SELF-MADE MAN

Real Name: Fred Feenix

Identity/Class: Alternate reality (Earth-78423) human cyborg

Occupation: Businessman

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Ms. Dipsey, Howard the Duck, the Puritan;
formerly Charity

Enemies: Charity, Howard the Duck, Beverly Switzler, Arthur Winslow

Known Relatives: Unidentified father

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Cleveland, Ohio

First Appearance: Howard the Duck Newspaper Strip (October 29th, 1977)

Powers/Abilities: The Self-Made Man was a cyborg with hydraulic robotic arms and legs made from an unknown material that provided him with enhanced physical strength, lifting around 5 tons and superhuman endurance that seemed to keep him healthy and vigorous for a man his apparent age.

Fred Feenix possesses a keen mind for business and inventing. He is elderly in appearance but keeps himself healthy through a strict regimen of exercise and he sees himself as a savior of sorts in helping to usher in a new era of healthy living by transforming people into Ro-Bods that no longer required to eat, drink, procreate or behave in an unhealthy way.

Height: Unrevealed (5'11"; by approximation)
Weight: Unrevealed (200 lbs.; by approximation)
Eyes: Blue
Hair: White

History:
(Howard the Duck Newspaper Strip October - December, 1977 - BTS) - After taking over his father's salvage yard, Fred Feenix used his keen mind for business and forged it into a small empire. Tragedy struck during an industrial accident at one of his worksites and Fred lost his arms and legs and dragged himself to safety using only his teeth. Fred at some later date somehow managed to replace his lost limbs with robotic hydraulic ones.

(Howard the Duck Newspaper Strip October - Dececmber, 1977 - BTS) - Calling himself the Self-Made Man, Fred Feenix believed himself to be the one to usher in a new era for mankind and invented a machine that could turn people into robot versions, immortal and free of weakness and obesity. He planned on selling these new robotic bodies to those who wanted one and needed to hire a group of salesmen. He hired Calvin (the Puritan), a man with deep religious convictions, and put him in charge of human resources to hire salesmen or those worthy to work for him under the name of the Puritan Ethics Employment Agency. He also hired a woman's lib fanatic named Charity, the ex-wife of Arthur Winslow, who was a roommate of Howard the Duck and Beverly Switzler.

   He saved Howard from being incinerated by the Puritan who believed him to be a spawn of the devil and a blasphemer due to him being a talking duck that proclaimed he was to Howard a talking ape. As a way of making amends he offered Howard a job as one of his salesmen.

(Howard the Duck Newspaper Strip Octobert - December, 1977) - His employee Charity, having kidnapped Arthur and Beverly, brought them to the Self-Made Man's offices where he was going to offer them Ro-Bods. Feeling slighted and wanting to be the first to gain one as Fred Feenix had promised, Charity along with Howard's insistence, convinced Fred Feenix to comply with her request. Gaining her new body, Charity turned on Fred Feenix and accused him of being just like any other man who saw women as inferior and crashed through a wall and dropped 5 stories to the sidewalk below, vowing to rejoin her women's group the Sixth Avenue Amazons and take over as its leader with Fred, Howard, Beverly, and Arthur chasing after her. The Self-Made Man and Charity began to scuffle on the street, but he was unsuccessful in subduing her. Howard and Arthur tricked Charity into charging after them and ended up getting stuck in an exercise machine and set it to max that caused the machine's vibrations to forcefully make her limbs fall off. Scooping them up, her body was returned to Fred's office where he promised to fix her at some later date. He got his secretary to issue Howard a check for 500 dollars and ended his employment and began to rethink his plans which did not seem to work as he had once thought.

Comments: Created by Steve Gerber, Gene Colon and Val Mayerik.

Profile by AvatarWarlord.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Fred Feenix the Self-Made Man has no known connections to:

Ms. Dipsey

(Howard the Duck Newspaper Strip November 10th, 1977) - Ms. Dipsey was hired as Fred Feenix's secretary. Escorting Howard, Beverly, Arthur, and Charity through the office to his lab where the Ro-Bod conversion chamber was, he told Ms. Dipsey to hold his calls. She was later authorized to write a check for 500 dollars made payable to Howard the Duck for his services following the debacle involving Charity who turned on the Self-Made Man after empowering her with a new Ro-Bod body. After Howard made a snarky remark about Fred Feenix and not knowing how nicely he was being paid, he might have considered selling out at which point Ms. Dipsy thought to herself he would live to regret that.

--Howard the Duck Newspaper Strip

images: (without ads)
Howard the Duck Newspaper Strip (November 13th, 1977), pan1 (main image)
Howard the Duck Newspaper Strip (October 27th, 1977), pan3 (face)
Howard the Duck Newspaper Strip (December 5th, 1977), pan1 (street fight)
Howard the Duck Newspaper Strip (December 11th, 1977), pan6 (Dipsey)

Appearances:
Howard the Duck Newspaper Strip (October 29th, 1977 to December 11th, 1977) - Steve Gerber (writer), Gene Colon (pencils), Val Mayerik (inks)

First Posted: 06/01/2021
Last updated: 06/01/2021

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

Special Thanks to www.g-mart.com for hosting the Appendix, Master List, etc.!

Back to Characters