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Videoman was originally a supervillain created for the 1981-1983 animated series Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, as a foe for the titular characters (Spider-Man, Iceman, and Firestar, a.k.a. the "Spider-Friends"), In the character's final appearance in the series, a second incarnation of Videoman became a rookie superhero. Twenty years after the show's debut, the villainous Videoman has become an established character (albeit a very minor one, to date) in the canon of the Marvel Comics on which Amazing Friends was based, the second original character from the series to do so (the first being Firestar). In all incarnations, Videoman has powers related to computers and technology, particularly video games.

[edit] Appearance

Videoman resembles the low-resolution characters common to video games in the 1980s, with a "blocky", jagged outline and a two-dimensional body. One "face" of its body depicts the identifiable appearance of the character, while the opposite face is customarily blank. Its body does not seem to articulate as a three-dimensional form can; rather, its flat form stretches and twists in an approximation of 3-D movement.

[edit] The villain

Videoman first appears, appropriately enough, in "Videoman", a first season episode of Amazing Friends. A being of pure electrical energy, it is a programmed creation of the electrically-powered supervillain Electro, sent to steal materials necessary for Electro to build a transformer to draw on the power grid of New York City and amplify his powers. Electro sends several "Videoman" arcade games, featuring Videoman as the "boss" character, to strategic locations, including the employee game rooms of companies and military bases where the materials he requires are located, to serve as access points for Videoman. The energy creature first emerges from a game located in an arcade frequented by college students, including the Spider-Friends in their non-costumed identities. Over the course of the episode, Videoman battles the Spider-Friends while acquiring the components of Electro's transformer, in the process capturing Firestar, Iceman, and local student (and "Videoman" game addict) Flash Thompson and imprisoning them in Electro's computer banks, where they are forced to fight for their lives in video game simulations. Spider-Man learns of Electro's involvement from a threat sent through a "Videoman" game's video screen, and, using his background in science, deduces the goal of Videoman's thefts. With this knowledge, Spider-Man manages to track down Electro just as the villain begins drain New York City's power, while Videoman stands guard. Spider-Man manages to dodge the villains' attacks and draw them into a crossfire which damages the transformer device, causing an energy feedback that incapacitates Electro and seemingly destroys Videoman. Firestar, Iceman and Thompson are rescued from their computer prison just before they were deleted by the system.

Videoman appeared again in the series' second season, in the episode "The Origin of Iceman", with no explanation for its return and apparently acting on its own. It emerges from a city power line to attack the Spider-Friends on a rooftop, using not only its usual powers, but inexplicably demonstrating the ability to freeze objects and people, just as Iceman's own freezing powers are failing. Videoman then invades the offices of The Daily Bugle newspaper and kidnaps editor/publisher J. Jonah Jameson, imprisoning him within a "Videoman" game machine lying abandoned in a junkyard. As the Spider-Friends catch up with the creature, the ensuing battle sees Videoman completely draining Iceman's powers, weakening Firestar's abilities, and absorbing the electricity powering the paper's printing presses before escaping, grown larger with the power it has stolen. Videoman next appears at Empire State University, draining the campus' power supply, and the Spider-Friends fare no better without the powerless Iceman; not only does Videoman drain Firestar further, but she and Spider-Man have to face two video game characters brought to life by Videoman from the campus arcade, while the creature continues to grow in size and power. Meanwhile, Iceman uses the Spider-Friends' super-computer to locate Jameson, but when he rushes to ESU to inform his teammates, he is sent into the derelict game alongside the infuriated newsman. Once again bringing his knowledge of science to bear, Spider-Man not only deduces that Videoman is draining the unique energies of Iceman's and Firestar's mutant physiologies, but hatches a plan to defeat Videoman before he drains Firestar completely. He and Firestar split up and draw the animated game characters back towards Videoman, forcing the creature to expend its absorbed power fighting its own creations, and all three disperse in a flash of energy. Simultaneously, the "Videoman" machine explodes in a similar flash, freeing Iceman and Jameson just as the game is about to be crushed in a compactor.

With appearances in two separate episodes, the original Videoman holds the dubious honor of being the only recurring villain faced by the Spider-Friends in the series (though Magneto also appears more than once in the series, he only battles the Spider-Friends once; his other appearances are in flashbacks to Iceman's and Firestar's tenures as members of the X-Men).

[edit] Powers

As a construct of electrical energy, Videoman can convert its body into electricity and travel along any electrical circuit at incredible speed. Its primary attack is projecting streams of flat, pixel-like blocks from its hands that strike with varying degrees of concussive force; at least one such attack was shown sending a normal human being flying without lasting injury, while others were capable of destroying solid objects on contact. Videoman can also project energy beams from its "eyes", which can either function as a destructive attack or convert a target into energy which Videoman can either carry along with itself in energy form and rematerialize at another location, or transfer to a computer system it has access to, such as Electro's systems or a "Videoman" game machine.

In its second appearance, Videoman's abilities expand to absorbing energy to increase its own power, either from sources of electrical power or from certain organic sources, such as the bodies of mutants. It also demonstrates the power to give computer-generated characters a semblance of animate life similar to its own, though its control over them once created appears limited.