T-Bob

T-BOB

Real Name: T-Bob

Class: Robot

Occupation: Adventurer

Group Affiliation: None

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Boulder Hill

First Appearance: MASK special insert in the September, 1985 DC Comics, such as Action Comics I #573

Powers: T-Bob was a cowardly robot.

History: (MASK special insert) - Scott was the son of Matt Trakker, leader of MASK, and made the robot T-Bob as a companion. Matt and T-Bob were on a school field trip to Mount Rushmore when VENOM stormed the monument, taking the staff and visitors hostage. T-Bob admitted to Scott that he was terrified out of his mind, but Scott was confident his dad would save them. Miles Mayhem contacted MASK, threatening to destroy the monument and his hostages with a molecular-dissembler unless Matt surrendered himself to him. Matt and Bruce Sato arrived at Rushmore, surrendering to Miles and his lackeys Sly Rax and Cliff Dagger, but Miles went against his word, saying he was still going to destroy Rushmore. The rest of MASK arrived, forcing Venom to flee. Miles tried to fire the dissembler as he flew away in his Switchblade jet, but MASK foiled VENOM by creating an illusion of Mount Rushmore which Miles shot the molecular-dissembler at.

(MASK I #1) - Matt took his son and T-Bob to the amusement park, where Scott bought a snake shaped balloon. An emergency signal from Duane Kennedy came in, so Matt told Scott he'd have to cut their vacation short and asked him to return to their hotel room. Kennedy told Matt that all the gold in Fort Knox had mysteriously disappeared, and asked him to investigate. Matt contacted Sato, Turner and Hayes, telling them to meet him at Fort Knox, and they discovered that VENOM had drilled into Knox using their Mole vehicle, stole the gold and put down quick-drying cement in an attempt to cover up their activities. They caught up to the Mole and recovered the gold, but the theft was meant as a distraction by VENOM while they kidnapped Matt's son Scott. The vendor Scott had bought his balloon from was actually a VENOM agent, and it was filled with sleeping gas, so he was unable to resist when Miles came for him. Matt returned to his hotel to find Scott and T-Bob missing and a picture of Anubis painted on the wall.

(MASK I #2, 3) - Trakker and Sato flew to Egypt to meet Egyptologist Prof. Ginsburg, an expert on Anubis in hopes that the graffiti VENOM left behind would give them a clue about where Scott and T-Bob were. Miles Mayhem, dressed as Anubis, alongside Rax, Dagger and Bruno Sheppard, who were disguised as mummies, ambushed Prof. Ginsburg in a temple dedicated to Anubis, and put him in a cell alongside T-Bob and Scott. They then robbed the Cairo Museum, but were driven away by Trakker and Sato. Duane Kennedy contacted Matt, telling him he was sending MASK's new recruit Nash Gorey to assist in finding Scott, although Matt was wary of someone inexperienced joing in on such a sensitive mission. Matt called in Hondo, Jacques LeFleur and Julio Lopez to join in on the mission. They traveled to the temple of Anubis where Ginsberg was last seen, but were ambushed by VENOM. MASK drove them off and found Scott, T-Bob and Ginsburg's cage and freed them, and T-Bob complained about how bad the dampness was for his metal body. Gorey, actually a double-agent of VENOM, used his Outlaw tanker rig to seal the temple with a boulder. Hondo used his Blaster mask to free his team, and an angry Matt called up Duane to tell them they'd been infiltrated by Venom. Duane promised him heads would roll, but this Duane was an imposter; the real Duane had been kidnapped after being sent a balloon filled with sleeping gas just like Scott.

(MASK I #4) - The imposter Duane called Scott Trakker reporting that VENOM had stolen a number of valuable paintings from the Louvre. Scott wanted to be at the opening of the P.N.A.'s missile-defense, but the false Duane insisted he and his team go to France. His Spectrum mask revealed that the paintings hadn't been stolen, VENOM had only installed lighting that made the paintings invisible to the naked eye. While MASK was preoccupied VENOM agents Vanessa Warfield, Floyd Malloy and Sly Rax knocked out the NASA astronauts set to put the final satellite in place for the P.N.A. defense system and replaced it with a VENOM satellite armed with a particle death-ray. Alex and Buddy set a fire in their cell, setting off the MASK computer system, which unlocked the holding cell in case of an emergency, and brought Matt up to spread. When President Reagan pushed a computer console to demonstrate the defense-system it activated VENOM's satellite, calling down a death ray that would continue firing until it hit nuclear storehouses in the Midwest. VENOM looted Las Vegas casinos as the city was being evacuated, but MASK responded, capturing them all. Alex Sector hacked into the VENOM satellite, shutting it down, and the imposter Duane Kennedy was arrested by the P.N.A.. Matt was proud of his team, but told Scott and T-Bob worried that the delay in implementing the space missile prevention program would lead to continued tensions in the world that could end in nuclear war.

Comments: Created by Kenner.

T-Bob was a character from the MASK toy line and cartoons. This entry covers only his DC appearances.

The MASK special insert was in Action Comics I #573, Batman I #387, Batman and the Outsiders I #27, Blue Devil #16, Green Lantern II #192, Justice League of America I #242, Superman I #411, Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes #327, Tales of the Teen Titans #57 and World's Finest Comics #319.