Mauler

Origin

MAULER is a multi-purpose combat suit that stands for Mobile Armored Utility Laser-guided E-beam Revised developed by industrialist Edwin Cord, president of Cord Conglomerate for the United States Department of Defense. The suit was a prototype to be mass produced and used by the US Army. However the Defense Department cancelled the contract funding for the MAULER program because of a security breach.

Major Story Arcs

Versus Iron Man

Cord came very close to bankruptcy and risked his company’s remaining money in a similar battle suit called Raider. Cord dispatched three mercenaries to attack Iron Man in order to demonstrate the Raider combat suit to Purchasing Agent Burke of SHIELD hoping that SHIELD would be impressed by the suit’s ability and bail out Cord’s company due to the MAULER failure. Agent Burke had Cord arrested and was convicted for reckless endangerment. Cord was in financial ruin and sold his company to Stark International. The MAULER battle suit was stored in a Long Island warehouse.

Two other men wore the armor and assumed the identity of the MAULER. The first was Aaron Soames who was a disgruntled Cord employee that stole the suit to exact revenge on Edwin Cord who had replaced him with a computer. The second person was a thug named Turk that stole the suit to use in a personal vendetta against Daredevil. Both men are currently in jail.

Returning the Suit

Cord then hired a mercenary named Brendan Doyle to steal the MAULER suit and erase from Stark Internationale’s computer records all information regarding its origin, design, specifications and whereabouts. Cord had plans to rent the MAULER suit to the highest bidder to finance his return to civilian life after prison. Doyle managed to gain access to the MAULER suit by a former friend named James Rhodes who was a Stark employee at the time. Doyle failed to erase the computer records and was not willing to take a former comrade’s life to do it. Doyle resigned his loyalty to Cord and flew off with the MAULER suit.

During the Armor Wars Iron Man was waiting for Doyle to return from a competition. When Doyle walked into the room Stark, in armor, ordered him to surrender the armor. Doyle, who had it in his bag, handed it over without a fight stating that he was paid to fight. Stark took the armor and left.

James Rhodes used the armor himself one time when he was trying to infiltrate a group that was known for selling Stark Tech. The armor, flown by a remote, was later blasted to pieces.

Civil War

Doyle would again done the armor during the Civil War conflict. Then he would team-up with Mr. Hyde, King Cobra, and Firebrand to try to assassinate the Taskmaster who had a contract out on him.

Looter

The Looter/Meteor Man stole equipment taken from several supervillains–among the items he got was a Mauler suit. He used the Mauler suit to rob money while having someone else get blamed (Mauler couldn’t have done it since he was in jail). However Spider-Man managed to defeat him in a fight. It is unknown if Meteor Man still has anything from Mauler’s weaponry.

Powers and Abilities

The MAULER is a flexible-offensive battle suit that grants the wearer flight, great strength and equipped with various weapons. The main weapon is a 600 watt laser cannon capable of slicing through three inches of steel in .04 seconds. The secondary weapon is a 400 watt, electron particle gun and finally the E-beam gun fires short bursts of highly concussive electrons in range of 500 to 1,200 pounds of TNT.