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ROBERT

Real Name: Robert (last name unrevealed)

Identity/Class: Human (French) mutant

Occupation: Unrevealed

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: None

Enemies: Iceman (Robert Drake), Northstar (Jean-Paul Beaubier)

Known Relatives: Josette (wife)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
formerly Xavier Institute, Salem Center, New York;
formerly Genosha;
formerly France

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men I#415 (January, 2003)

Powers/Abilities: Robert's body was, apparently, a giant mass of stretchable silly putty-like substance he could form and alter at will. Highly durable, Robert could easily withstand blows that would knock out an average man. Robert was able to survive getting split in two, though the shock of this experience stunned him. It's not known if being in a liquid state is his natural form and that he has to focus on maintaining a solid, semi-humanoid shape. He also possessed a measure of superstrength, allowing him to throw a normal sized man around without breaking a sweat. Emotionally unstable, Robert was insanely jealous and would often kill the men his flirty wife Josette would try to seduce (see comments). Robert only had three fingers on each hand.

Height: 7'1" (by approximation)
Weight: 300 lbs. (by approximation)
Eyes: Bright yellow glowing eyes with black irises
Hair: White

History:

(Uncanny X-Men I#415 (fb) - BTS) - Robert met and fell in love with Josette, a flirty empath who used her powers to seduce men on a regular basis. Despite this, he married her but grew insanely jealous over this. On more than one occassion, Robert lost control of himself and killed his wife's lovers. They nevertheless stayed together (see comments). At one point during their marriage, they moved to Genosha to build a new life together. 

   When Cassandra Nova's Sentinels decimated the island, the couple happened to be in France visiting relatives. With their home destroyed and nowhere left to go, they happened to meet Charles Xavier (see comments) who invited them to accompany him back to America so they could stay at the Insitute. Josette and her husband accepted his offer and took up temporary residence at the Institute. However, Josette's flirty behavior continued.

(Uncanny X-Men I#415) - Robert spotted Josette late one night outside on the estate grounds about to make out with Iceman (Bobby Drake) and immediately flew into a violent rage. He attacked Iceman and was ready to murder him for having dared to touch his wife. As Robert was using his putty-like form to choke Bobby, he lamented to Josette that he had to keep killing these men if she kept seducing them. Josette begged him to stop, because Iceman was innocent but Robert rationalized his actions by calling it a murder of passion (crime passionnel). However, right after he'd slammed him head first into a tree, Robert was getting ready to use his putty to choke his wife's lover to death. Northstar intervened and managed to free Iceman from Robert's clutches as Josette continued to plead with her husband to stop. Now completely unreasonable, Robert boasted he was ready to take on all the X-Men and easily absorbed Northstar's punch to the face at superspeed. In the end, Robert was temporarily stunned when Northstar ran through him, cutting the mutant in half while Josette cried for her husband, figuring he was dead.

(Uncanny X-Men I#415 - BTS) - While unconscious, Robert reverted to a liquid state and was  poured into a containment chamber in the Xavier Institute basement. His final fate remains unrevealed (see comments).


 

Comments: Created by Chuck Austen (writer), Sean Phillips (artist).

One has to wonder what happened to Robert. You can't keep him locked up in a container in the basement forever, can you? Seeing as he basically admitted to being a serial killer, was he put on trial? Or did he escape when Xorn/Magneto tore apart the school some time after he was caught?

While Josette calls him Rober' all through his first and only appearance, her French accent is so thick we can safely assume his actual name is Robert.

So, why would Clayface, I mean... Robert... stay with a wife who seems to make bed hopping an Olympic sport? One explanation would be that he truly loved her, which has caused couples far more unhealthy than those two to remain together. Another would be that he was also influenced by Josette's powers, forcing him to stay and endure the obviously humiliating practice of his wife throwing herself at and on every Tom, Dick and Harry that comes along. That's enough to make any man snap, even if you don't look like a wax figure of the Thing that's been out in the sun too long. But if that's the case, that makes Josette the real villain of this story and Robert as much a tragic victim as anyone else.

Profile by Norvo

CLARIFICATIONS:
Robert has no known connections to

images: (without ads)
Uncanny X-Men I#415, p20, pan1 (main image)
Uncanny X-Men I#415, p16, pan1-2 (attacking)
Uncanny X-Men I#415, p22 (cut in half)

Appearances:
Uncanny X-Men I#415 (January, 2003) - Chuck Austen (writer), Sean Phillips (artist), Mike Marts (editor)

Last updated: 05/18/14

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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