BOX I
Real Name: Roger Bochs
Other Aliases: Omega
Group Affiliation: Former member of Alpha Flight and Beta Flight
First Appearance: Alpha Flight #11
Final Appearance: Alpha Flight #49
Creator: John Byrne
Roger Bochs was a paraplegic who lost both of his legs just above the knee.
An inventor, Bochs decided to compensate for his disability by creating
an extremely powerful robot called 'Box' (a pun on his last name.) Bochs
would project his mind into Box using a psychometric helmet, allowing
him to experience the robot's actions as if they were his own.
Although Bochs was undeniably
talented, he did not creat Box on his own.
James MacDonald Hudson helped with both the design and
creation of the robot.
It is unknown how Bochs came to Hudson's attention
or when Bochs began his involvement with Hudson's
Department H. At the time of H's first disbanding,
Bochs was a member of Beta Flight.
Like most of
Beta & Gamma Flights,
Bochs was approached by Delphine Courtney,
a robotic representative of Jerome "Jerry" Jaxon.
Jaxon was forming a group of super-human operatives with one objective: the
death of James Hudson. Jaxon called this group
Omega Flight. Bochs agreed to join the group, but
only in order to infiltrate it and help Hudson defeate their plans.
Jaxon, however, realized that
Bochs would not betray his friend. Moving to 'Plan B', Jaxon seized
control of the psychometric
helmet that Bochs used to operate his creation. Using the helmet Jaxon
battled Hudson as Box. Jaxon was killed by feedback from the helmet when Hudson
destroyed the original Box robot, but moments later Hudson was seemingly
killed when his power-pack exploded from damage sustained in the fight.
Some months later Bochs was still upset at the fact that Jaxon and
his robot had seemingly gotten away in the confusion. (Bochs was
unaware of Jaxon's death.) He was determined to take revenge for the death
of Hudson; a man Bochs had considered a friend. To this end he contacted the
mutant member of Gamma Flight named
Madison Jeffries.
Together Jeffries
and Bochs recreated the Box robot, stronger and better than before. They
also redesigned it so that only Roger Bochs would be able to control the robot,
by "phasing in" and becoming part of it.
Bochs eventually hooked up with
Alpha Flight when Talisman
gave a mystic call to her father from the site known as the Eye of the World.
Talisman had only meant to call her father,
Shaman, but ended up summoning every super-human in
Canada with a positive connection to Alpha Flight. Bochs
ended up giving up possession of the Box robot to allow it to hold the soul
of Walter Langkowski,
whose Sasquatch form had recently been killed.
Bochs reclaimed his robot after Langkowski sent his soul into the
void known as the Crossroads of Reality. He then went on to serve in Alpha
with distinction. However, as time went by he developed mental problems and
eventually cracked completely after new legs given to him by
Scramble
rotted away.
Alpha Flight took Bochs to Scramble's New Life Clinic to get help
for him. While there Scramble revealed his own insanity, and Bochs merged with
Scramble into the composite being known as Omega. Bochs' inventive genius
dreamt up new forms for Omega to become, and Scramble's power made those forms
reality. After Bochs partially came to his senses Scramble lobotomized him;
this effectively ended Bochs' life. His physical body died when Madison
Jeffries obliterated Omega.
Roger Bochs was a mechanical
engineering genius whose greatest creation was the robot known as "Box."
The Box robot was made of a "living" metal whose composition is now
known only to Madison Jeffries. The metal is capable of housing a human
life-force indefinitely.
It is presumably this capability of the metal that made "phasing in" to the
robot possible. The robot possessed great super-human strength, had flight
capability, was extremely resistant to damage and was outfitted with a wide
array of sensors.
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