Cobalt Man

Ralph Roberts, a scientist obsessed with surpassing Iron Man, built a cobalt-steel battlesuit to prove his genius — but the armor's radiation drove him to madness, transforming an ambitious inventor into a dangerous, unstable armored villain.

Cobalt Man burst onto the Silver Age Marvel scene in 1967's The X-Men #31, conjured by the legendary Roy Thomas and Werner Roth at a moment when Marvel's universe was crackling with invention. Over a publishing history that stretches a remarkable 54 years, this armored antagonist has crossed paths with some of the House of Ideas' biggest names — Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the Human Torch among them — turning up in titles as varied as The X-Men, The Defenders, and Civil War Chronicles. With a key-issue debut and appearances spanning more than five decades, Cobalt Man is exactly the kind of deep-catalog Silver Age figure that rewards the curious collector willing to dig past the household names.