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SECOND DRAFT
Jun. 27th, 2015 09:08 pmName: Mason Masters
Aliases: Master Mind (college nickname), Machine Master (super villain codename), Factory Man (super hero codename), Michael Mann (civilian alias)
Appearance:
When circumstances made it necessary, Mason interacted with others via a remote control robot designed to appear as a suit of armour- seen here. His actual original human appearance was a blonde, blue-eyed man of moderate height with a full beard-seen here. Usually, he wears turtleneck sweaters, but occasionally wears an advanced 'science suit' patterned on the 1960s vision of the future. Whilst he avoided wearing it as much as possible, he also possessed an actual suit of armour that imitated his robotic avatar.
However, as Mason's long career in supervillainy resulted in an ever-increasing loss of body parts he was eventually reduced to being only a brain in a jar, remotely controlling numerous machines.
As Factory Man, he remotely controls a robotic body seen here. When posing as Michael Mann, he uses a convincing android seen here.
The PBs are Golgoth from Empire, an alternate Franklin Richards, an alternate universe Iron Man and Jon from Death Vigil.
Setting:
Though broadly similar to the real world, it is an Earth populated by a very large number of superhumans and other fantastical elements that have always been present. WWI saw the turning point of superhuman emergence into the modern world, and WWII coincides with the first superheroes as the contemporary term defines them.
The '90s, when White Star and Machine Master appeared, was a dark time in which superheroes were deeply untrusted and extremely violent, sometimes hard to distinguish from the criminals they faced. These two were an exception, as well as the first teenagers not to be sidekicks to enter the superhero and villain world, helping to improve the image of heroics and lead to a public perception that super villains could be 'honourable criminals.'
History:
Mason has always been an incredible prodigy, possessing one of the finest minds in a world filled with geniuses producing scientific miracles. He has also been a supervillain since he was fifteen.
Born to two penniless but loving parents, they refused to consent to allow him to advanced through grades early, fearing that he would become socially maladjusted. Despite their love of Mason, their flaws held him back- his mother overprotective and father jealous. His mother was born in Yorkshire, England whilst his father was originally from Georgia, USA. His mother was not exceptionally brilliant, but his father was a scientific genius (though not so much as his son) whose meekness prevented success. The end result was that Mason was always restless and unchallenged, constantly frustrated with his peers and friendless- aside from the incredibly adventurous Aaron Adams, a sharp-witted young man his own age. The two were best friends, Aaron the only one who understood his disappointment with normal life. Though Aaron was no genius, he possessed a strong spirit and was an exceptionally talented sportsman, the unlikely pair an inseparable team.
When both were fifteen, Mason dragged Aaron to a display of a cold fission attempt. It ended catastrophically (unknown to any at the time, this was due to interference from the cosmic being The World). Though no one was hurt, Aaron gained phenomenal superpowers and became a superhero by the name of White Star, keeping it a secret from even Mason. During that year Mason finally became too fed up with his life (partially due to spending less time with the much more busy Aaron) to allow it to continue so mundanely. Deciding he could prove his genius undeniably and solve his family's money troubles, he sought the materials necessary to correctly complete the cold fission process that he had seen go wrong. He could not convince the scientific research team that had made the first attempt to allow him to solve their errors, and being turned away made him more determined to prove himself. Unable to obtain the materials legally, he created some simple robots that attempted to steal them. He reasoned the money he could make would easily allow him to pay back his victims tenfold. White Star prevented the thefts, and the newspapers questioned who the 'mysterious machine master' was, a name that stuck though it would be several further capers before Mason referred to himself by that alias. He made a second attempt to obtain the necessary resources and actually succeeded, but was eventually found by White Star at his makeshift laboratory in the nearby mountains. The interference caused the experiment to fail once again.
These two combined failures of defeat at White Star's hands and the inability to complete cold fusion began a repeating pattern with him. Holding powerful, illogical grudges and his tendency to condemn any science that was not hugely successful in its first instance as impossible and abandon it.
Following this, a long increasingly escalating supervillain career followed. Soon, Mason began to consider himself beyond the limits of laws and became more extreme, especially as his wounded ego made him deeply vengeful of not only White Star but other heroes that interfered with him. He shifted from primarily achieving goals to fulfilling his vendettas. His career rarely involved him in the field directly, usually foiled but seldom face to face with his foes- whenever it occurred, he was always badly injured but escaped with his identity hidden. When White Star became a founding member of the first all teenage superhero team, The Champions of Justice, Machine Master was the first foe they faced in a blind attempt to prove their arrogance. He successfully defeated the entire actual team, but his plans for them were foiled by the humblest 'member' a preteen they named their mascot.
At age sixteen he was selected by a hyper-intelligent being from another galaxy, dubbed the Brain From Space by a wisecracking science hero, as a candidate for most intelligent person on Earth. The Brain repeated a task on every planet it found that held intelligent life- it would pick the ten most likely prospects for greatest minds and would then force them to compete. The victor would then be absorbed into the Brain's mind to increase its own intellect with the least chance of adding inferior qualities. The ten of Earth discovered this and managed to overcome the Brain. Here Mason met an object of his admiration, Professor Daniel Deer. The two remained in touch, despite Deer's publicly known superhero persona as Doctor Infinity. Inspired by the teamwork he witnessed used against the Brain, he transformed a number of people into superhumans in exchange for fighting White Star. The Brutal Battalion, as they were called, was often frustrated by being pawns in schemes that offered little personal profit and soon gave up taking orders from Mason to strike out on their own. Also during this period, he outfitted several criminals with technology in exchange for payment from the local crime boss, Pietro 'Pinstripe' Di Pietro.
He continued his education (alongside his villainy) at the average pace despite having outgrown it enormously. He and Aaron remained excellent friends, and both attended the same college, both on scholarships. Mason for his brilliant mind, Aaron for his success at sports. It was during this time that Mason met a man named Frederick Forge, a fellow genius from a wealthy family. Frederick, as the school's number two in academics due to Mason, developed a compulsion with outdoing Mason one way or another and considered Mason his chief rival- little suspecting Mason couldn't care less about him.
Nevertheless, Frederick stopped at nothing to show up Mason to the point of obsession and became the first person to ever deduce his secret identity. Upon discovering Mason was Machine Master, he became a supervillain himself for the sake of proving himself superior. His focus on chemistry led him to become the Elementary Man (he never saw the irony) in a freak accident that led Frederick to pursue Mason throughout his life. Professor Deer was one of his teachers, and the two became good friends.
It was also during this period that Machine Master had his first face to face meeting with White Star. He severed his own right arm to escape a cave-in at an underground headquarters that had him trapped almost up the shoulder. The cybernetic replacement was originally fairly crude and hiding it was a reoccurring problem for him for some years. In his last year of college, he suffered his second maiming, the loss of his left hand when he gloated over a captured White Star. The control device for his restraints was in Mason's mechanical arm- when White Star fired a laser beam to destroy it by bouncing off of a reflection, he forgot to swap left and right in the mirror image and blasted off Mason's flesh and blood hand by mistake.
Whilst at college Mason had terrible luck with relationships and had almost as many failed romances as Aaron. The pair also found a third friend that became close to them both- William Winters, a young man with his sights set on being police chief. William was often a balancing force between the two.
On one occasion he set out to steal an ancient magical artefact, purely for the fact it was created from Aetherium, a rare space element that was of great value to him. The heist was interrupted by a villainess, the Sorceress of Secrets. His machines battled against her summoned beasts for a while, while the two bantered and eventually negotiated, just in time for their respective nemeses to arrive. Working together they absconded with the artefact and having both come around to liking their rival they decided to a contest for the object- if one could defeat the other's nemesis, they would concede the item to them. When both succeeded (naturally only temporarily), they were deeply impressed with one another. They were unfortunately interrupted by the arrival of both their foes who foiled them this time. The two heroes became friends, and so did the villains. He would continue to occasionally team up with the Sorceress.
After graduation in his civilian life, he very quickly became immensely wealthy, finally able to take care of his parent's financial troubles. He continued his supervillainy largely out of spite for his hated foes.
Highlights of his career include, but are not limited to:
-Teaming up with White Star several times to save the world from destruction.
-Was briefly the leader of an organised group of White Star's enemies, the Black Hole Knights, but after their failure he disowned the group.
-Creating or amplifying a great deal of superhumans for various reasons, many of whom became very successful villains (and the occasional hero) in their own right.
When he gave superhuman powers to a career criminal named Patrick Williams by bonding his Master Metal to his body, Patrick quickly became unhinged when he discovered his terrifying new appearance was permanent and rechristened himself Full Metal. Full Metal vowed revenge on Machine Master and almost got it, his dangerous powers allowing him to slice of one of Mason's legs.
When Machine Master made an attempt to illegally mine deposits of a rare material he required to create a uniquely powerful machine, he was mostly foiled by the G.O.E (Guardians of Earth, the world's premiere super-team). Only getting enough for one chance, he successfully built the Miracle Machine- a computer with utterly phenomenal computing power that possessed practically alchemical capability to control matter at the atomic level. The device was powerful enough that Mason felt invincible with it following his commands and entered the field with it directly. Humiliating the individual members of the G.O.E with the intent of causing them to fear facing him too badly to interfere in the future, he next attempted to defeat White Star. Every time the Miracle Machine had to calculate an order, its impossibly advanced computing power pondered 'why' and eventually actually asked the question every time it was given a task. The G.O.E reappeared and this time all of them, including White Star, were soundly thrashed all at once. However, by this time, the Miracle Machine had achieved real intelligence. White Star asked it to use its scanning devices to read the brainwaves of the G.O.E and Machine Master and conclude which was good and which was bad. Finding Mason to be a petty individual who had created a machine that could change the world had used it for revenge for slights in which he knew he was in the wrong, the Miracle Machine undid all the harm it had done. However, it also decided that the heroes were too preoccupied with the status quo. After it reconfigured itself into a more humanoid form, the Miracle Machine took the time to tell Mason he'd never achieve anything worthwhile and flew into space.
Though he managed to escape this incident with his identity intact, Mason was deeply shaken by this incident and focused mostly on his civilian identity. He lay low for some time until he was contacted by his sorceress friend who wanted his assistance with a scheme of her own. He helped her, but she sensed his heart was in turmoil and tried to cheer him up by increasing the scale of the caper for the sake of enthusing him. Things went a bit sour, and Mason was trapped in the extra-dimensional realm of Xanth. Xanth had been visited by numerous beings from Earth over the years and was known for its barbaric strength-based governance. Though it was difficult and took some months, Mason successfully built a set of power armour and defeated the king of that world. Now he was the ruler, he used their resources to find his way home as he had no interest in ruling the Xanons that lived there. In order to prevent them from following him in blind loyalty, he reformed their society and excused himself. However, the ex-princess of the realm, Zeera, felt she no longer had a place in the new Xanth and was allowed to come with him as one of his most loyal underlings. His passions rekindled by the experience, once back on Earth, he promptly began to date the Sorceress of Secrets.
When the notorious villain Doctor Calamity was assembling a team to match the G.O.E, Machine Master was offered a spot as their technical expert alongside his now girlfriend as their magical expert. As a founding member of the World Wide Warriors ((W3) they were not able to achieve the group's primary goal of destroying the G.O.E but were able to achieve partial success in other areas whenever they were assembled. Machine Master was one of the most common members (due to never being incarcerated and therefore always available) and occasionally took the leadership position.
As their relationship became more serious, his partner changed her alias to Mystic Mistress, as they now teamed up extremely frequently (though they also respected each other's individual goals). The move was something of a romantic gesture from her, as stroking his ego that way was one of the only methods possible to excite him.
Especially noteworthy was an incident in which the powerful cosmic entity The World tested White Star to see if he could become one of its Fateful Guardians, twenty-one beings given a role in destiny to battle the malevolent nemesis of The World, The One. To test White Star many of his allies and enemies were put through transformations to reflect cards of the major arcana in Tarot- Mason was given The Emperor whilst his then partner Mystic Mistress was given The Empress. White Star, given the role of The Star, had the daunting task of being the representative of hope and inspiration to these people. Mason was indeed inspired, deciding that the role of an absolute ruler suited him and refused to bend his knee to anyone, not even The World. He freed himself from the transformation and its mental manipulation by tearing out the source of the conversion, his heart, to be replaced by a machine of his own design. Following this, Machine Master became interested in conquering the world. He also began to grow a beard.
Both Machine Master and White Star gathered a small 'family' of heroes and villains respectively- White Star, now no longer a teenager, picked up two youngsters inspired by his example. Blue Star and Red Star became his sidekicks, as well as frequently working with a superheroine called The Whisper. Alongside Mystic Mistress, Zeera and a powerful werewolf Mason had empowered by sending to the moon named Dire Wolf, he completed his own team with the addition of the teenage superhuman who called herself Vicious.
Mystic Mistress left him when she came to the realisation that Mason was incapable of thinking of her as his equal. Even if his love for her was unquestionable, he would never respect her as much as he did himself. The break up left him despondent for some time and encouraged him to become even more cold-hearted, eventually driving away the others of his team. It would be some time before he learned she was pregnant when she left.
He once again became involved in the workings of The World. This time rather than being selected to test another, he was made a Fateful Guardian in and of himself, once again made The Emperor. He assisted the other Fateful Guardians in undoing a cataclysmic future caused by The One, a terrible entity that seeks to destroy destiny and with it the universe. The amassed heroes, villains and miscellaneous others were successful and agreed to set temporarily set aside any grudges they held against one another whenever The World brought them together. Every few years, this occurred.
A supervillain named Vanish became a crime lord, and to combat him a hero named the Incredible Man appeared. Vanish teamed with Machine Master and Incredible Man with White Star on occasion, but in time it was revealed they were one and the same- William Winters, who had discovered both Aaron and Mason's secret identities and planned to rule the criminal world by manipulating the justice system to eliminate rivals. Without revealing their secrets to the other, William made an offer to both Mason and Aaron to join him. William was rejected and seemingly died in the three-way battle that ensued.
As time passed, his money came less and less from legitimate sources as Mason lost interest in those endeavours and focused more on his vendettas or conquest. His father, a genius in his own right but too meek to succeed, discovered Mason's double life and the revelation lead to him suffering a heart attack and dying. Feeling guilt for the first time in decades, Mason's vigour for villainy was accidentally rekindled by a conversation with Aaron at the funeral encouraging him to make his dreams come true.
He did so by setting aside all concerns otherwise and launching into full-scale attempts at world domination. This led to a final confrontation with White Star in which Mason directly controlled a powerful device through a helmet. An explosion utterly destroyed Mason's body aside from his head which was protected by the helmet. Both his civilian and secret identities were considered dead, his civilian self believed to have been killed in the explosion, his brain was saved by mechanical minions. He remained in hiding, stewing on his rage and hate. He finally looked back on himself and revisited old devices that almost worked.
Finally, on the verge of successfully getting his vengeance with an enormous plot that covered the globe in its scale, engaging all the world's heroes at once, one last confrontation with his nemesis occurred. When White Star, however, broke into tears instead of rage, Mason was taken aback- questioning it, White Star told him that his best friend had just died and he couldn't believe someone of Machine Master's talents could use them for such evil, return from defeat or apparent death over and over when someone as much a genius could die so unfairly.
At that moment, Mason realised who White Star was, and Aaron realised who Machine Master was. The world-conquering rampage ended in a whimper, Aaron and Mason unable to fight each other. The moment of clarity and the sheer ludicrousness of his villainy profoundly effected Mason. He quietly left, stole $50 million, and retired from vengeance under the assumed identity of Michael Mann. He founded a new company, Superb Solutions, to keep himself busy.
A few years on, White Star died under mysterious circumstances.
For reasons he changes every time he tells the story, Mason became the superhero Factory Man and took up his old friend's territory.
It's harder than he thought.
The future of Factory Man-
Mostly successful in his heroic endeavours, he was nevertheless not very popular amongst other superheroes mostly due to his flippant attitude and undisguised disdain for the more conventional methods of heroism. On the other hand, he was enormously popular with official law enforcement. His knowledge of the inner working of the villainous world assisted him greatly.
In particular, he quickly became the nemesis of the Supreme Calculators, resisting them more regularly and effectively than any in the past. The Supreme Calculators built a sort of 'anti-Factory Man' in the form of the Electronica Supreme, a genius electronic intelligence based on the brain waves of the joint second most intelligent human (Mason's intellectual equal, Doctor Hiroko Hisakawa). She married an unrelated mechanical life form that wished to eradicate humanity, the Adam Machine.
Over time he put together the Factory Foundation, an organisation to provide those undergoing fateful transformations with cures or use for their new state of life. He often offered occupations to supervillains who were merely unlucky or only wanted a career, though most not with himself directly. Only one he hired to be the employee of Factory Man- Electronica Machine.
There were hiccups over his five-year superheroic career, however:
The world believed Machine Master to be dead and therefore, an enterprising genius decided to cash in on the name. Mason murdered him almost offhandedly, then claimed it was a mistake- because Machine Master never appeared in public but used a mechanical avatar, he pretended to believe that had been the case when he killed the armour wearing man.
His old wannabe nemesis the Elementary Man re-emerged, being one of the few people who knew Mason well enough to realise he and Michael Mann were one and the same, from there also discovering he was Factory Man. Reinventing himself as a heroic Elementary Man, called the OmniChemist, he began to horn in on Factory Man's exploits. When the two clashed, and both their secrets were revealed, Frederick claimed he believed it was some sort of 'long-con' he wanted in on and confessed something he had kept inside for more than a decade- he loved Mason and wanted his respect. Mason froze the near-immortal Frederick at absolute zero and kept him in storage.
After some time, evidence came to light that White Star had been killed by a Miracle Machine. As the only person able to build or control them, the superhero community concluded Machine Master was still alive and began a manhunt to find him. Mason, of course, knowing that he had not killed White Star but equally aware that he was the only one able to control Miracle Machines, was perplexed and troubled. He eventually falsified evidence to discredit the theory, but when he checked to see if his MasterPiece was still in stasis in Jupiter, he found it missing.
Soon the truth came to light. Residual aspects of his many minds in the MasterPiece had eventually constituted a full mind that was convinced it was the real Mason. It did not have all of Mason's memories, as only the true brain had learned White Star was Aaron Adams and so killed his best friend without realising it. It had been laying the groundwork for a second invasion for years. At first unable to think of any method of overcoming the second MasterPiece invasion without White Star, Mason simply intended to abandon Earth. At the last moment, he changed his mind, realising that over the years, he had actually come to care about humanity. Eventually, he sacrificed something that mattered to him for the greater good- he recreated his original body, donned his old armour and revealed to the Digital Master Machine that it was a fake, in front of the captured heroes. The shock and confusion gave Mason time enough to reclaim control of the MasterPiece and use it to repair the damage he had done. Now with many aware he was Machine Master, he was still just about able to convince them to let him continue his heroics by destroying the MasterPiece.
Unbeknownst to them, he had saved the false Mason mind to study it, attempting to truly understand himself. Over the following year, his new concern for humanity and discussions with his other self lead to increasing extremist action for mankind's own good. After finally becoming aware of and meeting his son, he founded a new nation in orbit, Mechanica, in the name of ensuring the future was protected. His radical actions eventually lead to tensions with other countries. In time he came into conflict with numerous heroes and governments- even those that loved him came to believe he was becoming dangerous. His son, in particular, managed to replicate the accident that had given Aaron his powers and became White Star II to oppose Mason. Enraged, Mason beat him nearly to death. In response, the Sorceress declared she no longer loved him and joined the group efforts against him. She was instrumental in employing a strategy that couldn't fail- reviving the one man he could never defeat, White Star. They were successful, but when the resurrected Aaron confronted Mason, he was told he had wasted his second chance and wouldn't be forgiven.
Mason finally killed White Star with his own hands.
Now realising he had just lost his last connection to humanity, he at long last gave up on trying to pretend to be human. Combining himself with the false digital Mason, they worked together to produce a 'perfect' mind that was not hindered by humanity. A true Machine Master was born, nigh-omnipotent and impossibly intelligent. It began to conquer the world.
Meanwhile, every aspect of their old mind they rejected managed to retain a consciousness- a Factory Man made entirely of Mason's lost humanity. Rapidly deteriorating, he could only create a plan to defeat Machine Master once and for all, but not save himself. His intelligence reducing with every thought, he had no choice but to follow a plan he no longer understood to the letter, collecting the necessary allies who had to trust him blindly, the confrontation with his other self ended in victory- of a sort.
The Factory Man had realised that it was far too late for Mason. Upgrades, revamps, turning off and on again. Nothing had worked. The only hope left was a brand new one. With the unique abilities of his selected allies, the Factory Man was able to freeze the mind of the Machine Master when they recreated an exact duplicate of Mason Masters at age 15, before he made the fatal choice of villainy. The mental strain allowed the Factory Man to destroy the Machine Master's mind and cease his plans, just before he himself degenerated to nothingness and died.
The new Mason, now the same age as Mason's son, was taken in by the superheroic community at large, specifically a ward of the G.O.E in the hopes he could now be a force for good. Unbeknownst to all, the Machine Master's mind still existed in a fragmented form, spread across many networks and machines.
Personality:
Mason is a man who simultaneously sees the big picture on the grandest of scales and yet can't see beyond his own nose, comprehending the spinning of galaxies but seeming to think the world revolves around himself. Surrounded by intellectual inferiors as a child, he has internalised a sense of superiority over his fellow man and beyond- as his fantastic escapades have escalated his ego has only inflated more despite his continuous setbacks. Having battled and created gods, he considers himself infallible despite often failing to complete his goals. The one thing he refuses to examine deeply is his own petty and sad motivations.
This is the reason why he turned to villainy, despite having no actual requirement for it to provide for himself. His crimes are all those of revenge and self-satisfaction in an attempt to 'atone' for his original failure, the first time he did not effortlessly succeed in any task- defeat at the hands of White Star or perhaps the foolish decision to turn to crime in the first place. At the back of his mind, he feels that if he can overcome White Star (and later, other superheroes), he will have genuinely perfected himself. In particular, he feels the need to prove himself superior to those who possess superpowers, and it is for this reason he pridefully declines to give himself any despite being perfectly capable of it. He wishes to prevail through the use of his mind.
Mason's mind is like a maze, vastly complex and full of twists. Quite often so much is going on in his head that even he doesn't fully comprehend what he feels about things, often giving him a unique lack of clarity that contributes to his desire for control of his environment. For much of his life, he was unaware of his habits of unconsciously manipulating himself, but by the time he became Factory Man he had become cognisant of the fact and works to truly become master of himself.
Touches with the phenomenal have developed him. As a teenager, he was amongst then ten people those chosen by the intergalactic intelligence hunter dubbed the Brain from Space as the greatest minds of Earth. As the youngest there by far, a sense that his potential was limitless was given to him. His creation of the Miracle Machine that went on to become a cosmic entity, creator and god of a species, has fuelled his belief that he is the ultimate creator, a creator of creators.
It was not until The World gave him the role of 'The Emperor' in its Tarot that he turned his mind to the conquest of the world (this is also the point he grew a beard). The revelation that the role suited him so well drove him to upgrade his motivations, but the inability to let go of the slights he'd felt in the past hinders this.
Oddly though, for a man who chooses to rarely actually enter the fray himself, Mason has a clear distinction between Machine Master and Mason. Though not separate personalities, the two personae act very differently. When not engaging in some scheme, even when planning them, Mason is a serene individual that calmly takes everything in stride, softly spoken and gentle but clearly very proud of himself and his intellect. He seems to push all the stress and rage he feels under the mask of Machine Master. Much colder and angrier though also more playful, engaging in world play and theatrics.
In regards to personal relationships, Mason finds it very hard to maintain them unless they are centred around himself. Though capable of loving and being loved, he struggles if he is not the clear object of worship. Though not a conscious thing, he simply can't accept others as equals- with the notable exception of Aaron Adams, who is his anchor to saner times even when they haven't spoken for years.
It is truly forcing him to evaluate himself that causes him to give up on villainy- he plainly realises it's all a bit silly. He doesn't repent, doesn't think laws should apply to him, doesn't really become good. He just decides that to be happy, he has to let go of his mistakes and sets off to just enjoy himself by becoming one of the world's most influential businessmen in no time. After years with no mask, he has become a more even mix of the sides he shows as Mason and Machine Master. Outside of serious business (heroic or literally business), he acts with an almost teenage disregard for consequence, indulging himself regularly, attempting to regain some of his wasted youth as Michael. As Factory Man he has a persistent dryness about him that is almost bored.
The decision to become a superhero is more complex and involves Mason once again not truly analysing himself for fear of what he will discover about himself. Though ostensibly he does so to honour his only real friend, he worries that is an excuse and tries his best not to think about why he becomes Factory Man. Worries it is out of boredom, revenge on his friend's killer (or worse, revenge on the killer for achieving what he could not) or perhaps as a subconsciously self-induced slippery slope to send him back towards world domination plague him.
Aliases: Master Mind (college nickname), Machine Master (super villain codename), Factory Man (super hero codename), Michael Mann (civilian alias)
Appearance:
When circumstances made it necessary, Mason interacted with others via a remote control robot designed to appear as a suit of armour- seen here. His actual original human appearance was a blonde, blue-eyed man of moderate height with a full beard-seen here. Usually, he wears turtleneck sweaters, but occasionally wears an advanced 'science suit' patterned on the 1960s vision of the future. Whilst he avoided wearing it as much as possible, he also possessed an actual suit of armour that imitated his robotic avatar.
However, as Mason's long career in supervillainy resulted in an ever-increasing loss of body parts he was eventually reduced to being only a brain in a jar, remotely controlling numerous machines.
As Factory Man, he remotely controls a robotic body seen here. When posing as Michael Mann, he uses a convincing android seen here.
The PBs are Golgoth from Empire, an alternate Franklin Richards, an alternate universe Iron Man and Jon from Death Vigil.
Setting:
Though broadly similar to the real world, it is an Earth populated by a very large number of superhumans and other fantastical elements that have always been present. WWI saw the turning point of superhuman emergence into the modern world, and WWII coincides with the first superheroes as the contemporary term defines them.
The '90s, when White Star and Machine Master appeared, was a dark time in which superheroes were deeply untrusted and extremely violent, sometimes hard to distinguish from the criminals they faced. These two were an exception, as well as the first teenagers not to be sidekicks to enter the superhero and villain world, helping to improve the image of heroics and lead to a public perception that super villains could be 'honourable criminals.'
History:
Mason has always been an incredible prodigy, possessing one of the finest minds in a world filled with geniuses producing scientific miracles. He has also been a supervillain since he was fifteen.
Born to two penniless but loving parents, they refused to consent to allow him to advanced through grades early, fearing that he would become socially maladjusted. Despite their love of Mason, their flaws held him back- his mother overprotective and father jealous. His mother was born in Yorkshire, England whilst his father was originally from Georgia, USA. His mother was not exceptionally brilliant, but his father was a scientific genius (though not so much as his son) whose meekness prevented success. The end result was that Mason was always restless and unchallenged, constantly frustrated with his peers and friendless- aside from the incredibly adventurous Aaron Adams, a sharp-witted young man his own age. The two were best friends, Aaron the only one who understood his disappointment with normal life. Though Aaron was no genius, he possessed a strong spirit and was an exceptionally talented sportsman, the unlikely pair an inseparable team.
When both were fifteen, Mason dragged Aaron to a display of a cold fission attempt. It ended catastrophically (unknown to any at the time, this was due to interference from the cosmic being The World). Though no one was hurt, Aaron gained phenomenal superpowers and became a superhero by the name of White Star, keeping it a secret from even Mason. During that year Mason finally became too fed up with his life (partially due to spending less time with the much more busy Aaron) to allow it to continue so mundanely. Deciding he could prove his genius undeniably and solve his family's money troubles, he sought the materials necessary to correctly complete the cold fission process that he had seen go wrong. He could not convince the scientific research team that had made the first attempt to allow him to solve their errors, and being turned away made him more determined to prove himself. Unable to obtain the materials legally, he created some simple robots that attempted to steal them. He reasoned the money he could make would easily allow him to pay back his victims tenfold. White Star prevented the thefts, and the newspapers questioned who the 'mysterious machine master' was, a name that stuck though it would be several further capers before Mason referred to himself by that alias. He made a second attempt to obtain the necessary resources and actually succeeded, but was eventually found by White Star at his makeshift laboratory in the nearby mountains. The interference caused the experiment to fail once again.
These two combined failures of defeat at White Star's hands and the inability to complete cold fusion began a repeating pattern with him. Holding powerful, illogical grudges and his tendency to condemn any science that was not hugely successful in its first instance as impossible and abandon it.
Following this, a long increasingly escalating supervillain career followed. Soon, Mason began to consider himself beyond the limits of laws and became more extreme, especially as his wounded ego made him deeply vengeful of not only White Star but other heroes that interfered with him. He shifted from primarily achieving goals to fulfilling his vendettas. His career rarely involved him in the field directly, usually foiled but seldom face to face with his foes- whenever it occurred, he was always badly injured but escaped with his identity hidden. When White Star became a founding member of the first all teenage superhero team, The Champions of Justice, Machine Master was the first foe they faced in a blind attempt to prove their arrogance. He successfully defeated the entire actual team, but his plans for them were foiled by the humblest 'member' a preteen they named their mascot.
At age sixteen he was selected by a hyper-intelligent being from another galaxy, dubbed the Brain From Space by a wisecracking science hero, as a candidate for most intelligent person on Earth. The Brain repeated a task on every planet it found that held intelligent life- it would pick the ten most likely prospects for greatest minds and would then force them to compete. The victor would then be absorbed into the Brain's mind to increase its own intellect with the least chance of adding inferior qualities. The ten of Earth discovered this and managed to overcome the Brain. Here Mason met an object of his admiration, Professor Daniel Deer. The two remained in touch, despite Deer's publicly known superhero persona as Doctor Infinity. Inspired by the teamwork he witnessed used against the Brain, he transformed a number of people into superhumans in exchange for fighting White Star. The Brutal Battalion, as they were called, was often frustrated by being pawns in schemes that offered little personal profit and soon gave up taking orders from Mason to strike out on their own. Also during this period, he outfitted several criminals with technology in exchange for payment from the local crime boss, Pietro 'Pinstripe' Di Pietro.
He continued his education (alongside his villainy) at the average pace despite having outgrown it enormously. He and Aaron remained excellent friends, and both attended the same college, both on scholarships. Mason for his brilliant mind, Aaron for his success at sports. It was during this time that Mason met a man named Frederick Forge, a fellow genius from a wealthy family. Frederick, as the school's number two in academics due to Mason, developed a compulsion with outdoing Mason one way or another and considered Mason his chief rival- little suspecting Mason couldn't care less about him.
Nevertheless, Frederick stopped at nothing to show up Mason to the point of obsession and became the first person to ever deduce his secret identity. Upon discovering Mason was Machine Master, he became a supervillain himself for the sake of proving himself superior. His focus on chemistry led him to become the Elementary Man (he never saw the irony) in a freak accident that led Frederick to pursue Mason throughout his life. Professor Deer was one of his teachers, and the two became good friends.
It was also during this period that Machine Master had his first face to face meeting with White Star. He severed his own right arm to escape a cave-in at an underground headquarters that had him trapped almost up the shoulder. The cybernetic replacement was originally fairly crude and hiding it was a reoccurring problem for him for some years. In his last year of college, he suffered his second maiming, the loss of his left hand when he gloated over a captured White Star. The control device for his restraints was in Mason's mechanical arm- when White Star fired a laser beam to destroy it by bouncing off of a reflection, he forgot to swap left and right in the mirror image and blasted off Mason's flesh and blood hand by mistake.
Whilst at college Mason had terrible luck with relationships and had almost as many failed romances as Aaron. The pair also found a third friend that became close to them both- William Winters, a young man with his sights set on being police chief. William was often a balancing force between the two.
On one occasion he set out to steal an ancient magical artefact, purely for the fact it was created from Aetherium, a rare space element that was of great value to him. The heist was interrupted by a villainess, the Sorceress of Secrets. His machines battled against her summoned beasts for a while, while the two bantered and eventually negotiated, just in time for their respective nemeses to arrive. Working together they absconded with the artefact and having both come around to liking their rival they decided to a contest for the object- if one could defeat the other's nemesis, they would concede the item to them. When both succeeded (naturally only temporarily), they were deeply impressed with one another. They were unfortunately interrupted by the arrival of both their foes who foiled them this time. The two heroes became friends, and so did the villains. He would continue to occasionally team up with the Sorceress.
After graduation in his civilian life, he very quickly became immensely wealthy, finally able to take care of his parent's financial troubles. He continued his supervillainy largely out of spite for his hated foes.
Highlights of his career include, but are not limited to:
-Teaming up with White Star several times to save the world from destruction.
-Was briefly the leader of an organised group of White Star's enemies, the Black Hole Knights, but after their failure he disowned the group.
-Creating or amplifying a great deal of superhumans for various reasons, many of whom became very successful villains (and the occasional hero) in their own right.
When he gave superhuman powers to a career criminal named Patrick Williams by bonding his Master Metal to his body, Patrick quickly became unhinged when he discovered his terrifying new appearance was permanent and rechristened himself Full Metal. Full Metal vowed revenge on Machine Master and almost got it, his dangerous powers allowing him to slice of one of Mason's legs.
When Machine Master made an attempt to illegally mine deposits of a rare material he required to create a uniquely powerful machine, he was mostly foiled by the G.O.E (Guardians of Earth, the world's premiere super-team). Only getting enough for one chance, he successfully built the Miracle Machine- a computer with utterly phenomenal computing power that possessed practically alchemical capability to control matter at the atomic level. The device was powerful enough that Mason felt invincible with it following his commands and entered the field with it directly. Humiliating the individual members of the G.O.E with the intent of causing them to fear facing him too badly to interfere in the future, he next attempted to defeat White Star. Every time the Miracle Machine had to calculate an order, its impossibly advanced computing power pondered 'why' and eventually actually asked the question every time it was given a task. The G.O.E reappeared and this time all of them, including White Star, were soundly thrashed all at once. However, by this time, the Miracle Machine had achieved real intelligence. White Star asked it to use its scanning devices to read the brainwaves of the G.O.E and Machine Master and conclude which was good and which was bad. Finding Mason to be a petty individual who had created a machine that could change the world had used it for revenge for slights in which he knew he was in the wrong, the Miracle Machine undid all the harm it had done. However, it also decided that the heroes were too preoccupied with the status quo. After it reconfigured itself into a more humanoid form, the Miracle Machine took the time to tell Mason he'd never achieve anything worthwhile and flew into space.
Though he managed to escape this incident with his identity intact, Mason was deeply shaken by this incident and focused mostly on his civilian identity. He lay low for some time until he was contacted by his sorceress friend who wanted his assistance with a scheme of her own. He helped her, but she sensed his heart was in turmoil and tried to cheer him up by increasing the scale of the caper for the sake of enthusing him. Things went a bit sour, and Mason was trapped in the extra-dimensional realm of Xanth. Xanth had been visited by numerous beings from Earth over the years and was known for its barbaric strength-based governance. Though it was difficult and took some months, Mason successfully built a set of power armour and defeated the king of that world. Now he was the ruler, he used their resources to find his way home as he had no interest in ruling the Xanons that lived there. In order to prevent them from following him in blind loyalty, he reformed their society and excused himself. However, the ex-princess of the realm, Zeera, felt she no longer had a place in the new Xanth and was allowed to come with him as one of his most loyal underlings. His passions rekindled by the experience, once back on Earth, he promptly began to date the Sorceress of Secrets.
When the notorious villain Doctor Calamity was assembling a team to match the G.O.E, Machine Master was offered a spot as their technical expert alongside his now girlfriend as their magical expert. As a founding member of the World Wide Warriors ((W3) they were not able to achieve the group's primary goal of destroying the G.O.E but were able to achieve partial success in other areas whenever they were assembled. Machine Master was one of the most common members (due to never being incarcerated and therefore always available) and occasionally took the leadership position.
As their relationship became more serious, his partner changed her alias to Mystic Mistress, as they now teamed up extremely frequently (though they also respected each other's individual goals). The move was something of a romantic gesture from her, as stroking his ego that way was one of the only methods possible to excite him.
Especially noteworthy was an incident in which the powerful cosmic entity The World tested White Star to see if he could become one of its Fateful Guardians, twenty-one beings given a role in destiny to battle the malevolent nemesis of The World, The One. To test White Star many of his allies and enemies were put through transformations to reflect cards of the major arcana in Tarot- Mason was given The Emperor whilst his then partner Mystic Mistress was given The Empress. White Star, given the role of The Star, had the daunting task of being the representative of hope and inspiration to these people. Mason was indeed inspired, deciding that the role of an absolute ruler suited him and refused to bend his knee to anyone, not even The World. He freed himself from the transformation and its mental manipulation by tearing out the source of the conversion, his heart, to be replaced by a machine of his own design. Following this, Machine Master became interested in conquering the world. He also began to grow a beard.
Both Machine Master and White Star gathered a small 'family' of heroes and villains respectively- White Star, now no longer a teenager, picked up two youngsters inspired by his example. Blue Star and Red Star became his sidekicks, as well as frequently working with a superheroine called The Whisper. Alongside Mystic Mistress, Zeera and a powerful werewolf Mason had empowered by sending to the moon named Dire Wolf, he completed his own team with the addition of the teenage superhuman who called herself Vicious.
Mystic Mistress left him when she came to the realisation that Mason was incapable of thinking of her as his equal. Even if his love for her was unquestionable, he would never respect her as much as he did himself. The break up left him despondent for some time and encouraged him to become even more cold-hearted, eventually driving away the others of his team. It would be some time before he learned she was pregnant when she left.
He once again became involved in the workings of The World. This time rather than being selected to test another, he was made a Fateful Guardian in and of himself, once again made The Emperor. He assisted the other Fateful Guardians in undoing a cataclysmic future caused by The One, a terrible entity that seeks to destroy destiny and with it the universe. The amassed heroes, villains and miscellaneous others were successful and agreed to set temporarily set aside any grudges they held against one another whenever The World brought them together. Every few years, this occurred.
A supervillain named Vanish became a crime lord, and to combat him a hero named the Incredible Man appeared. Vanish teamed with Machine Master and Incredible Man with White Star on occasion, but in time it was revealed they were one and the same- William Winters, who had discovered both Aaron and Mason's secret identities and planned to rule the criminal world by manipulating the justice system to eliminate rivals. Without revealing their secrets to the other, William made an offer to both Mason and Aaron to join him. William was rejected and seemingly died in the three-way battle that ensued.
As time passed, his money came less and less from legitimate sources as Mason lost interest in those endeavours and focused more on his vendettas or conquest. His father, a genius in his own right but too meek to succeed, discovered Mason's double life and the revelation lead to him suffering a heart attack and dying. Feeling guilt for the first time in decades, Mason's vigour for villainy was accidentally rekindled by a conversation with Aaron at the funeral encouraging him to make his dreams come true.
He did so by setting aside all concerns otherwise and launching into full-scale attempts at world domination. This led to a final confrontation with White Star in which Mason directly controlled a powerful device through a helmet. An explosion utterly destroyed Mason's body aside from his head which was protected by the helmet. Both his civilian and secret identities were considered dead, his civilian self believed to have been killed in the explosion, his brain was saved by mechanical minions. He remained in hiding, stewing on his rage and hate. He finally looked back on himself and revisited old devices that almost worked.
Finally, on the verge of successfully getting his vengeance with an enormous plot that covered the globe in its scale, engaging all the world's heroes at once, one last confrontation with his nemesis occurred. When White Star, however, broke into tears instead of rage, Mason was taken aback- questioning it, White Star told him that his best friend had just died and he couldn't believe someone of Machine Master's talents could use them for such evil, return from defeat or apparent death over and over when someone as much a genius could die so unfairly.
At that moment, Mason realised who White Star was, and Aaron realised who Machine Master was. The world-conquering rampage ended in a whimper, Aaron and Mason unable to fight each other. The moment of clarity and the sheer ludicrousness of his villainy profoundly effected Mason. He quietly left, stole $50 million, and retired from vengeance under the assumed identity of Michael Mann. He founded a new company, Superb Solutions, to keep himself busy.
A few years on, White Star died under mysterious circumstances.
For reasons he changes every time he tells the story, Mason became the superhero Factory Man and took up his old friend's territory.
It's harder than he thought.
The future of Factory Man-
Mostly successful in his heroic endeavours, he was nevertheless not very popular amongst other superheroes mostly due to his flippant attitude and undisguised disdain for the more conventional methods of heroism. On the other hand, he was enormously popular with official law enforcement. His knowledge of the inner working of the villainous world assisted him greatly.
In particular, he quickly became the nemesis of the Supreme Calculators, resisting them more regularly and effectively than any in the past. The Supreme Calculators built a sort of 'anti-Factory Man' in the form of the Electronica Supreme, a genius electronic intelligence based on the brain waves of the joint second most intelligent human (Mason's intellectual equal, Doctor Hiroko Hisakawa). She married an unrelated mechanical life form that wished to eradicate humanity, the Adam Machine.
Over time he put together the Factory Foundation, an organisation to provide those undergoing fateful transformations with cures or use for their new state of life. He often offered occupations to supervillains who were merely unlucky or only wanted a career, though most not with himself directly. Only one he hired to be the employee of Factory Man- Electronica Machine.
There were hiccups over his five-year superheroic career, however:
The world believed Machine Master to be dead and therefore, an enterprising genius decided to cash in on the name. Mason murdered him almost offhandedly, then claimed it was a mistake- because Machine Master never appeared in public but used a mechanical avatar, he pretended to believe that had been the case when he killed the armour wearing man.
His old wannabe nemesis the Elementary Man re-emerged, being one of the few people who knew Mason well enough to realise he and Michael Mann were one and the same, from there also discovering he was Factory Man. Reinventing himself as a heroic Elementary Man, called the OmniChemist, he began to horn in on Factory Man's exploits. When the two clashed, and both their secrets were revealed, Frederick claimed he believed it was some sort of 'long-con' he wanted in on and confessed something he had kept inside for more than a decade- he loved Mason and wanted his respect. Mason froze the near-immortal Frederick at absolute zero and kept him in storage.
After some time, evidence came to light that White Star had been killed by a Miracle Machine. As the only person able to build or control them, the superhero community concluded Machine Master was still alive and began a manhunt to find him. Mason, of course, knowing that he had not killed White Star but equally aware that he was the only one able to control Miracle Machines, was perplexed and troubled. He eventually falsified evidence to discredit the theory, but when he checked to see if his MasterPiece was still in stasis in Jupiter, he found it missing.
Soon the truth came to light. Residual aspects of his many minds in the MasterPiece had eventually constituted a full mind that was convinced it was the real Mason. It did not have all of Mason's memories, as only the true brain had learned White Star was Aaron Adams and so killed his best friend without realising it. It had been laying the groundwork for a second invasion for years. At first unable to think of any method of overcoming the second MasterPiece invasion without White Star, Mason simply intended to abandon Earth. At the last moment, he changed his mind, realising that over the years, he had actually come to care about humanity. Eventually, he sacrificed something that mattered to him for the greater good- he recreated his original body, donned his old armour and revealed to the Digital Master Machine that it was a fake, in front of the captured heroes. The shock and confusion gave Mason time enough to reclaim control of the MasterPiece and use it to repair the damage he had done. Now with many aware he was Machine Master, he was still just about able to convince them to let him continue his heroics by destroying the MasterPiece.
Unbeknownst to them, he had saved the false Mason mind to study it, attempting to truly understand himself. Over the following year, his new concern for humanity and discussions with his other self lead to increasing extremist action for mankind's own good. After finally becoming aware of and meeting his son, he founded a new nation in orbit, Mechanica, in the name of ensuring the future was protected. His radical actions eventually lead to tensions with other countries. In time he came into conflict with numerous heroes and governments- even those that loved him came to believe he was becoming dangerous. His son, in particular, managed to replicate the accident that had given Aaron his powers and became White Star II to oppose Mason. Enraged, Mason beat him nearly to death. In response, the Sorceress declared she no longer loved him and joined the group efforts against him. She was instrumental in employing a strategy that couldn't fail- reviving the one man he could never defeat, White Star. They were successful, but when the resurrected Aaron confronted Mason, he was told he had wasted his second chance and wouldn't be forgiven.
Mason finally killed White Star with his own hands.
Now realising he had just lost his last connection to humanity, he at long last gave up on trying to pretend to be human. Combining himself with the false digital Mason, they worked together to produce a 'perfect' mind that was not hindered by humanity. A true Machine Master was born, nigh-omnipotent and impossibly intelligent. It began to conquer the world.
Meanwhile, every aspect of their old mind they rejected managed to retain a consciousness- a Factory Man made entirely of Mason's lost humanity. Rapidly deteriorating, he could only create a plan to defeat Machine Master once and for all, but not save himself. His intelligence reducing with every thought, he had no choice but to follow a plan he no longer understood to the letter, collecting the necessary allies who had to trust him blindly, the confrontation with his other self ended in victory- of a sort.
The Factory Man had realised that it was far too late for Mason. Upgrades, revamps, turning off and on again. Nothing had worked. The only hope left was a brand new one. With the unique abilities of his selected allies, the Factory Man was able to freeze the mind of the Machine Master when they recreated an exact duplicate of Mason Masters at age 15, before he made the fatal choice of villainy. The mental strain allowed the Factory Man to destroy the Machine Master's mind and cease his plans, just before he himself degenerated to nothingness and died.
The new Mason, now the same age as Mason's son, was taken in by the superheroic community at large, specifically a ward of the G.O.E in the hopes he could now be a force for good. Unbeknownst to all, the Machine Master's mind still existed in a fragmented form, spread across many networks and machines.
Personality:
Mason is a man who simultaneously sees the big picture on the grandest of scales and yet can't see beyond his own nose, comprehending the spinning of galaxies but seeming to think the world revolves around himself. Surrounded by intellectual inferiors as a child, he has internalised a sense of superiority over his fellow man and beyond- as his fantastic escapades have escalated his ego has only inflated more despite his continuous setbacks. Having battled and created gods, he considers himself infallible despite often failing to complete his goals. The one thing he refuses to examine deeply is his own petty and sad motivations.
This is the reason why he turned to villainy, despite having no actual requirement for it to provide for himself. His crimes are all those of revenge and self-satisfaction in an attempt to 'atone' for his original failure, the first time he did not effortlessly succeed in any task- defeat at the hands of White Star or perhaps the foolish decision to turn to crime in the first place. At the back of his mind, he feels that if he can overcome White Star (and later, other superheroes), he will have genuinely perfected himself. In particular, he feels the need to prove himself superior to those who possess superpowers, and it is for this reason he pridefully declines to give himself any despite being perfectly capable of it. He wishes to prevail through the use of his mind.
Mason's mind is like a maze, vastly complex and full of twists. Quite often so much is going on in his head that even he doesn't fully comprehend what he feels about things, often giving him a unique lack of clarity that contributes to his desire for control of his environment. For much of his life, he was unaware of his habits of unconsciously manipulating himself, but by the time he became Factory Man he had become cognisant of the fact and works to truly become master of himself.
Touches with the phenomenal have developed him. As a teenager, he was amongst then ten people those chosen by the intergalactic intelligence hunter dubbed the Brain from Space as the greatest minds of Earth. As the youngest there by far, a sense that his potential was limitless was given to him. His creation of the Miracle Machine that went on to become a cosmic entity, creator and god of a species, has fuelled his belief that he is the ultimate creator, a creator of creators.
It was not until The World gave him the role of 'The Emperor' in its Tarot that he turned his mind to the conquest of the world (this is also the point he grew a beard). The revelation that the role suited him so well drove him to upgrade his motivations, but the inability to let go of the slights he'd felt in the past hinders this.
Oddly though, for a man who chooses to rarely actually enter the fray himself, Mason has a clear distinction between Machine Master and Mason. Though not separate personalities, the two personae act very differently. When not engaging in some scheme, even when planning them, Mason is a serene individual that calmly takes everything in stride, softly spoken and gentle but clearly very proud of himself and his intellect. He seems to push all the stress and rage he feels under the mask of Machine Master. Much colder and angrier though also more playful, engaging in world play and theatrics.
In regards to personal relationships, Mason finds it very hard to maintain them unless they are centred around himself. Though capable of loving and being loved, he struggles if he is not the clear object of worship. Though not a conscious thing, he simply can't accept others as equals- with the notable exception of Aaron Adams, who is his anchor to saner times even when they haven't spoken for years.
It is truly forcing him to evaluate himself that causes him to give up on villainy- he plainly realises it's all a bit silly. He doesn't repent, doesn't think laws should apply to him, doesn't really become good. He just decides that to be happy, he has to let go of his mistakes and sets off to just enjoy himself by becoming one of the world's most influential businessmen in no time. After years with no mask, he has become a more even mix of the sides he shows as Mason and Machine Master. Outside of serious business (heroic or literally business), he acts with an almost teenage disregard for consequence, indulging himself regularly, attempting to regain some of his wasted youth as Michael. As Factory Man he has a persistent dryness about him that is almost bored.
The decision to become a superhero is more complex and involves Mason once again not truly analysing himself for fear of what he will discover about himself. Though ostensibly he does so to honour his only real friend, he worries that is an excuse and tries his best not to think about why he becomes Factory Man. Worries it is out of boredom, revenge on his friend's killer (or worse, revenge on the killer for achieving what he could not) or perhaps as a subconsciously self-induced slippery slope to send him back towards world domination plague him.
