Posted in: Comics | Tagged: jack kirby, Marvel Comics, stan lee, Unus The Untouchable, What Were They Thinking, x-men

What Were They Thinking? – Unus The Untouchable

Published Fri, 12 Jul 2013 20:00:38 -0500

Last updated Mon, 15 Jul 2013 17:16:35 -0500

We are back for another installment of no one's favorite game… What Were They Thinking? That's right, last week we debuted with the colorful creation of Steve Ditko and Joe Gill, Doctor Spectro. This week we are going to move across town to the self-proclaimed House Of Idea and take a look at a creation of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

The year was 1964 and Marvel Comics was cranking out book after book with only a handful of artists and one True-Believing writer. Issue 8 of X-Men came along and with it the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Not every Mutant is going to get the awesome power of flight, magnetism, telepathy or shooting lasers out of your eyes. But Stan and Jack came up with a good one when the dreamt up a mutant with a personal force field. The powers don't let him do anything, but they prevent anything from happening to him. I can almost hear the conversation in Stan's office that day as Jack, chewing on a cigar showed him a page where the Beast just bounces off a wrestle he's trying to fight.

Jack: He's got a force field, so he can't be touched.

Stan: So he's untouchable… we should use that.

Jack: You want to call him The Untouchable?

Stan: Yes! Wait… No! It needs something more… something strong and masculine!

Jack: You ever open the windows in here? The ink fumes are kind of thick…

Stan: I've got it! Unus! Unus the Untouchable!

Jack: Did you say eunuch?

Stan: No… Unus!

Jack: What's a Unus?

And so history was created. Born Angelo "Unus" Unuscione in Milan, Italy, the mutant moved to the united states and legally changed his name to Gunther Bain (Gunther was the top boys name in the year… never). He tried his hand at wrestling for a while where he fought and defeated the Beast who had briefly left the X-men. Gunther sought out and joined the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants taking the name Unus the Untouchable. (So why did he change his name in the first place?)

He later joined up with a group called Factor Three but that didn't work out as the leader was actually an alien. He became friends and teamed up with Blob for many capers but his abilities became unstable at one point the Hulk was able to break through the barrier, and at another his field got so thick that air couldn't get in and Unus suffocated. He was believed dead having collapsed into Blob's arms.

Turns out he wasn't dead, just vacationing in Genosha where he saw ghosts for a while, but then got better. He also got depowered by Scarlet Witch but given his abilities back by Quicksilver only to have them evolve again into creating a pink shell around him that once again killed him… or did it. Nope… as of right now he's supposedly alive on Genosha and repowered having been resurrected by Eli Bard. I'm starting to think Genosha is the mutant equivalent to puppy lake.

The concept of the character wasn't bad. The fact that his power ended up killing him… twice, not so good. But the real "What Were You Thinking" is still the name. Why would you pick Unus, a name that is so easy to parody with either Anus the Untouchable or Eunice the Untouchable… Just saying.