into Fixer and Jim back into Baron Helmut Zemo. Both of them vowed to use the device on the other brainwashed supervillains and reduce Pleasant Hill to dust.^[25] Fixer and Baron Zemo began to restore the memories of the other inmates one by one.^[26] Fixer later invented a device that would help Baron Zemo and his fellow villains find Kobik.^[27]

Following the Pleasant Hill incident, Fixer joined up with Winter Soldier's incarnation of the Thunderbolts with the goal to keep S.H.I.E.L.D. from continuing the Kobik Project.^[28]

Powers and abilities

The second version of Fixer is an intuitive genius at invention of weapons and other electrical and mechanical devices. He has designed numerous devices and paraphernalia for himself, including his body armor. As weaponry, he has used various devices including bombs, electronic jamming devices, guided missiles, sonic amplifiers, brain-wave scanners, and mind-control pods. He has also built anti-gravity discs which are affixed to his feet and allow flight at the speed of sound, as well as a special mask which contains a three-hour air supply and acts as an air pressure reduction valve, together enabling flight at high velocity and high altitude. Fixer's Techno body can mentally control his robotic body which is capable of assuming virtually any form from blast cannons to pile-drivers to even the form of a space station. To take on larger shapes, Techno absorbed mass from other mechanical materials nearby. Techno's body also could morph into forms that appeared completely organic, as with his assumed guise of Thunderbolt machine-smith Ogre.

In other media

Television

• Paul Ebersol (as Mr. Fix) appears in Iron Man: Armored Adventures, voiced by Donny Lucas. He is a genius inventor and a high-tech arms dealer with ties to the Maggia. For protection, he employs highly sophisticated communications and surveillance equipment, teams of soldiers, and individuals equipped with high-tech weapons. Physically, he resembles his comic book counterpart. In the episode “Whiplash”, Mr. Fix orders Whiplash to kill Pepper Potts’ FBI agent father (who is close to apprehending him); then, Mr. Fix sends Whiplash after Pepper herself. Whiplash fails at both tasks; ultimately, Iron Man defeats him. In the episode “Man and Iron Man”, Mr. Fix sends an enhanced Whiplash to get revenge and prove that his weapons are effective against Iron Man. When Iron Man loses control of his own suit, Mr. Fix is thrashed, begs for his life, and is nearly killed when his lab is destroyed. In the episode "Don’t Worry, Be Happy", Iron Man suggests that Mr. Fix is trying to eliminate Unicorn and Killer Shrike upon learning that Mr. Fix hired them to perform a robbery, but, unbeknownst to them, equipped them with explosives powerful enough to destroy the entire city. Mr. Fix later returns in the second season under the employ of a shadowy figure and has Whiplash kidnap Obadiah Stane and Justin Hammer (who had orchestrated his own kidnapping). After escaping from Iron Man and being picked up in a limo, Mr. Fix is surprised that his mysterious benefactor was Hammer all along. Hammer's assistant Sasha then implants a nano-virus into Mr. Fix which Justin would activate if Mr. Fix threatens him or leaves his services. He later revives Living Laser in the episode "Look Into the Light" as part of Project Titanium yet the side effect ends up splitting Living Laser into a good side and a bad side. Although Living Laser gets away after both halves were reunited, Mr. Fix gives Justin Hammer a disk with the information needed to complete Project Titanium. In the episode "Titanium vs. Iron", Mr. Fix completes the Titanium Man armor yet Hammer wants to test drive it despite the fact that Mr. Fix hasn't found a way to bond the titanium with vibranium. Growing impatient that Mr. Fix had not yet found a way to properly bond titanium to vibranium following his first outing as Titanium Man, Hammer declares that Mr. Fix has failed for the last time and activates the nano-virus killing his physical body. However, Justin removed a flash drive with Mr. Fix's consciousness on it from a compartment in Mr. Fix's back and places it into a nearby console. Hammer tells Mr. Fix that his consciousness has evolved at the cost of his body and that now he can work on Hammer's other projects 24/7. In the episode "The Hawk and the Spider", Justin speaks with Mr. Fix 2.0 about the User Interface Chip which would be able to control the Titanium Man armor and that the User Interface Chip must be programmed well to be adapted to the armor. Hammer tells Mr. Fix 2.0 to find a way to make it work or he will download him into a hard drive and throw it into the sewer. In the episode "Heavy Mettle", Hammer uses a control device made by Mr. Fix 2.0 to control the Iron Monger armor into going berserk. In the episode "Hostile Takeover", Mr. Fix 2.0 works on the 'dissection' of Iron Man (whose armor was under lock-down to save enough power upon being knocked down by Titanium Man) even when the Iron Man armor is accidentally recharged during Killer Shrike and Unicorn's fight. When Hammer receives a shock trying to remove the Iron Man helmet, Mr. Fix 2.0 tells Justin that War Machine is approaching Hammer Multinational. In the episode "The Hammer Falls", Mr. Fix 2.0 creates the Zombie Gas which Justin tests on Count Nefaria. When Mr. Fix 2.0 is unable to trace the call of an individual who recently started blackmailing Justin, Justin tells him to trace the call or he will turn him into a social network for teens. Hammer later tells Mr. Fix 2.0 that he has failed to trace the blackmailer as Sasha tells Justin to leave Mr. Fix 2.0 alone. It is soon discovered that Mr. Fix 2.0 was responsible for the blackmail and had helped Iron Man expose Hammer as part of his revenge for what Justin did to him. After Hammer is dropped from his Titanium Man armor, Mr. Fix 2.0 then traps Justin in a Zombie Gas chamber which results in Iron Man blasting the console Mr. Fix 2.0 is in causing Mr. Fix 2.0 to disintegrate.
• The Paul Ebersol version of Fixer will appear in the anime series Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers.^[29]
• Roscoe Sweeney appears in the Netflix TV series Daredevil, portrayed by Kevin Nagle. As in the comics, he has Jack Murdock killed when the boxer refuses to take a dive in one of the matches. Following Jack's death, Sweeney laid low in another country under the alias Al Marino. In the episode "Kinbaku", Sweeney returns to his house where he is subdued by Elektra in order for Matt Murdock to enact revenge. Matt severely beats Roscoe but refuses to kill him. Instead, Matt turns him over to the police, much to Elektra's disappointment.
• Paul Ebersol appears in Avengers: Ultron Revolution, voiced by Rick D. Wasserman. This version is a former worker at Stark Industries until he was fired by Tony Stark for giving away company secrets. As Fixer, he first appears in the episode "Under Siege" as a member of the Masters of Evil due to his hatred for Iron Man.^[30] His Techno appearance appears in the episodes "Thunderbolts" and "Thunderbolts Revealed" as a member of the Thunderbolts.^[31]

Film

• In the feature film Daredevil, the Roscoe Sweeney version of Fixer is renamed Falon (played by Mark Margolis) while the Slade character is replaced by Wilson Fisk.

Video games

• The Paul Ebersol version of Fixer is featured as a boss in the Facebook game Marvel: Avengers Alliance. He is featured in a chapter 3 mission called "RAID-ical Resolution". He is also a playable character via earning lockboxes during PVP season 17.
• Paul Ebersol's Techno appearance appears in Lego Marvel's Avengers.
• The Paul Ebersol version of Fixer appears in Marvel: Avengers Alliance 2.^[32]

Music

• The industrial band Mentallo and the Fixer derive their name from Fixer (Paul Ebersol) and his former partner Mentallo.

References

External links

• Fixer I at Marvel.com
• Fixer II at Marvel.com
• Fixer I at Marvel Wikia
• Fixer II at Marvel Wikia
• Fixer I at Marvel Appendix