Enemies: Spider-Man, the X-Men (Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman, Marvel Girl), mutants in general

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Mobile, mainly in the Manhattan area.

First Appearance: Untold Tales of Spider-Man#21 (May, 1997)

Powers/Abilities: The Menace costumes concealed an electrical harness.  Electricity was channeled through the gloves enabling the wearer to throw energy blasts or touch his opponent for greater effect (one of them claimed his mutant power gave him the touch of death, though this was untrue).  The gloves also concealed the control units for the Mutantmen robots.  Each Menace would remain in contact via a radio link in the helmet, which also protected their vision to an extent.  They would time their attacks to make it appear as though Menace was one man teleporting himself and his Mutantmen to various locations.  They were very good at delivering super-villain speeches.  (You know, the sort where every sentence ends in an exclamation mark!)

History: (Untold Tales of Spider-Man#21) - A string of robberies were committed by the men posing as Menace.  With the money from their initial robberies, they customized the robotic Mutantmen. They struck the First Bank of Yonkers in Westchester County, Camelot Towers Penthouse Ballroom in Manhattan, the Gideon Museum of the Arts in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and Bodensteiner Avenue, Nassau County, Long Island, and various other places.

Shortly into their crime spree, at the Van Lunt Trading Company, Team Alpha encountered the X-Men and Spider-Man.  Spider-Man deduced that Menace wasn't a mutant when he overheard the communications between the various teams.  Team Alpha was soon defeated, and the X-Men set off to capture the remaining teams.

Comments: Created by Kurt Busiek and Pat Olliffe

There was a Team Alpha, Team Beta, and Team Gamma plus at least one other team (presumably Team Delta), possibly more.  I doubt the X-Men had trouble catching the other teams.  I also doubt Menace will make an appearance again, but I did like the idea that he was a tech-user using anti-mutant hysteria to his advantage by posing as a mutant.

I'd say that given the chronology, Van Lunt Trading Company is likely to have been a company of Cornelius Van Lunt, who served in the Zodiac Cartel as Taurus. Also, the Gideon Museum of the Arts is apparently connected with multi-millionaire Gregory Gideon.

The Mutantmen were designed to resemble the mutants in Bolivar Trask's infamous picture of mutants subjugating mankind in X-Men I#14. --Prime Eternal.

Maybe Menace's robotic Mutantmen were built by Starr Saxon (AKA Machinesmith), who (according to the All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z#6) was responsible for building the Magneto robot and Mesmero's Demi-Men (from X-Men I#49-52).
--Ron Fredricks