RECORDER
(unrevealed designation)

Real Name: Recorder (numerical designation unrevealed)

Identity/Class:  Extraterrestrial (Rigellian) android (Recorder)

Occupation: Recorder of data

Group Membership: Recorders of Rigel/Rigellian Intergalactic Survey

Enemies: Galactus (Galan), Punishers,;
    while not considering the Recorder an enemy, Adam Warlock was very annoyed by it;
    similarly, Thanos disregarded the Recorder, leaving it behind when he and Pip teleported away

Known Relatives: He may consider other Recorders as his siblings, while the Rigellians are the creators of the Recorders (and could be considered as parental figures)

Aliases: "Tin Man" (from Adam Warlock)

Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
    formerly Thanos' Sanctuary/dreadnought;
    formerly the Grand Commissioner's royal palace, New Rigel-3

First Appearance: Thanos I#2 (January, 2004)

Powers/Abilities: (Per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#9) - Recorders are a humanoid-shaped android constructed from some extraterrestrial ferrous alloy and designed for information-gathering and analysis. 

    Recorders' information-gathering instrumentation is located in their head components, and is analogous to eye and ear placement on humanoid beings. The eyes of the Recorder takes in data across the whole electromagnetic spectrum (radio to gamma rays), not simply the visual portion of the spectrum. Their auditory units are vastly superhuman; they can register sounds from .3 to 150 deciBel (see comments). Recorders also possesses pico-processors, the olfactory register of which covers almost 90 mega-cubits of data space. 

    The sampling rate for average events is every .01 seconds; for relatively more interesting events it is .001 seconds. 

    Recorders' computer fluid resolution data/pico-processing system fill the entire chest cavity and have massive data storage capacity (see comments).

    Recorder units are equipped with vocoders permitting them to communicate verbally, and are able to understand and speak over 11,000 languages spoken throughout the Milky Way Galaxy (covering at least 96,000 cultures) and others explored by the Rigellians.

History:

(Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#9: Recorders / Guardians of the Galaxy: Rocket Raccoon & Groot -- Steal the Galaxy (fb) - BTS / Starmasters#3 - BTS) - Each of the over 900 identical Recorder units were constructed on the manufacturing satellite / matter forges orbiting Rigel-3, and were built of some extraterrestrial ferrous alloy.

(Thanos I#1 - BTS) - Seeking to make amends for his Thanosi doppelganger's devastation of Rigel-3, Thanos teleported himself and his associate Adam Warlock to just outside the Grand Commissioner's royal palace on New Rigel-3

(Thanos I#2) - The Recorder announced as it began recording a conference between the Grand Commissioner and Adam Warlock. When Warlock noted Thanos' apparent sincerity as well as his complex and volatile nature, the Recorder added that Thanos was extremely deadly.

    After Warlock had convinced the Commissioner to accept Thanos' aide to avoid his ire and then seek to expedite his departure without conflict, the Recorder asked how and why Warlock traveled with Thanos.

    Warlock questioned what was this irritating device that kept interrupting them, and the Grand Commissioner explained the Recorders origin and purpose and then reiterated its request to know Warlock's origin and purpose as well, as they were greatly depending on him in dealing with Thanos. The Recorder subsequently recorded as Warlock provided a brief summary of his past.

    The Recorder was with the Commissioner and Warlock when General Zygo and his troops confronted them, noting their intent to arrest the Commissioner for incompetence and Warlock for his association with Thanos. It remained silent as Warlock defeated Zygo's forces and then sought out Thanos, only to find that he had slain Zygo's troops when they had tried to slay him. The Recorder noted the evidence of a high-level gamma radiation burst and the 12 dead Rigellian troopers and then concluded that Thanos had escaped.

    Warlock mocked the "tin man" as being adept at illuminating the obvious. The Recorder was silent as Thanos detailed the multiple geo-political and technological improvements he had input into their central data bank and as Thanos slew Zygo when he tried to kill Thanos with a molecular disruptor.

    After Thanos opened a teleportational gate to transport them to Rigel-18 to investigate a problem -- which turned out to be the presence of Galactus and his elemental converter -- the Recorder identified the gate's nature and questioned Thanos on the range of his personal teleporter, but Thanos told the robot that that information was classified.

    After they had passed through the portal and the Recorder had noted that they now stood on Rigel-18, Warlock asked if the archivist had to constantly point out the obvious, and when the Commissioner started to note that it was his job to...Warlock interrupted, replying "be annoying."
    The Recorder remained silent as Thanos confirmed that he would honor his pledge to help the Rigellians despite the magnitude of the threat.

(Thanos I#3) - The Recorder was aboard Thanos' Sanctuary/dreadnought (while the Grand Commissioner observed remotely) as Thanos -- via assistance from Moondragon (Heather Douglas) -- met with Galactus on a psychic plane, seeking to learn the purpose of his actions and his plans for Rigel-18. When Galactus resisted divulging this information, Thanos tried to psychically overwhelm him, but Galactus cast him out.

(Thanos I#3) - Thanos' involvement caused Galactus to hasten his course of actions, and he caused Rigel-18's sun to go nova, devastating the planet while using the energies to open a dimensional portal and retrieve the skeleton of Earth-93060's Rune and the (apparently) Space Infinity Gem (see comments in the Rigel-18 profile).

    Appreciating what Galactus was doing, Thanos swiftly relocated his ship a safe distance away, sparing all aboard.

(Thanos I#4) - Galactus' Punishers assaulted Thanos' ship to steal Adam Warlock's Soul Gem, leading the Recorder to state the obvious: "Warning: Intruder Alert." The Recorder was torn in half in the ensuing conflict but continued to record events. Successfully obtaining the Soul Gem and thusly incapacitating Warlock, all but one of the Punishers teleported back to Galactus while the remaining one initiated its self destruct mechanism.

    Thanos had Pip teleport Warlock to a rendezvous point while he transported himself to distant point in his ship that would be spared from the initial explosion so he could summon a replacement vessel and gather the data and programs he would need against Galactus before ab

    The Recorder stated, "Observation: You are forgetting about--" and then he was silenced by the Punisher's explosion.

    Its main fuel storage ignited by the Punisher's explosion, Thanos' ship exploded just after his departure.

Comments: Created by Jim Starlin and Al Milgrom.

    This Recorder was notably had four circular patterns of unrevealed nature/purpose his anterior thoracic region and with a red stripe of unrevealed significance running perpendicularly across his nose.

     I'm not sure what the devices on its right leg and/or either of its arms were..

     The Recorder was almost certainly destroyed by the Punisher's explosion, but, if it somehow survived, it was certainly destroyed when Thanos' dreadnought exploded.

    The units and descriptions for superhuman hearing ranges noted in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe for beings such as Daredevil, the Recorders, etc. has been called into question. This is not an area of medicine in which I was trained, and so I honestly have no idea how to resolve it. 

    When the original handbooks came out, they were reported as being able to store 40 terabytes of data, which was an insane amount of data capacity back in 1982. I don't know what it is now, but I am certain it is orders of magnitude greater than 40 terabytes.

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
This Recorder should be distinguished from:

• RECORDER#127 - formerly contained the full details of the interplanetary Timely Incorporated's Project 616--Guardians of the Galaxy: Rocket Raccoon & Groot -- Steal the Galaxy
  
• RECORDER #211 - see ANALYZER—Thor I#132
• RECORDER #336 - badly damaged observing Galactus' consumption of a world, recovered and used as jukebox at Pandubundy's and Adjufar; memories transferred into Recorder #127 so they could be returned to Rigel--Guardians of the Galaxy: Rocket Raccoon & Groot. Guardians of the Galaxy: Rocket and Groot: Steal this Galaxy
  
• "RECORDER #RE-404" - possibly altered by the Supreme Intelligence, reprogrammed by Kree, sought to engineer violence and other conflicts for itself to record--Force Works#1 
• RECORDER #451 - evolved beyond original programming to extent that it saw itself as godlike and felt need to fix the universe. To do this, 451 allegedly conspired with Howard Stark to genetically manipulate Stark's son, enabling the son to pilot Godkiller armor, capable of destroying or defending any planet--Iron Man V#6
• RECORDER #498 - destroyed but in the possession of the interstellar Timely Incorporated with "sustain" boot-system bolted to the side of his head to preserve his memory files energetically--Guardians of the Galaxy: Rocket Raccoon & Groot: Steal this Galaxy
  
• RECORDER #901-E - warned Rigellians of Axi-Tun attack--Starmasters#3
• RECORDER # - present on Rigellian Colony World#827; observed Sundragon's battle with the Dance--Cosmic Powers Unlimited#2/3
• RECORDER # - observed near genocide of Rigellians by Thanos in seeking the firestone, followed Thor on quest to prevent Thanos from obtaining power from the Designate, sacrificed self to free Thor from energy prison of Thanos--Thor Annual 2000/2
• RECORDER # - present with Intergalactic Council during events of Maximum Security--Maximum Security: Dangerous Planet
• RECORDER # - auctioned for knowledge--Deadpool and the Mercs for Money#1
  
• RECORDER # - stolen from Rigellians by Black Novas, given to Chitauri who attacked the ship by Titus; they rebuilt the Recorder and used its knowledge to build their own Ultimate Nullifier--Nova V#4
• RECORDER RIGEL TYPE ZETA-9 - Recorder acting as She-Hulk's bailiff when she was a Magistrati, placed under control of the Recluses so they could monitor whether she was a threat to them, replaced Holden Holliway as acting head of Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg, & Holliway when Holliway went after Southpaw, secretly (even to him) under the control of "Reckoning War" instigator who destroyed Z-9 after it finished gathering the needed information - aka Artie Zix--She-Hulk I#7
  
  and some alternate reality recorders, unique from ones known to exist in Reality-616

• RECORDER #417 of Reality-829 circa 24th century - sent with Hercules to record his exploits in the Andromeda galaxy--Hercules I#1
• RECORDER of Earth-2081 - sent to Earth to confirm humanity's extinction, left behind Vidbot to observe Banner's death--Hulk: The End
• RECORDER # of Reality-60166 - assistant of future incarnations of Reed and Sue Richards--Fantastic Four: The Wedding Special#1

Appearances:
Thanos I#2 (January, 2004) - Jim Starlin (writer/penciler), Al Milgrom (inker), Marc Sumerak & Andy Schmidt (assistant editors), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Thanos I#3-4 (February-March, 2004) - Jim Starlin (writer/penciler), Al Milgrom (inker), Marc Sumerak & Andy Schmidt (assistant editors), Tom Brevoort (editor)

First posted: 10/02/2024
Last updated: 10/02/2024

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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