| Crimson Dynamo | |
|---|---|
Anton Vanko as the original Crimson Dynamo. |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Tales of Suspense #46 (Oct 1963) |
| Created by | Stan Lee (writer) Don Heck (artist) |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego |
Anton Vanko (original) Varies |
| Abilities | Varies with each version, but usually includes: resistance to damage, super-strength, electrical discharges and flight. The 8th version could also be piloted by remote control using only its helmet |
The Crimson Dynamo (Russian: Красное Динамо, Krasnoye Dinamo) is the name of several fictional characters in the Marvel Comics Universe, most of whom have been supervillains. The various Crimson Dynamos have been powered armor-wearing Russian or Soviet agents who have clashed with the superhero Iron Man over the course of his heroic career. The original Crimson Dynamo first appeared in Tales of Suspense #46 (Oct. 1963).
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The first Crimson Dynamo was also the creator of the armor: Professor Anton Vanko (Ванко Антон). A Soviet scientist of Armenian birth with a Ph.D in Physics, Vanko was the world's foremost expert on electricity. At the behest of the Soviet government, he built a powered exoskeleton capable of performing incredible feats; the Crimson Dynamo armor allowed Vanko to generate and control electricity in all of its forms, allowing him to fire devastating bolts of lightning and fly using electromagnetic propulsion.
As the Crimson Dynamo, Vanko was tasked by the Russian government with defeating Iron Man, his American counterpart, in battle.[1] After losing to Iron Man, Vanko defected to the United States out of fear that his superiors would kill him for failing. Vanko began to work for Tony Stark as one of his chief scientists. Eventually, the two became friends, and Vanko developed pride and admiration for his new home. Unfortunately, soon the Soviets came for Vanko, just as he predicted. The KGB sent their top agent, the Black Widow, as well as Boris Turgenev, the latter of whom stole the armor and became the second Crimson Dynamo. Vanko died saving Iron Man by firing an unstable, experimental laser pistol at Boris, killing himself in the process.[2]
Boris Turgenov, the second Crimson Dynamo, had a very short career as a supervillain. In his first and only appearance, Tales of Suspense #52 (April 1964), Turgenov came to the United States with the Black Widow to kill Anton Vanko, Tony Stark, and Iron Man (who the public thought was one of Stark's bodyguards). Turgenov almost carried out his mission, virtually defeating Iron Man with the stolen Crimson Dynamo suit. He was killed by Vanko, who, sacrificing his own life for the cause of freedom, fired an experimental and unstable laser pistol at Boris.
Both Vanko's heroic sacrifice and Turgenov's death was revisited in the Iron Man miniseries Enter the Mandarin, where it is revealed that Temugin (the son of Iron Man's archenemy, the Mandarin) witnessed the event.
Alex Nevsky, the third Crimson Dynamo, first appeared in Iron Man #15 (July 1969). Nevsky was Anton Vanko's up-and-coming protege; he greatly admired and respected Vanko's scientific genius. However, the Soviet government discredited Vanko after he fled to the West, ruining Nevsky's promising career. Sent into exile for his association with the turncoat, Nevsky grew to hate the Soviet Union, as well as Iron Man for besting Vanko. Nevsky also sought vengeance against Tony Stark, whom Nevsky felt exploited Vanko under the American capitalist system (not knowing that Stark and Iron Man are the same person). Disguised as Alex Niven, the brilliant new scientist behind Cord Industries, Nevsky planned to help the struggling competitor beat out Stark Industries in the marketplace.[3] From there, Nevsky went after Iron Man, besting him with a new and improved Crimson Dynamo armor. Finally, he worked towards undermining Tony Stark by romancing Janice Cord, Stark's girlfriend at the time and the daughter of Cord Industries' CEO.
After he donned the Crimson Dynamo armor in public,[4] his old Soviet masters sent the Titanium Man to kill him. When the Titanium Man killed Janice, Nevsky blamed Iron Man for the tragedy and swore to avenge her.[5] Although he held Titanium Man just as responsible for Janice's death, Nevsky was forced by circumstance to partner with him and Radioactive Man in Vietnam, where all three Communist-aligned fugitives formed the Titanic Three.[6] After defecting to Vietnam, Nevsky made one final attempt to kill Iron Man, and was once again unsuccessful.[7] As a result, he was found and assassinated by the KGB, who confiscated his armor for their own purposes.[8]
Yuri Petrovich, the fourth Crimson Dynamo, first appeared in Champions #7 (Aug. 1976) as the son of Ivan Petrovich - a friend of the now-reformed Black Widow. When Western agents (presumably Americans) failed to convince Ivan to defect to the West, they assassinated Yuri's mother; in the chaos that followed, Ivan and Yuri each believed the other dead. Yuri was brought to the West, where Soviet agents posing as Westerners indoctrinated him to hate the West. When the Black Widow and Ivan defected to the United States, Yuri was "rescued" by the Soviets, returned to Russia, and trained as a KGB assassin. He was given the Crimson Dynamo armor and sent to kill the Black Widow and Ivan. Yuri and his allies (his girlfriend Darkstar, the Griffin, Rampage, and the original Titanium Man) fought the Black Widow and her teammates, the Champions. When Yuri learned of the true nature of his "Western" captors, he went berserk. Darkstar teamed up with the Champions to subdue Yuri, and after he and his other allies were defeated, Yuri was returned to Russia, convicted by the Soviet government, and exiled to a Siberian labor camp.[9]
Dmitri Bukharin, the fifth Crimson Dynamo, was given Yuri's armor by his masters in the KGB. He joined the Soviet Super-Soldiers, but was expelled after his teammates decided to sever their connections to the Soviet government. Afterward, he received a new, redesigned suit of armor.[10] He later joined the Supreme Soviets, a group of superhumans who were loyal to the Soviet government; the group became the People's Protectorate after the USSR dissolved. When the new government confiscated his armor, he was given another suit and adopted the codename Airstrike. By the events of Dark Reign, however, he had returned to the identity and armor of the Crimson Dynamo, albeit as an ally of Iron Man instead of an enemy.
Bukharin's tenure as the Crimson Dynamo - from April 1978 (his debut in Iron Man #109) to April 1990 - is the longest of anyone in the Crimson Dynamo's publication history, and occurred during such seminal Iron Man storylines as "Demon in a Bottle", "Doomquest", and "Armor Wars". As a result, the Bukharin Dynamo is often considered to be the definitive version of the character.
Valentin Shatalov, a Colonel-General in the Soviet Army and a KGB agent, first appeared in Iron Man #255 (April 1990). He used his rank to obtain the Crimson Dynamo from Dmitri Bukharin for his own use. He was the founder of Remont-4, a group of Russian superhumans who sought to return the Soviet Union to Stalinism. Shatalov and his allies (the cyborg Firefox and the original Unicorn, among others) recruited the original Titanium Man to their cause. The Remont-4 fought the Soviet Super Soldiers and a group of Russian mutant exiles in addition to plaguing Iron Man.
In Shalatov's first appearance as the Dynamo, he was in a training session with Devastator in Russia at the same time Iron Man had encountered an out-of-control mutant dubbing himself Freak Quincy in Los Angeles. Quincy's out-of-control powers tapped into Devastator's satellite uplink from the other side of the world, and he managed to switch the minds of Stark and Shalatov. His unfamiliarity with the Iron Man armor resulted in Shalatov firing pulse bolts that destroyed Quincy's arms, although the mutant survived. After Stark and Shalatov struggled to maintain each others' identities, Shalatov was able to get the hospitalized Quincy to recreate the transmission that switched their minds. Out of respect for Stark, Shalatov did not reveal Stark's identity.
Some time after the fall of the Soviet Union, Shalatov received an upgraded Dynamo armor, less bulky than the Bukharin model, and with silver accents, this was the first Dynamo armor that was not completely crimson. Shalatov later met Tony Stark in person, when the latter traveled to Russia to oversee the opening of the first Stark Enterprises branch in the country, and revealed to Stark that he had kept his identity as Iron Man a secret. Stark's trip to Russia was interrupted by the rampage of the Titanium Man, Boris Bullski, who still could not accept the new Russia, and saw Stark's presence in his homeland as an affront to everything he believed the U.S.S.R. stood for. As the Titanium Man fought Iron Man, the Black Widow, and the Dynamo, Shalatov's leg was broken. He begged Iron Man not to finish the fight with Bullski, as he felt having the American Avenger take down a former Soviet hero would be too damaging to his country's morale. Stark volunteered to wear the Dynamo armor in Shalatov's place, and with radio assistance from Shalatov and the Widow, fought Bullski. When Bullski refused to surrender, Shalatov overrode Stark's control of the Dynamo armor, firing a blast that killed Bullski. Shalatov took the fall with his superiors, who had wanted to recover Bullski alive, and he was relieved of his duties as Crimson Dynamo.
Like many of Iron Man's Cold War-era villains, the Crimson Dynamo fell into a degree of obscurity after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Since Shatalov, there have been seven people to bear the Crimson Dynamo mantle, almost all of them anonymous, short-lived or otherwise unremarkable foes.
The seventh Crimson Dynamo was an unknown man wearing Dmitri Bukharin's former armor. His skill with the armor was minimal, and he was deftly handled by both Nick Fury (whom his employer had earlier brainwashed) and Captain America.
In Marvel Epic's six issue 2003 series "Crimson Dynamo", Gennady Gavrilov, a Russian collegiate, became the eighth Crimson Dynamo after he found the helmet of a suit designed by Anton Vanko - a "Beta unit", based on but improved over the original, with its very own recharging satellite in orbit. Believing the helmet to be a sophisticated gaming system, Gavrilov caused the dormant armor to awaken and make its way towards the helmet, inadvertently leaving a trail of destruction. He would eventually, if briefly, wear the entire armor in a standoff with the Russian military. He kept the armor afterward, but it is unknown if he ever wore it again.
The ninth Crimson Dynamo appeared in the Secret War miniseries as a member of Lucia von Bardas's army of villains, which she gathered to defeat the Avengers. This Dynamo's armor was created by the Tinkerer.
The tenth Crimson Dynamo is introduced in Iron Man vol. 4 #7 (June 2006), where he is apprehended by Iron Man after attempting to rob a bank. It was later revealed that this armor had been bought on the black market, and that the designs for Crimson Dynamo-based technology have been for sale for a while.
The eleventh Crimson Dynamo was a member of the "Alpha Gen Soviet Super-Soldiers", a group of Russian superhumans put into cryogenic stasis after the Cold War ended. During a fight between the Order and the Infernal Man, Order member Corona set off an enormous explosion which awakened the Super-Soldiers. This Crimson Dynamo was apparently destroyed by Order members Supernaut and Aralune.
Boris Vadim, the twelfth Crimson Dynamo, first appears in the premiere issue of Hulk vol. 2 (March 2008). A S.H.I.E.L.D.-sanctioned team consisting of Iron Man, Doc Samson and She-Hulk encounters the Winter Guard, a Russian superhero team of which Vadim is a member, while investigating the apparent murder of the Abomination in Russia.[11] In War Machine: Weapon of SHIELD, Vadim was seen ignoring orders from his superiors and helping War Machine defeat invading Skrulls.[12] He later flees to the United States seeking political asylum, joining the Red Hulk's mercenary group.[13] Some time later, while battling the mutated Igor Drenkov, Vadim was devoured.[14]
Galina Nemirovsky, a young woman, replaced Boris Vadim to become the thirteenth Crimson Dynamo.[15] She is considered by her Russian masters to be one of the best Crimson Dynamo pilots ever, and was a graduate of their "Federal Dynamo" program.[16]
The Crimson Dynamo wears an armored battle-suit that serves as an exoskeleton, providing the wearer with superhuman strength and durability. The suit's outer layer was composed of a carborundum matrix alloy, and is equipped with hand-blasters that can fire high-frequency electrical bolts, small missiles contained in the back shoulder area of the battle-suit, computers and radio transmitter and receiver, boot jets that allow flight. Subsequent versions of the battle-suit have featured upgrades of various kinds, by the Gremlin and other Russian scientists. As Crimson Dynamo, Valentin Shatalov's version of the armor was equipped with a powerful chest-mounted fusion-caster weapon.
In the House of M, Crimson Dynamo was a member of the Soviet Super-Soldiers.[17]
The Ultimates featured Alex Su (a Chinese Dynamo) as a member of The Liberators. Based on similar technology to Tony Stark's Iron-Tech he is unable to exit his armor, having been fused inside, but can supposedly use it to control up to 50 giant-sized drone versions (which are revealed to be piloted independently). He is apparently killed when Tony Stark vaporizes him while piloting the Iron Man Six aircraft.
Major Valentin Shatalov appears in Ultimate Fantastic Four #47. He is based in a shack in Siberia, and has apparently been out of contact with his superiors for a long time, becoming entirely self-sufficient. When he is given the order to activate his armor he has forgotten correct procedure, and his contact was not even sure he was still alive. Reed Richards reports that this Crimson Dynamo is an "Eastern Bloc version of Iron Man", making the latest Ultimate version extremely similar to the original character. He has joined forces with the Fantastic Four to defeat the Red Ghost.
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