The Mad Machinist

Harold Hellman

Dr. Harold Hellman works as a psychiatrist at the Wycroft Institute. Once he might have been considered idealistic, but now he is embittered and worn out from having waged a losing war against mental illness. He was never able to cure any of his patients and it seemed to him that none of his work mattered. He was fighting a losing battle. He’d become severely depressed, but kept that secret from his colleagues using a combination of pharmaceuticals.
Times have turned tough for Hellman. When one of his patients committed suicide a few months ago, the loss hardly even fazed him. After he made a disparaging joke about the dead patient, he was given a formal reprimand and threatened with having his license revoked. He felt like he had hit bottom. But then something, or rather, someone, came along and changed everything.
Dr. Hellman received a new patient by the name of Walter Wychoski. Wychowski was dying of cancer. He should have been dead years ago, but he was being kept alive by a strange machine. He looked like something out of an old sci-fi movie from the 50s with all manner of electrodes and tubes poking out from his withered body, and his breathing came only as a function of the machine itself, as it pushed air in and out of his frail body with an ominous wheezing sound.
Intrigued by his unusual patient, Dr. Hellman worked with him closely and the two developed a rapport. Eventually, Hellman learned his secret: Walter Wychowski was once the Silver Age menace known as the Mad Machinist. Research told him that the Mad Machinist had been the scourge of Emerald City back in the 50s and early 60s, leading an army of automatons against the city. Over time, the villain’s attacks on the city decreased in number and then stopped altogether. The Mad Machinist just disappeared. He was eventually forgotten and became little more than a footnote in the old news archives.
Dr. Hellman saw Wychowski as his way back up from the bottom. He’s been drugging and hypnotizing his patient as a means of getting him to talk about where his secret hideouts are located. He has also enrolled in a night school course in mechanical engineering as a means of learning how to operate and repair the robots he found within those hideouts. Even though he has access to legions of mothballed machines, he is still learning how to control them.

Physical Description

Apparel & Accessories

The Mad Machinist’s lair is as retro-futuristic as the rest of his resources. The lair is a complex tunneled out of solid rock in one of the peaks of The Atlas Mountains near Emerald City. A holographic projector creates a false rock-face over the windows of the observation platform and the doorway of the main hangar, and the facility has all of the equipment needed to store and maintain the Machinist’s robot army, although the need for repairs or additional equipment can send the Mad Machinist’s forces out hunting.

Specialized Equipment

The Mad Machinist has a massive army of automatons. These retro robots, which look like they’re straight out of the pages of the old Silver Age comics, are unable to operate independently, relying upon the Mad Machinist and his Portable Controller for all their directives. If the controller is taken away from him, the robots sputter to a dramatic halt. However, he also has the ability to control his minions from the “behind-the-scenes” safety of one of his Machine Shops, taking advantage of its built-in communications center. Destroying it may count as a Power Loss complication for him if he cannot immediately access his Portable Controller for some reason.
While the original Mad Machinist was able to manipulate large numbers of robots very skillfully, Dr. Hellman is still very much out of his element, and consequently, struggles to control even a few of his mechanized minions at a time. He is, however, improving, so it is only a matter of time before he becomes an even greater threat to the city. In the meantime, he is content to test his skills by staging small-scale attacks from the safety of his secret lair. Although he operates out of only one Machine Shop at a time, he has numerous headquarters hidden in various parts of the city and can relocate as needed.
One thing that distinguishes him from his predecessor is his propensity for engaging in conversations with his opponents. Making use of loud speakers and two-way communicators built into all of his machines, the Mad Machinist takes full advantage of his training in psychiatry by distracting opponents with words, taunting and demoralizing them at every opportunity. Where the original Mad Machinist simply ranted, the new one likes to get under the skin of his enemies and play with their emotions. This can give him a significant edge in combat.

Mental characteristics

Intellectual Characteristics

Dr. Hellman may have once been an idealistic caregiver who genuinely wanted to help his patients overcome their illnesses, but there is little left of that man anymore. When Hellman became depressed, he experienced a psychotic break, made worse by his pharmaceutical abuse. His high degree of intelligence has enabled him to fool most of his colleagues into thinking he is just going through “tough times”, but they don’t know just how far gone he really is. Now that he has taken the identity of the Mad Machinist for himself, he has a new focus in life. For the first time in years, he feels almost happy again. He feels empowered because he no longer has to listen to the pain and misery of others—now he gets to cause it!

Social

Contacts & Relations

Because of his lengthy bout with depression, Dr. Hellman has isolated himself, so he has few real friends. However, his years of psychological training have made him very good at manipulating people without them even realizing it. As such, he is not above tricking other villains, particularly the strong and stupid ones, into helping him. That said, he feels no real loyalty to them and is quite willing to sacrifice them without giving it a second thought.
The new Mad Machinist is only just beginning to reveal his existence to the good citizens of Emerald City and has yet to earn himself a nemesis.