AUGMEN
Membership: Numerous unidentified members, around twenty-five
Purpose: Experiments to serve Alain Weiss and the Winterbrand Corporation
Aliases: None
Affiliations: Alain Weiss, Opal Tanaka
Enemies: Foe-Dog (Chin Hsi), Iceman (Robert "Bobby" Drake)
Base of Operations: Winterbrand Corporation, Hong Kong, China
First Appearance: Iceman II#1 (December, 2001)
Powers/Abilities: The Augmen were a group of cybernetically enhanced children who, by strapping mutant grafts to their spine, would receive super powers. Each augmentation was "donated" from a different mutant, causing them to have a wide variety of powers and abilities. When the connection between the augmentation device and the child was severed the child would fall unconscious, most likely due to the huge strain on their young bodies. Beside their individual abilities the Winterbrand Corporation had also outfitted them with a cloaking device that would instantly make them appear as normal children. The Augmen would operate in teams called "details", there were at least sixteen details.
History:
(Iceman II#3 (fb) ) - As CEO of Winterbrand Hong Kong Weiss had been developing weapons enhancements to give humans a definitive edge over super-powered beings. But as cybernetics proved old and clunky they switched to a program that surgically removed mutant features and abilities to graft them onto human subjects. Calling it augmentation, however, the grafts only took with children as the superconductors would overheat with adult subjects.
(Iceman II#1 - BTS) - Weiss created a small army of children augmented with mutant grafts calling them his Augmen. With the words "uncle Alain" the Augmen would obey his every command.
(Iceman II#3 (fb) - BTS) - Weiss then learned of Iceman's existence, believing his bio-ice could be resourced to produce a generation of superconductors to make augmentation of adults a reality. To get to Iceman, he forced his former girlfriend Opal Tanaka to work for him by keeping their son Robert Tanaka hostage (in reality Iceman was not the father of Opal's child). After the plan was set in motion, Iceman travelled to Hong Kong to deal with the issue at hand.
(Iceman II#1) - One of the Augmen accompanied by a group of criminals was sent to Hong Kong Airport to retrieve a piece of Iceman's body that the Winterbrand Corporation could start experimenting on. After succeeding in his task, he returned to the Winterbrand offices. Sometime later, Iceman tried to contact his X-Men teammate Beast (Hank McCoy) to gain some more information on the Winterbrand Corporation. Feeling Iceman forced his hand, Weiss quickly severed the connection and had several Augmen attack him but Iceman escaped.
(Iceman II#2) - A group of Augmen was deployed to search for Iceman in the Hong Kong's shantytown area as Weiss had detected a trace of mutacryosis. Unaware that Iceman had made a new ally in the mystic Foe-Dog, the Augmen were finally defeated by the two heroes. Although his henchmen were defeated, Weiss had now learned the location of Iceman and prepared to mobilize all Augmen reserves to find Iceman, even if he had to bring down all of Hong Kong.
(Iceman II#3) - All of the Augmen reserves were sent out to track down Iceman after Weiss had shut down all the power in Hong Kong. Augmen detail Sixteen was tasked with disabling the uplink dishes of the Intercon News Tower, ensuring the city would be closed off from the rest of the world. Not much later three Augmen found Icemand and Foe-Dog at Lantau Island, but were unable to stop them from reaching their next teleportation door as they were on their way to Opal Tanaka in an effort to stop Weiss. Sometime later, still hoping to close Hong Kong off from the rest of the world, a group of Augmen tried to take over Hong Kong International Airport just as a plane tried to land. Iceman showed up at the last minute to rescue the airplane by making sure it landed in a giant pack of ice. As part of his plan, Iceman then allowed the Augmen to capture him.
(Iceman II#4) - After the Augmen caught Iceman they returned him to the Winterbrand Corporation where Weiss met with them. Iceman agreed to come peacefully if he could see his "son" first. Weiss didn't notice Iceman quickly made a special mystical mark out of ice through which Foe-Dog could travel and later would save the child while Iceman and Weiss continued their tour. During the tour of the facility, Weiss showed Iceman where he kept the children who would receive their augmentations and the area where they kept the mutants who would serve as donors. After the tour concluded, Iceman was placed in a special machine and prepared for biopsy harvesting. Just then, the alarms suddenly went off (caused by Foe-Dog saving Robert Tanaka). Iceman knew it was time to act and broke free. Weiss however had expected a deceit of some kind and unleashed his Augmen. With the help of Foe-Dog, Iceman quickly defeated all of them. Weiss knew his end had come and saw only one possibility to defeat Iceman. He chose to use the augmentation on himself, even though he was well aware it would kill him. After plugging one of the mutant grafts onto his spine he abruptly mutated into a creature made out of lava and rock. Weiss hoped to burn the hero down to a puddle of meltwater with his fire powers but Iceman focussed all of his ice powers to counter Weiss' attacks until he literally burned himself out and was covered in ice, ending the threat of the Augmen.
Comments: Created by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning (writers), Karl Kerschl (pencils, inks).
It's not been unrevealed if the augmented children have reverted back to their human form after Winterbrand's downfall.
Profile by MarvellousLuke
CLARIFICATIONS:
Augmen have no known connection to
The Winterbrand Corporation had an unrevealed number of mutants they kept imprisoned in special canisters. These mutants would be used as unwilling donors to create the special augmentation devices used to empower the Augmen. In order to do so, their special features or mutant abilities were surgically removed. The mutant donors would not survive these operations.
--Iceman II#4
images: (without ads)
Iceman II#3, p3 pan2 (main image 1)
Iceman II#2, p14, pan1 (main image 2)
Iceman II#3, p12, pan10 (children before augmentation)
Iceman II#4, p15, pan1 (canisters with augmentation devices)
Iceman II#4, p14, pan 2-7 (Augmen defeated)
Iceman II#4, p4, pan 3 (mutant donors)
Appearances:
Iceman II#1 (December, 2001) - Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning (writers), Karl Kerschl (pencils, inks), Mike Marts (editor)
Iceman II#2 (January, 2002) - Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning (writers), Karl Kerschl (pencils, inks), Mike Marts (editor)
Iceman II#3 (February, 2002) - Dan Abnett (writer), Scott Young (pencils), Greg Titus (inks), Mike Marts (editor)
Iceman II#4 (March, 2002) - Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning (writers), Karl Kerschl (pencils, inks), Mike Marts (editor)
Last updated: 07/14/15.
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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