Real Name: Junkheap THE JUNKHEAP THAT WALKED LIKE A MAN
Real Name: Junkheap
Identity/Class: Extra-dimensional (Earth-238) junkheap mutate
Occupation: Nemesis of mankind
Affiliations: None, but it considers all used and discarded machinery as its kin
Enemies: Captain Britain, the Police force of Earth 238 London
Known Relatives: All used and discarded machines
Aliases: The Junk Monster
Base of Operations: A rubbish tip on Earth 238.
First Appearance: Marvel Superheroes#378 (October 1981)
Powers/Abilities: Rapidly
evolving and able to develop new weapons to deal with new
threats. It displayed three long range weapons - an
"electron decay beam" which it used to destroy police
vehicles, some sort of heat beam, which given time could bypass
forcefields by heating the air inside them, and particle beams.
With its giant size came great strength, and it also developed an
electromagnetic forcefield of its own, which could double as a
shocking lightning attack. Exposure to large bodies of water
however proved fatal, as it drained away the creature's energy,
without which the evolutionary forces would reverse and it would
decay into its original lifeless parts.
History: (Marvel Superheroes#378) Captain Britain is attempting to make sense of the new Earth he has been sent to by questioning some of the natives, a pair of tramps Sidney Crumb and Mrs McGeary, whom he has met on a rubbish tip near Tower Bridge. As he is talking to them, a strange being rises up from the discarded machinery behind him, composed of pieces of domestic appliances and other rubbish. It attacks some of the other fleeing tramps in its vicinity and Captain Britain springs into action, freeing one it has taken hold of. It responds swiftly to the attack with a deafening blast of sound from some speakers on its body, and declares its intention to "Destroy Humanity" for discarding it while its parts were still functional. As the hero recovers the gigantic being sets off on a rampage of destruction down the Embankment, visibly evolving into a high tech living arsenal as it does so.
(Marvel Superheroes#379) The battle continues
between hero and monster onto Tower Bridge, with the creature
eliminating police opposition without even slowing down. 
Captain Britain extends his forcefield to block off one
of the creatures weapons, an electron decay beam it has been
using against the police, so that the weapon backfires, and for
the first time it feels pain. It retaliates with an energy charge
that damages the bridge and forces the hero to land. He throws a
small car at it, but is himself fired upon by a heavily armed
unit of law enforcers (see comments). Captain Britain tries to
reason with the unit to back off and let him handle the menace,
but with the giant creature rapidly approaching the police flee
before reaching an understanding.
The creature fires a beam of intense heat, and unable to move lest the police be struck by it, Captain Britain takes the full brunt of the blast. He fights his way up the heat beam, with the temperature inside his forcefield increasing, until he is able to strike the Junkheap, knocking it off the side of the Bridge. As he had hoped, the murky water of the Thames shorts out its power source, and the monster begins to die. Captain Britain harries it as it crawls back to shore, and finally reaching an understanding with the police, they follow the dying creature, now devolving back into its component parts, back to the rubbish tip.
It appears to be heading towards
the end of a storm sewer, which has a strange fluid leaking
out of it. Nearly dead, the remaining pieces of the Junkheap
tries to make it to the fluid, but Captain Britain extends his
forcefield once again, blocking it, and the Junkheap finally
falls apart.
(Daredevils#1) Like many of the encounters Captain Britain had on the Crooked World, the Junkheap was seen among the memories that Merlyn mixed when he was resurrecting Captain Britain after the Fury had killed him.
(Daredevils#5-BTS) - Any remant of the Junkheap was obliterated, along with the entire dimension of Earth-238, by Mandragon.
(Mighty World of Marvel#10) In the full throws of the Earth 616 Jaspers' Warp, Captain Britain is temporarily made to believe he never left the Crooked World, and that he and his allies are under attack by a variety of enemies from that reality, including the Junkheap that Walked Like a Man.
Comments: Created by David Thorpe and Alan Davis.
Who are the guys on Tower Bridge? They have a tank and missile launchers with them. How come they were waiting there? They can't have been called out because of the Junkheap because its rampage only began seconds before the sight it. Perhaps they are a police heavy weapons unit, called out after the Crazy Gang and Captain Britain's fight (they mention that they received a report on the bank raid). They aren't the standard police force, because we see them fleeing the creature, and they aren't the Status Crew, who we meet later. One of them has what appears to be Corporal stripes on the back of his helmet. We do see similarly dressed individuals patrolling the streets several episodes later (Marvel Superheroes#383). Although it's never stated, the most likely explanation is that Britain in the Crooked World is under a state of martial law (the Status Crew make a somewhat paranoid comment about the Reds in #382), with army units stationed at strategic places around London, one of which would be Tower Bridge (it's the easternmost bridge crossing the Thames in London - the next above ground crossing is the Dartford Suspension Bridge over fifteen miles further east.)
CLARIFICATIONS: No known connections to:
Last updated: 08/17/02
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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