ASH
Real Name: Artificial Superhuman
Identity/Class: Android, British creation (but presumably not a citizen)
Occupation: Experiment, intended to be soldier / superhuman government agent but expired prior to being action-ready
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: British Armed Forces, Gulliver Jones
Enemies: Nazis, especially Nazi bombers
Known Relatives: Gulliver Jones (creator)
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Unidentified lab in an unspecified UK location
First Appearance: Spider-Man: Heroes and Villains#44 (April, 2011)
Powers/Abilities: Ash could generate a fiery plasma around his body allowing him to create fiery shapes and release deadly heat blasts. Though he did not demonstrate the ability in his short appearance, he presumably could fly, both because he was created to emulate the Human Torch and because Captain Kerosene, who inherited Ash's powers, could. He was also immune to all other forms of heat and flames. Though sentient, he apparently still needed to stay within range of a large remote control unit to operate (or perhaps to control his powers).
History: (Captain America: America's Avenger) - Despite being comparatively young, Gulliver Jones was one of Britain's finest scientific minds, a former classmate of computer pioneer and codebreaker Alan Turing.
(Spider-Man:
Heroes and Villains#44) - Admiring the U.S. invention of the android Human
Torch, the British military tasked a group of the country's top scientists
with creating the U.K.'s own fiery automaton. Gulliver Jones succeeded, creating
the Artificial Superhuman, a.k.a. Ash.
(Captain America: America's Avenger) - Ash's powers were a product of paraffin-based technology.
(Spider-Man: Heroes and Villains#44) - Jones still had problems
to resolve before Ash could be used in the field - though sentient, Ash needed
stay within range of a large remote control to function properly, forcing
Gulliver to follow his creation round wheeling the remote along on a large
trolley. Unfortunately, an enemy bomb hit the lab, fatally injuring Ash and
badly burning Gulliver. To save his creator, Ash somehow grafted his own
combustible skin onto Gulliver, then expired. When Gulliver awoke in the
hospital he discovered to his shock that he had gained Ash's powers, and
he subsequently became the superhero Captain Kerosene.
Comments: Created by Glenn Dakin and Kev Hopgood.
Ash's creation was directly inspired by the example of the American Human Torch (Jim Hammond), so arguably Torch is an ancestor. However, Jones had no known access to Torch creator Professor Horton's work so there is no direct technological linkage - it isn't a case of Ash's design being a derivative of the Torch.
Ash only appeared in two panels, three if you count the one where his creation is first discussed, in a back-up one page origin file / story for Captain Kerosene that appeared in Spider-Man: Heroes and Villains #44, a series published in the U.K. (and Australia) by Marvel licensee Eaglemoss. Though the stories that title were not set in the mainstream Marvel Universe, Reality-616, Kerosene's creator Glenn Dakin intended that the details shown held true in Reality-616 too, as confirmed in Captain Kerosene's handbook entry in Captain America: America's Avenger.
Profile by Loki.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Ash has no known connections to
images: (without ads)
Spider-Man: Heroes and Villains#44, origin page, panel 2 (main image / Ash's
remote control unit)
Spider-Man: Heroes and Villains#44, origin page, panel 1 (a British officer
instructs scientists to create a fiery android)
Spider-Man: Heroes and Villains#44, origin page, panel 3 (Ash vows to save
the injured Gulliver Jones)
Appearances:
Spider-Man: Heroes and Villains#44 (April 2011) - Glenn Dakin (writer),
Kevin Hopgood (art)
Last updated: 01/09/14
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel
Copyright info
All other characters mentioned or pictured are ™ and © 1941-2099
Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. If you like this stuff, you
should check out the real thing!
Please visit The Marvel Official Site at:
http://www.marvel.com