Fixer

Origin

Growing up, Paul Nobert Ebersol, or Bert for short, was quick to develop an affinity for machines. Creating contraptions and complex robotic mechanisms before he was even 10, Bert felt unchallenged at high school and instead pursured various low-level jobs which made use of his gift.

Becoming bored again, the arrogant Bert found himself not holding jobs for long due to his superiority complex and he resolved to use his skills to become a criminal known as the Fixer. He first found work with HYDRA, auditioning by helping them subdue an amnesiac Namor. After a brief period as a solo agent, the telepathic Mentallo tracked down Fixer and together they became partners.

Creation

Fixer was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and first appeared in Strange Tales #141. Fixer first appeared as Techno, a member of the Thunderbolts, in Incredible Hulk issue 449 (1997).

Character Evolution

Like many Marvel villains, Fixer drifted in and out of various titles, often accompanied by his partner-in-crime Mentallo. Fixer never found himself specifically attached to one heroes’ rogues gallery and his most notable moment as a villain was when he joined Baron Zemo and his Masters of Evil in the classic Avengers story arc Under Siege.

Fixer’s breakthrough came years later, in 1997, when writer Kurt Busiek chose him for his new super-team the Thunderbolts. Revamped as Techno, Fixer rose to prominence as a false hero, adversary, untrustworthy ally and later a full-formed altruistic team-mate within the pages of Thunderbolts.

Major Story Arcs

Under Siege

After countless defeats at the hands of heroes such as Captain America, the Defenders, Hulk, Iron Man and Spider-Man, Fixer was recruited by Baron Zemo as a member of his Masters of Evil. Fixer provided the team with technical support, such as creating a device which allowed Zemo to mentally control team-mate Blackout.

The Masters of Evil attacked Avengers Mansion and captured or defeated most of the Avengers. Fixer began to develop feelings for his team-mate Yellowjacket, although she was repulsed by his lame attempts to impress her, much to his own frustration.

Fixer’s concentration began to slip with his mind occupied by Yellowjacket, and a team of the remaining Avengers reclaimed their mansion in an assault which freed the captive Avengers. With the Masters of Evil mostly defeated, Fixer managed to slip away and escape defeat and apprehension.

Not long after, Fixer broke into prison to free Yellowjacket hoping the act would win her heart. When she still repelled his advances, he began obsessively stalking her which led to Yellowjacket teaming up with the Avengers’ Black Knight and defeating Fixer.

Heavy Metal

Following his defeat at the hands of Black Knight and Yellowjacket, Fixer was imprisoned where he was replaced and impersonated by the Super-Adaptoid. The Super-Adaptoid began on a conquest for the Cosmic Cube which involved manipulating Mentallo and several machine-based heroes and villains into aiding him. The Avengers managed to thwart the Super-Adaptoid’s plans and freed Fixer from his imprisonment.

Justice Like Lightning

When the Avengers and Fantastic Four seemingly perished battling Onslaught, Zemo set about reforming the Masters of Evil and he turned to Fixer as one of his first recruits. With the teamposing as the heroic Thunderbolts, they earnt public trust by adopting new costume guises. Now calling himself Techno, Fixer built new equipment for himself and his team-mates and the Thunderbolts were welcomed by the public.

Whereas the other Thunderbolts began to enjoy their new roles as the public’s heroes, Fixer remained discontent and was more interested in being challenged.

Fixer continued to serve with the Thunderbolts but remained loyal to Zemo’s true ambitions and goal of conquering the world. After being injured in a battle, Fixer uploaded his mind to a computer system, and began using a robotic body for himself.

When Zemo exposed the Thunderbolts to the public as the Masters of Evil, and commenced his plans for evil, only Fixer remained by his side when the rest of the Thunderbolts instead relished in their new-found roles as heroes. Battling the Avengers and Thunderbolts (Atlas, MACH-I, Moonstone, Jolt and Songbird), both Fixer and Zemo’s plans were foiled and they were forced to retreat.

Humus Sapien

Eventually, Fixer became bitter about having severed ties with the Thunderbolts and began to miss the thrill of being a publicly accepted hero. He decided to infiltrate the Thunderbolts by kidnapping and impersonating their ally Ogre.

While impersonating Ogre and aiding the Thunderbolts, in his spare time Fixer discovered the mutant Humus Sapien held in stasis in Ogre’s lab in Thunderbolts Mountain. After awakening the mutant to gain access to the resources which held it in stasis, Fixer was able to restore his original human body at the cost of exposing his identity and deceit to the team. Fixer was taken into custody and forced to work for Commission on Superhuman Activities and their super-team the Redeemers.

The Redeemers joined forces with the Thunderbolts to fight Humus Sapien who had turned out to be an immense threat who wanted to save the Earth from itself. In the process, most of the Redeemers were slain, but the surviving Fixer and the Thunderbolts were able to defeat the mutant. Fixer kept his involvement in re-awakening Humus Sapien secret.

Becoming Heroes

With nowhere else to go, Fixer found himself rejoining the Thunderbolts and in a battle against Graviton, Fixer and most of the team appeared to be slain by Graviton. Instead, they survived and had been transported to Counter-Earth.

While on Counter-Earth, Fixer helped Baron Zemo steal the body of his healthier Counter-Earth counterpart and Zemo rejoined the Thunderbolts and asserted himself as the team’s leader. Eventually the team returned from Counter-Earth and merged with the team that had formed in their place on Earth.

Heart of the Infinite

Fixer and the rest of the Thunderbolts were among the super-heroes summoned by Thor to help battle against a omnipotent Thanos. Fixer and the team were among the first wave of heroes who faced Thanos and were easily overpowered.

When joined by a second wave of heroes, Thanos became enraged, defeated all of his opponents and then destroyed the entire universe. Realizing the folly of his ways, Thanos restored everything to normal and Fixer and the rest of the heroes returned to life as if none of it had ever happened.

Best Intentions

After a few roster shake-ups, Fixer remained with the Thunderbolts and aided in Zemo’s Liberator project by creating a machine that would absorb energy across the globe. While none of the team trusted Zemo, the Avengers intervened and halted Zemo’s plans. The two teams were forced to team up to battle a rampaging Moonstone and the Thunderbolts broke up afterwards.

Right of Power

When Songbird reformed the Thunderbolts, Fixer didn’t rejoin. Instead, Fixer was recruited for a rival team of Thunderbolts led by Baron Zemo in a campaign to destroy Captain Marvel. To this end, Fixer and Zemo’s team battled against Songbird’s team and Fixer faced Swordsman who he easily overcame with his gadgets. Zemo’s team was able to win the day and Captain Marvel was slain, and the two teams merged under the leadership of Zemo once more.

Dark Reign

Fixer and team-mate MACH-IV quit the Thunderbolts to work for the Commission on Superhuman Activities. During Norman Osborn’s Dark Reign, Songbird was a wanted fugitive and both the former Thunderbolts were interrogated about her whereabouts.

Eventually, Songbird came to them seeking aid. While Fixer was initially reluctant to jeopardize his new life, he eventually resolved and he and MACH-IV saved Songbird from Osborn’s hit squad.

Heroic Age

After Osborn was removed from power, Fixer returned to the Thunderbolts – now a government-sanctioned prison reform program. As one of the team’s handlers, Fixer was given a lot of responsibility which he welcomed with open arms. With a re-invigorated sense of purpose and worth, Fixer threw himself into his work.

Shadowland and Fear Itself

When the Thunderbolts battled the Hand during the Shadowland conflict, Fixer was greviously injured when he was stabbed in the chest. Although he survived, he found himself constantly being sidelined by Thunderbolts over-seers Luke Cage and John Walker on account of the incident. Becoming incredibly disillusioned and unhappy with being overlooked, especially when Walker chose Songbird over him to lead a second team of Thunderbolts, Fixer made contact with Zemo and began working alongside him discreetly.

Fixer’s secret affiliation with Zemo came to a head when he found himself having to rely on Zemo’s help when the Thunderbolts were battling a possessed Juggernaut. MACH-V discovered Fixer’s relationship with Zemo and, fearing the consequences, Fixer joined forces with some of the Thunderbolts in escaping the Raft. They did this by time-displacing the entire Raft-building. However, it did not go as planned as the displacement got them into the far past, which resulted in team having to go through numerous time-jumps, landing them in into Victiorian-styled England in which Fixer and his team met Jack the Ripper right up unto World War Two.

Death

While trying to return to their own present through time-jumps, Fixer and his Thunderbolts team-mates managed to return to the closest point in time yet from the point from which they originated. Only problem was that the new team of Thunderbolts arrived during the time that the original (still villainous) Thunderbolts first appeared on the scene. The teams soon came into contact with one another, with devastating results. Fixer accidentally killed his own former self. This also caused the reality/time-line to collapse, since Fixer was now not alive in the past. Fixer however managed to ‘fix’ this final mistake. He made a plan in which he would take the place of his own former self and once more become part of the original Thunderbolts team. In order to do this, and making sure that he would not alter the timeline by knowing things from the future, his memory was erased up until the moment that his former self was killed. This daring move caused the reality to restore, and helped the new Thunderbolts to finally return to their proper time-line. Fixer was however caught in a time-loop.

Pleasant Hill and Thunderbolts

Many months later, Fixer reappears as one of the main players in the standoff at Pleasant Hill, a secret SHIELD prison created by Maria Hill in which (former) villains where brainwashed by Kobik, (a conscious Cosmic-Cube in the form of a little girl) and given complete new identities, unbeknown of their true selves. How Fixer returned to the present was later revealed to be by the hand of Kobik also. She brought him from the time-loop and restored his memories. She did this because a number of Fixer’s former Thunderbolt teammates where also imprisoned in Pleasant Hill and she felt that these members somehow missed him. That is why she brought him back.

While in Pleasant Hill, Fixer’s true identity soon emerged and he helped a number of villains to regain their own identity as well, staging a breakout. Fixer and a number of his former Thunderbolt teammates managed to escape the SHIELD facility and, under the guidance of the Winter Soldier, reformed the Thunderbolts.

Fixer served as the tech support for Winter Soldier’s Thunderbolts team, facing off against the Inhumans, Squadron Supreme and S.H.I.E.L.D. He also rebuilt Bucky’s arm after his original prosthetic was lost. However, when Zemo attacked the Thunderbolts’ Antarctic headquarters, Fixer sided with him to save his own skin, though he felt guilty for betraying his teammates.

Fixer subsequently joined Zemo’s new Masters of Evil, and worked with Erik Selvig to recover Kobik. Selvig, upon finding out that Zemo wanted to return Kobik to her inert cube state, knocked Fixer out before commiting suicide.

Fixer later fought the Defenders while working for Willis Stryker, and joined Kingpin‘s Thunderbolts, where he was shot by Punisher, though the wires visible through his skin indicate that Fixer may have been using a robotic body double at the time

In Other Media

Television

Iron Man: Armored Adventures

The Fixer (dubbed Mr. Fix) appears as a recurring adversary in the series, where he is portrayed as a high-tech arms dealer. He was voiced by Donny Lucas.

Avengers Assemble

Fixer appears as a recurring character in the third season, voiced by Rick D. Wasserman. This version of the character was a former Stark Industries employee who turned to crime after being fired. He first appears as a member of the Masters of Evil, but later adopts his Techno identity as part of the Thunderbolts. Along with the rest of the team, Techno eventually decides to reform and become an actual hero.

Video Games

• Fixer appears in Marvel Avengers Alliance as a boss character.
• Fixer appears under his Techno persona in Lego Marvel’s Avengers.