Victor Mancha

Victor Mancha
Victor Mancha, surrounded by bars of metal and electricity on the cover of Runaways #22 (2007). Cover art by Jo Chen.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Runaways #1 (April 2005)
Created by	Brian K. Vaughan Adrian Alphona
In-story information
Alter ego	Victor Mancha
Team affiliations	Runaways
Abilities	Superhuman strength and speed. High intelligence. Photographic memory. Electromagnetic manipulation. Technopathy.

Victor Mancha^[1] is a fictional character in the Marvel Comics award-winning series, Runaways. He was created by author Brian K. Vaughan and artist Adrian Alphona, and debuted in Runaways vol. 2 #1 (April 2005). Like the original runaways, Victor has a supervillain for a parent; his father is the robot Ultron. Victor's flesh and natural tissue is cloned from his human mother and completely conceals metal parts and circuitry underneath, making him a cyborg.

The Runaways first heard of Victor Mancha as a boy who would grow up to become the villain "Victorious", a man who would rule the world after dismantling the Avengers. Due to his prophesied betrayal, Victor was kept under close surveillance when he first joined the team, but has since been accepted as a full-fledged member. He is the team's only Latino member and one of two members who can pilot the Leapfrog, the Runaways' mode of transportation.

Fictional character biography

True Believers

Victor is first introduced as the son of Hispanic single mother Marianella Mancha, supposed widow of a United States Marine Corps member who was killed in action.^[1]

When an older version of Gertrude Yorkes arrives in the present, she informs the Runaways of a villain in her time named "Victorious", and how they must stop him right now while he's still a teen. It is at this point she dies, but the Runaways decide to comply with her wish.^[1] After the Runaways track Victor down at his school, the sight of Karolina Dean activates Victor's electromagnetic superpowers - it would later be revealed that Victor's powers would manifest only when he came in contact with another superhero, hence Karolina.^[2]

Remembering how future-Gert mentioned that Victorious's father was the "greatest evil in all the universe", the Runaways sift through possibilities such as Magneto, Electro, Kingpin, Red Skull, the Leader and Galactus.^[3] Although Dr. Doom calls Victor proclaiming he is his father, it turns out this was a false claim; Victor later discovers that his actual "father" is Ultron, who created Victor as a sleeper agent for the Avengers. Victor was meant to grow up, travel to New York and meet the Avengers. After years of loyal service, he would have access to their most guarded secrets, and then Ultron would have taken over and destroyed every hero on the planet. The Runaways foiled this plan, but Victor still fears this future may come true.^[2] Ultron kills Marianella and overrides Victor's circuits, forcing him to attack the Runaways. With help from Excelsior, the Runaways and Victor defeat Ultron, but they take Victor in after realizing that Victor is in the same boat as they are.^[2]

Runaways

Over the next few months, Victor proves himself to the team, particularly to Chase Stein, in battle to make up for his alternate future self. He falls out of grace for a short while after Nico Minoru discovers that the second Pride has tapped into Victor's circuits and was using him to spy on the team. After the Runaways' fight with the second Pride, Victor begins a physical relationship with Nico; he confesses to have initiated it because he harbors romantic feelings for her, but Nico claims to have participated as a way to escape her survivor's guilt regarding the death of Gertrude Yorkes. However, Victor still attempts a rescue when he discovers Chase has Nico hostage, but is easily shut down when Chase asks him a rhetorical question designed to overload Victor's circuits. Victor recovers with help from Molly Hayes (vicariously by Alex Wilder) and saves Nico from becoming an innocent sacrifice to the Gibborim. At this point, the pair begin a romantic relationship, but their moment of bliss is interrupted when the team is forced to run from Iron Man and the pro-registration forces of Marvel's Civil War.^[4]

Civil War

During a S.H.I.E.L.D. operation to capture the Runaways, Victor uses his powers to shield the Leapfrog from a barrage of missiles. The second wave of missiles are coated with teflon, so they are unaffected by Victor's magnetic powers and hit him. He suffers grievous damage and the team returns with him to the Hostel. Victor then experiences intense seizures when the Vision arrives with the Young Avengers.

Although the Runaways are initially mistrustful of the Young Avengers, Stature is able to pull the Vision away from Victor. The Vision explains that he and Victor were experiencing a form of feedback caused by their shared programming because both of them were created by Ultron.^[5]

Nico and Victor also initiate a relationship.

Victor's assortment of humorous nicknames is a sort of running gag^{[citation needed]} in the series' second volume, with such names as "Static Cling Lad," "Mr. Roboto", "Victron", "Calculator Kid", "Señor Cyborg" and "Man of La Mancha."

Dead-End Kids

After escaping Iron Man and S.H.I.E.L.D., Nico makes a decision to make a deal with the Kingpin, which disgusts Victor.^[6] In a twisted turn of events, the Runaways end up time-displaced in 1907 New York.^[7] It is during this period where Victor meets Lillie "the Spieler" McGurty, a girl who can fly to the sound of music. While separated from Nico, Victor bonds with Lillie's carefree spirit. A short time later, he has a dream of kissing Lillie. Nico, understanding her relationship with Victor is deteriorating, backs off allowing Victor to initiate a relationship with Lillie, who agreed to return to the present with the Runaways. Right before the Runaways aboarded the time machine taking them home, Lillie changes her mind and decides to stay instead, due to fear of jumping into the future. Klara Prast takes her place instead, arriving with the Runaways in the present. Although the Runaways don't know, Lillie is still alive, regretting her decision.^[7]

Relationships

^{[original research?]}

Molly Hayes

Victor is often paired with Molly when the team separates to buy supplies because Molly is the only individual member of the team strong enough, in theory, to take Victor down should he go rogue. The pair have respect for each other, but often bicker over small things, such as board games and cereal. Molly admits that she isn't really scared of Victor, but does realize the responsibility she carries. Victor sometimes uses Molly to find out what the other team members think of him, presumably to actively try to change what the team fears. Molly and Victor eventually grow close as Molly's sibling-like relationship with Chase grows weaker.

Nico Minoru

Victor first met Nico when she and the Runaways kidnapped him to discover his true parentage; she kicked Victor in the face with a stilleto heel to knock him out. After their initial encounter, Victor and Nico grew closer and she grew to trust and accept him as part of the team. Unbeknownst to Victor, Nico secretly swore to Chase that if Victor ever betrayed the team, she would have no reservations about killing him. Throughout the second volume, both Victor and Nico started harboring romantic feelings for each other, but neither expressed them until after Gert's death, when they began a physical relationship. Nico refused to admit romantic feelings for Victor for fear of being seen by the team as "cheap," despite Victor expressing romantic feelings. However, even after a rejection and many awkward moments between the two, Victor stood up to defend Nico from Chase without question and acted just as quickly to save Nico from the Gibborim. By the end of Brian K. Vaughan's stint on the title, Victor and Nico become an official couple; his relationship with Nico mirrored that of mutant sorceress Scarlet Witch and android Vision. Nico and Victor's relationship ended during their time-traveling trip to 1907 where Victor falls for a girl named Lillie the Spieler.

Chase Stein

Victor's alternate future self, Victorious, managed to fatally wound an alternate version of Gert before she came to the past and warned the Runaways of the looming threat; the future Gert died in Chase's arms. Her death made locating Victor personal for Chase, as he sought to prevent his current girlfriend's murder. He disagreed vehemently with Nico about letting Victor stay with the team, even after Nico stated she was prepared to kill Victor if necessary. As such, Chase has tried to distance himself from Victor, despite the cyborg's attempts to prove himself. Chase did admit to Victor that he envies Victor more than hates him, primarily because Victor is the son Chase believes his parents wanted. Chase also stands up for Victor when Nico believes that he is spying for the New Pride telling everyone that Victor's "No Alex" (ironically, Gert, in a paranoid mood, attacks Victor with a monkey wrench. Normally, she is the one that stands up for Victor and Chase distrusts him). By the end of Brian K. Vaughan's stint on Runaways, Chase and Victor had switched roles: Victor stood by the team without hesitation while a grief-ridden Chase carried out his own agenda without regards to the team's safety. Victor even questioned Nico when she admitted Chase back into the group as Chase questioned Victor's membership earlier, yet Nico's response remained the same: if Chase went rogue again, she would not hesitate to kill.

Xavin

On Xavin's homeworld, androids and cyborgs exist only as servants to the Skrulls. Upon his first encounter with Victor, Xavin condescendingly tells Victor this, angering the cyborg into attacking. The two rarely get along due to Xavin's prejudice towards androids and his difficulty in accepting Victor as an equal. Xavin and Victor are polar opposites in motivating factors; while they both want to prove themselves to the team, Xavin fights to prove he is a seasoned warrior (feeding his ego) while Victor fights to make up for his alternate future self (seeking atonement). While they can be civil, Xavin and Victor have not yet reconciled their differences, and as Xavin has been taken off-planet, they probably never will.

Powers and abilities

Victor Mancha is a cyborg, created from the DNA of Marianella Mancha and the technology of Ultron. Victor was constructed using advanced nanite technology that will evolve and mature with Victor into adulthood so that his robotic innards will transform into artificial human organs, indistinguishable from real ones. Ultron created Victor with several computer-related abilities, including a high level of intelligence, vast amounts of hard drive memory (which Victor refers to as photographic memory), and the ability to communicate with other machines directly. Victor also possesses some level of superhuman strength, incredible speed, a powerful jumping ability, and an automated self-repair function.

In combat, Victor primarily employs his electromagnetic abilities; he is capable of directing high voltage electrical energy from his hands and manipulating magnetic fields to reshape and bend metallic objects. Much like Magneto, Victor can use Earth's natural magnetic lines of force to levitate and fly.

Despite his array of powers, Victor has four known weaknesses, many of which stem from his mechanical roots. At his current age, Victor's nanites have not yet fully transformed into human organs, so his entire body will set off metal detectors, potentially drawing him unwanted attention. Second, Victor's mainframe can be hacked and controlled remotely; "Hunter" (of the second Pride) and Ultron are the only two that have successfully hacked Victor thus far. Victor discovered his third weakness during the Runaways' first encounter with the Young Avengers, when he and the Vision both short-circuited upon getting too close to each other. The Runaways and Young Avengers eventually discovered that when any two of Ultron's creations come within a close vicinity, both create a devastating feedback, harming both machines.

While decoding The Abstract, Chase discovered Victor's last and most potent weakness: three questions designed specifically to overload Victor's circuits and lock him into a never ending loop of meaningless binary, which Nico refers to as "the blue screen of death." Chase used the first phrase against Victor after the cyborg discovered Nico in chains: "Could God make a sandwich so big that even He couldn't finish it?" The only way for Victor to recover from his shutdown mode is by hearing the question's answer from someone else. Once Victor's mainframe becomes functional again, he cannot be affected by that specific phrase ever again. The two other phrases are unrevealed as of yet, and are known only to Chase and Nico.

Conceptual origins

On colorist Christina Strain's Live Journal, she revealed that Victor's eyes are green with a golden center, which was modeled after Gael Garcia Bernal.^[8]

References