If they added this skin to Marvel Rivals, it's all I'd play

In the period our episode studies, robots have evolved beyond simply being stand-ins for workers, though the name remains. Instead they have become a complex category, capable of reflecting our fears and insecurities, embodying ethical dilemmas, and sometimes even acting as humanity’s savior.

In the West, we see characters like Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet and Rosie from the Jetsons, and of course the artificial intelligences found in comic books discussed in Untold Origin began to appear.

By the 1950’s and 60’s, robots were everywhere in popular culture. Astro Boy was maybe the first to represent the ideals we begin to see in comic books — kind, powerful, emotional, and almost human.

In short stories collected in an anthology called I, Robot, Asimov shed the spotlight on this speculative technology and asked many of the questions we face today about artificial beings. Like the stories we see in episodes 2 and 3, these stories held a mirror up to humanity and its creations.

In the 1940’s and 1950’s, robots had begun to fascinate science fiction writers and fans, and during this time Isaac Asimov produced maybe the most pivotal works in popular culture regarding robots.

In 1927, a robot first appears in the Weimar science fiction film Metropolis, the first depiction of one on the big screen. Called a “machine-human” or “robotrix,” it was again associated with labor and acts as an instigator to both the working classes and their bosses to cause a social revolution.

The term itself comes from the word “Rabotnik” or “Rabota” in Czech, which has many cognates in different languages all associated with labor (often forced). You can see this in both Rabota (работа) in Russian and Arbeit in German. Robots, then, symbolized not helpful assistants, but forced labor.

The word “robot” first appeared in 1920, in the Karel Čapek’s play Rossum’s Universal Robots or R.U.R. (1920). This creature was not a computerized being, but rather an artificial laborer.

Episode 4 drops Sunday! This one will deal with the dubious scientific origins of our heroes: atomic monsters and the heroes that followed.

After that, the show will shift to a bi-weekly schedule, with episodes slated through November.

Thank you again for joining me on this journey!

Kirkman and Finch?? I'll have to check that out!

And way better than the cover of his first appearance!

One of the best covers ever, and love this project!