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M.A.C.H. 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the 2000AD comic strip. For the Marvel Comics Thunderbolts member formerly known as M.A.C.H. 1, see Abner Jenkins. For other uses, see Mach 1 (disambiguation).
"M.A.C.H. 2" and "M.A.C.H. Zero" redirect here. For the speed, see mach number. For other uses, see Mach (disambiguation), Mach O, and Mach 2 (disambiguation).
M.A.C.H.1
Publication information
PublisherIPC Media
First appearance2000 AD #1 (26 February 1977)
Created byPat Mills & Enio
In-story information
Alter egoJohn Probe
Team affiliationsBritish Secret Service
AbilitiesSuperhuman strength, speed and durability
On-board tactical computer

M.A.C.H. 1 was a comic strip that ran in the British science fiction comic 2000 AD. The strip was created by writer Pat Mills and illustrator Enio. It debuted in the first issue of 2000 AD, which was published in February 1977, and ran nearly continuously until issue 64, dated 13 May 1978.

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Transcription

Humans have been fascinated with speed for ages. The history of human progress is one of ever-increasing velocity, and one of the most important achievements in this historical race was the breaking of the sound barrier. Not long after the first successful airplane flights, pilots were eager to push their planes to go faster and faster. But as they did so, increased turbulence and large forces on the plane prevented them from accelerating further. Some tried to circumvent the problem through risky dives, often with tragic results. Finally, in 1947, design improvements, such as a movable horizontal stabilizer, the all-moving tail, allowed an American military pilot named Chuck Yeager to fly the Bell X-1 aircraft at 1127 km/hr. becoming the first person to break the sound barrier and travel faster than the speed of sound. The Bell X-1 was the first of many supersonic aircraft to follow, with later designs reaching speeds over Mach 3. Aircraft traveling at supersonic speed create a shock wave with a thunder-like noise known as a sonic boom, which can cause distress to people and animals below or even damage buildings. For this reason, scientists around the world have been looking at sonic booms, trying to predict their path in the atmosphere, where they will land, and how loud they will be. To better understand how scientists study sonic booms, let's start with some basics of sound. Imagine throwing a small stone in a still pond. What do you see? The stone causes waves to travel in the water at the same speed in every direction. These circles that keep growing in radius are called wave fronts. Similarly, even though we cannot see it, a stationary sound source, like a home stereo, creates sound waves traveling outward. The speed of the waves depends on factors like the altitude and temperature of the air they move through. At sea level, sound travels at about 1225 km/hr. But instead of circles on a two-dimensional surface, the wave fronts are now concentric spheres, with the sound traveling along rays perpendicular to these waves. Now imagine a moving sound source, such as a train whistle. As the source keeps moving in a certain direction, the successive waves in front of it will become bunched closer together. This greater wave frequency is the cause of the famous Doppler effect, where approaching objects sound higher pitched. But as long as the source is moving slower than the sound waves themselves, they will remain nested within each other. It's when an object goes supersonic, moving faster than the sound it makes, that the picture changes dramatically. As it overtakes sound waves it has emitted, while generating new ones from its current position, the waves are forced together, forming a Mach cone. No sound is heard as it approaches an observer because the object is traveling faster than the sound it produces. Only after the object has passed will the observer hear the sonic boom. Where the Mach cone meets the ground, it forms a hyperbola, leaving a trail known as the boom carpet as it travels forward. This makes it possible to determine the area affected by a sonic boom. What about figuring out how strong a sonic boom will be? This involves solving the famous Navier-Stokes equations to find the variation of pressure in the air due to the supersonic aircraft flying through it. This results in the pressure signature known as the N-wave. What does this shape mean? Well, the sonic boom occurs when there is a sudden change in pressure, and the N-wave involves two booms: one for the initial pressure rise at the aircraft's nose, and another for when the tail passes, and the pressure suddenly returns to normal. This causes a double boom, but it is usually heard as a single boom by human ears. In practice, computer models using these principles can often predict the location and intensity of sonic booms for given atmospheric conditions and flight trajectories, and there is ongoing research to mitigate their effects. In the meantime, supersonic flight over land remains prohibited. So, are sonic booms a recent creation? Not exactly. While we try to find ways to silence them, a few other animals have been using sonic booms to their advantage. The gigantic Diplodocus may have been capable of cracking its tail faster than sound, at over 1200 km/hr, possibly to deter predators. Some types of shrimp can also create a similar shock wave underwater, stunning or even killing pray at a distance with just a snap of their oversized claw. So while we humans have made great progress in our relentless pursuit of speed, it turns out that nature was there first.

Development

Pat Mills has said the idea was a deliberate ripoff of The Six Million Dollar Man after kids said they wanted to see that in a comic, and the concept of a computer brain as a partner was taken by John Wagner from Marvel Comics' Deathlok.[1] The name came from Doug Church while Mills, according to Church, came up with the acronym on the spot.[2]

Premise

Initially, M.A.C.H. 1 ("M.A.C.H." stands for "Man Activated by Compu-puncture Hyperpower") thematically resembled the Six Million Dollar Man, but with more graphic violence. As the strip continued the tone became increasingly dark. This contrasted directly with The Six Million Dollar Man, who began as a killer, but was progressively softened by the TV networks until it fitted into family entertainment.

Plot

John Probe is a British Secret Service agent at first engaging in missions against Communists, terrorists and organised crime. He has been given extreme physical enhancement by a method known as "compu-puncture" to give him "hyperpower" equivalent to the strength of fifty men, and computer circuitry imprinted onto his skull to control and advise on use of the hyperpower. The computer also grants him occasional mental skills, such as how to pilot aeroplanes, drive an armoured car, or specific scientific and military knowledge he would not normally possess. Probe eventually discovers that his superior, Denis Sharpe, had engineered the compu-puncture treatment which had given him his abilities so as to erase Probe's pre-augmented memory and to cause his death if he did not receive frequent treatments. As a result, Probe was forced to work for Sharpe.

Probe attempted to leave Sharpe and the service several times, but was forced to return for controlling hyperpower injections to prevent his energy flow from falling below survival level - although one story suggests that he has left Sharpe for an unspecified but considerable length of time. Probe's computer would often attempt to overrule or counter his human emotions, but as the story wore on Probe became more and more resentful to both the computer and Sharpe's orders, often disobeying the computer's advice completely. Eventually, M.A.C.H. 1 killed Sharpe and then sacrificed himself to enable aliens, provoked into attacking Earth by Sharpe, to return home. Probe's life before his compu-puncture treatment was never clarified or explained, and it was stated several times that the only person who knew anything about his prior life was Sharpe himself.

Characters

  • John Probe: A British Secret Service agent who volunteered for a special procedure whereby his physical strength, speed and agility would be enhanced using 'compu-puncture', a computerized form of acupuncture using multiple 'electro-needles'. His metabolism was controlled by a computer implanted in his skull, which also fed him tactical information such as the amount of strength or the exact throwing angle required for a given task.
  • M.A.C.H. Zero: M.A.C.H. 1 later met M.A.C.H. Zero, a prototype agent who had not been equipped with a computer implant and had consequently been driven insane by the uncontrolled hyperpower. M.A.C.H. Zero later appeared in his own strip, involving a search for his son Tommy, based on a case of mistaken identity
  • Tanya Maski, an East European M.A.C.H. agent created after Sharpe sold the compu-puncture techniques to the Soviets. Maski had been created using inferior technology and although she possessed similar hyperpower to M.A.C.H. 1 would burn out much sooner. Aware of this, she sacrificed herself to allow M.A.C.H. 1 to escape and confront Sharpe over his involvement.
  • M.A.C.H. 2 a robot successor to M.A.C.H. 1, created by Sharpe in order to remove the human element and perceived limitations from the M.A.C.H. project. M.A.C.H. 1 fought M.A.C.H. 2, and was beaten, but managed to severely damage M.A.C.H. 2 during the fight. Sharpe prevented M.A.C.H. 2 from killing M.A.C.H. 1, recognising that the human element - which was what enabled M.A.C.H. 1 to damage M.A.C.H. 2 - may still have use.

Publications

Both M.A.C.H. 1 and M.A.C.H. Zero appeared in their own eponymous series. M.A.C.H. 1 and M.A.C.H. Zero were later reprinted in Eagle, and M.A.C.H. 1 was also in anthology format (the beginning and end in 2000AD Extreme Edition #6 and #9). Appearances include:

M.A.C.H. 1

  • "Vulcan" (with Pat Mills (1)/Robert Flynn (2) and Enio (1)/Ian Kennedy (2), in 2000 AD #1-2, 1977)
  • "Battleship" (in 2000AD #3, 1977)
  • "To Kill a President" (in 2000AD #4, 1977)
  • "Probesnatch" (in 2000AD #5, 1977)
  • "Himmler's Gold" (in 2000AD #6, 1977)
  • "Bolavia" (in 2000AD #7, 1977)
  • "Spain Kidnap" (in 2000AD #8, 1977)
  • "Our Man in Turkostan" (in 2000AD #9, 1977)
  • "On the Roof of the World" (in 2000AD #10, 1977)
  • "Operation Death-Drive!" (in 2000AD #11, 1977)
  • "The Laser Hound" (in 2000AD #12, 1977)
  • "Airship" (in 2000AD #13, 1977)
  • "Chinese Formula" (with Steve MacManus and Kato, in 2000 AD #14, 1977)
  • "Kraal" (in 2000AD Summer Special, 1977)
  • "Yeti" (in 2000AD #15, 1977)
  • "Capitol" (in 2000AD #16, 1977)
  • "Spotbox" (in 2000AD #17, 1977)
  • "Skyscraper Terrorists" (in 2000AD #18, 1977)
  • "Corporal Tanaka" (in 2000AD #19, 1977)
  • "Tokyo" (with Steve MacManus and Lopez, in 2000 AD #20, 1977)
  • "Recluse" (in 2000AD #21, 1977)
  • "Arab Story" (in 2000AD #22, 1977)
  • "Spy Plane" (in 2000AD #23, 1977)
  • "King Karat" (in 2000AD #24, 1977)
  • "Terror Train" (in 2000AD #25, 1977)
  • "The Death Trumpet" (with Steve MacManus and Marzal Canos, in 2000 AD #26, 1977)
  • "The Planet Killers" (in 2000AD #27 - 29, 1977)
  • "Operation Hercules" (in 2000AD Annual 1978, 1977)
  • "UFO" (in 2000AD #30 - 33, 1977)
  • "Everest" (in 2000AD #34 - 35, 1977)
  • "M.A.C.H. Woman" (in 2000AD #36 - 39, 1977)
  • "Death Ray" (in 2000AD #40 - 42, 1977)
  • "M.A.C.H. Zero" (with Steve MacManus and Ramon Sola, in 2000 AD #43-46, 1977-1978)
  • "Return to Sharpe" (in 2000AD #53, 1978)
  • "The Dolphin Tapes" (with Steve MacManus and Jesus Redondo (1-2), Montero (3-4), in 2000 AD #54-57, 1978)
  • "Swamp Saga" (in 2000AD #58, 1978)
  • "Origins" (in 2000AD #59 - 60, 1978)
  • "The Final Encounter " (with Pat Mills and Montero, in 2000 AD #61-64, 1978)
  • "The Taxaco Venture" (in 2000AD Sci-Fi Special 1979)

M.A.C.H. Zero

  • "Cousin George " (with Steve MacManus and Mike Donaldson (1-2, 4, 6-8), Ramon Sola (3, 5), in 2000 AD #65-72, 1978)
  • "Cyborg Express" (with Henry Miller and Kevin O'Neill, in 2000AD Sci-Fi Special 1978)
  • "The Suit" (with Steve MacManus and Montero, in 2000 AD #73-75, 1978)
  • "M.A.C.H. 0 Book 2" (with Steve MacManus and Mike Dorey, in 2000 AD #162-165, 1980)

Collected editions

  • M.A.C.H. 1: The John Probe Mission Files (Rebellion Books, 22 March 2018, ISBN 978-1781086131):
  • Progs 1-33
  • 2000AD Summer Special 1977
  • 2000AD Annual 1978
  • Gallery of covers
  • Progs 34-46
  • Progs 53-75
  • Progs 162-165
  • 2000AD Sci-Fi Special 1978
  • 2000AD Annual 1979
  • 2000AD Sci-Fi Special 1979
  • Gallery of covers

Parodies

B.L.A.I.R. 1

A spoof, entitled B.L.A.I.R. 1, a satire on Tony Blair, appeared in 2000 AD in the late 1990s, and gained considerable media attention at the time. The story was not popular with readers, however, and was soon killed off.

Z.O.M.B.O.

A second spoof ran in the 40th Anniversary Special: a fake 'original' version of the strip Zombo, dropped from the comic's original line-up. Z.O.M.B.O. parodied M.A.C.H. 1, Invasion!, and other 70s strip tropes with an over-the-top working class Zombo (playing the John Probe role) paired with an upper-class Etonian.

References

  1. ^ Thrill-Powered Overload! page 13
  2. ^ Thrill-Powered Overload! page 14

External links

This page was last edited on 14 September 2023, at 15:23
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