FACADE
Real Name: Unrevealed (see comments)
Identity/Class: Human technology user
Occupation: Unrevealed
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: None
Enemies: Lance Bannon, Betty Brant, Dr. Thomas Haney, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Simon Stroud
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: Full Acclimation Combat And Defense Explo-skeleton
Base of Operations: The back of a truck parked somewhere in New York City
First Appearance: Web of Spider-Man I#113 (June, 1994)
Powers/Abilities: The FACADE armor is superhumanly strong and durable, and can respond to attacks, automatically reinforcing the threatened areas of the suit. It can fire paralytic energy arcs from its gauntlets, generated from the wearer's own bioelectricity, and fly via boot-jets. Its user can only use the suit for short periods of time, and must wear a full-body insulated suit while doing so, to avoid nervous system damage.
History:
(Web of Spider-Man I#113) - Developed by the Morelle Corporation, the FACADE suit was unveiled at the grand opening of New York's Macro Science Museum by Dr. Thomas Haney. Shortly after the presentation, the auditorium was evacuated, due to a blackout (caused by the mercenary Silencers); Haney stayed behind with the suit, but was murdered by someone who proceeded to steal the FACADE armor, but not before being photographed by Daily Bugle photographer Lance Bannon. FACADE blasted Bannon and grabbed his camera, but Bannon's fiancée Amy Powell startled him. Dropping the camera, he fled.
(Web of Spider-Man I#114) - As Bannon developed his film, FACADE stalked the halls of the Daily Bugle. He burst into the darkroom, blasted Bannon, then snapped his neck, killing him. Taking the film, he fled. The next night, he returned to the Bugle looking for Betty Brant, who was investigating Bannon's death. Spider-Man found him in the Bugle's printing press room; they battled until FACADE dropped a massive press on the wall-crawler (who survived, thanks to a hastily-spun web-brace). Their fight alerted security, prompting FACADE to retreat.
(Web of Spider-Man I#115) - Later that night, FACADE retrieved the armor from the back of a truck, and sped towards Betty Brant's apartment. Crashing through the window, he found that she'd already fled. He pursued her, but Spider-Man found him first. Spider-Man tried to web him up, but FACADE tore through the webbing and hurled a barrage of girders at the wall-crawler. He dodged them, and tried to web up FACADE's gauntlets, only to find that his webbing conducts bio-electricity. As Spider-Man lay prone in an alley, FACADE moved in to impale him with a sharpened girder...
(Web of Spider-Man I#116) - ...but was distracted when a machine-gun-wielding Betty Brant started firing at him. The bullets bounced off his armor, but they distracted him long enough for Spider-Man's paralysis to wear off. FACADE lunged for Betty, but Spider-Man punched him across the alley. With the police en route, FACADE fled again, but Spider-Man tagged him with a spider-tracer. Later, FACADE attacked the Daily Bugle again, but found Spider-Man waiting for him before he could even enter the building. They battled atop the Daily Bugle sign until FACADE tried to use Spider-Man's webbing as a bio-electric conductor again - only for Spider-Man to fire another web-line at him, completing the circuit. Paralyzed by his own bio-electric blasts, FACADE crashed into the roof. Spider-Man tore off his chestplate, but passed out from the bio-electricity before he could see who was inside. FACADE abandoned the ruined armor and escaped. Later, the armor's wearer visited Bannon's grave, and thought about how in murdering Bannon, he had buried the man he used to be, and become "a hollow facade".
(Dark Reign Files) - The mercenary Simon Stroud discovered FACADE's identity and sent the information to HAMMER director Norman Osborn.
(Amazing Spider-Man II#678) - Having somehow reconstructed his armor, FACADE rampaged through New York, but Spider-Man webbed him up and deactivated his explo-skeleton. Defeated, FACADE raged "And now, once and for all, you shall know the secret of FACADE! That I am really - " But Spider-Man, having mere minutes to save New York from destruction (long story), departed before he could finish his sentence.
Comments: Created by Terry Kavanagh, Alex Saviuk, Steven Baskerville, and Al Milgrom.
Immediately after this storyline wrapped, the Spider-books plunged headlong into the Clone Saga, leaving other plots by the wayside - including this one. Kavanagh left the book a year or so later, having never revealed the true identity of FACADE.
So, uh, who the hell is FACADE? Well, let's start by listing what we know about him. He's male. He was at the unveiling of the FACADE armor. He has short straight hair, as seen above. He knows Betty Brant well enough to call her "Betts". He's apparently older than Lance Bannon, because he calls him "boy". There are several possible suspects presented, and these three are the most plausible:
John Jameson - That could very well be his hair, he was kind of acting like a dick that night, and he has no alibi. On the other hand, given that John Jameson is a long-running Spider-Man supporting character who continues to pop up to this day, it's highly unlikely that Marvel is ever gonna reveal him to be a stone-cold killer, even if that was Kavanagh's intent. It doesn't make much sense, really - Jameson's a decent guy when he's not a werewolf and/or hopped up on space spores, so there isn't really any reason for him to just swipe a killer robot suit.
Cole Cooper - The hair is wrong, and he probably wouldn't call Lance "boy", but Cooper is absent for all of FACADE's attacks. Plus, he really wanted to get at Lance's pictures.
Archer Bryce - He's clearly interested in the FACADE suit, and has a reasonable motive for wanting it - he wants to reverse-engineer it to restore his flagging company. He's also mysteriously absent during a FACADE attack, and seems unhealthily interested in Betty Brant. The hair seems right, too. It's probably him.
J. Jonah Jameson and Bryce's butler Victor are also apparently intended to be suspects, but they were both present elsewhere when FACADE was doing his thing.
Despite the mention of the danger of using the suit, our mystery man climbs inside while wearing his tuxedo and is apparently none the worse for wear (unless the reason we haven't seen any of our suspects since, save for Jameson, is that the real culprit's been dying of a neurological disorder).
FACADE's ID was un-revealed in the Dark Reign Files one-shot - the page depicted a pile of documents, and the part of the FACADE document revealing it was torn off! Hate hate haaaaate. And then Dan Slott made it worse in ASM #678...
And what the %$#& is an explo-skeleton, anyway?
I think I know who FACADE could have been.
Ned Leeds.
Think about it--he was Betty Brant's husband, so he would be casual
with her. His hair looks vaguely like that of the guy in the image. He
had supervillain experience as the Hobgoblin. He could have been at
the armor's launch in secret.
Supposedly, Ned didn't take the Goblin Serum, but it could have easily
been retconned to be otherwise. They brought Osborn back under more
spurious circumstances. His return could have rendered him crazy.
Alternately, and for added headaches, he could have been a Leeds
clone. There's one twist Mackie, Kavanagh and company never thought
of.
--DOUG GLASSMAN
Profile by Minor Irritant.
CLARIFICATIONS:
FACADE has no known connection to:
Dr. Thomas Haney has no known connections to:
(Web of Spider-Man I#113) - Designer of the FACADE armor, Morelle Pharmaceuticals scientist Dr. Thomas Haney presented his creation at a gala at the Macro Science Museum. While taking questions from the audience, an unrelated burglary elsewhere in the museum shut the power off; Haney stayed with the FACADE armor while the auditorium was evacuated. Shortly afterwards, someone in attendance murdered Haney and stole the FACADE armor.
--Web of Spider-Man I#113
images: (without ads)
Web of Spider-Man I#113, p8, pan4 (main image)
Web of Spider-Man I#113, p23, pan7 (the mystery man inside FACADE)
Web of Spider-Man I#113, p9, pan5 (Haney)
Appearances:
Web of Spider-Man I#113 (June, 1994) - Terry Kavanagh (writer), Alex
Saviuk (pencils), Steven Baskerville & Al Milgrom (inkers), Eric
Fein (editor)
Web of Spider-Man I#114 (July, 1994) - Terry Kavanagh
(plotter/scripter), Joey Cavalieri (scripter), Alex Saviuk (pencils),
Don Hudson & Fred Fredericks (inkers), Eric Fein (editor)
Web of Spider-Man I#115-116 (August-September, 1994) - Terry Kavanagh
(writer), Alex Saviuk (pencils), Don Hudson (inker), Eric Fein (editor)
Amazing Spider-Man II#678 (March, 2012) - Dan Slott
(writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Victor Olazaba (inker), Stephen
Wacker (editor)
Last updated: 10/14/13
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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