Cerebra's Files

Mancha, Victor

Full Name: Victor Mancha
Affiliation: Runaways
Alternate-X Versions: Victorious
Relatives: Ultron ("father"/creator, deactivated, Marinella (mother, deceased)
Powers: Victor is a cyborg with electromagnetic abilities and a high intelligence. Victor was created when his mother, Marinella, found the head of Ultron while scavenging a junkyard. She believed him to almost be a religious figure, and did what he said, building him a new body and letting him use her DNA to create Victor. When he was finished, Ultron implanted false childhood memories in the boy, and planned for him to go and join the Avengers, in order to one day turn on them and kill every hero on the planet. Marinella, however, just wanted her son to be normal, and ran off with him to the West Coast, where the chances were small he’d ever run into the Avengers, while keeping quiet about the boy’s powers. However, Victor still grew up fascinated by the superhero community, learning almost everything he could about them.

However, in some future, Ultron’s plan did succeed, because a future version of Arsenic, who had become the leader of the Avengers, time traveled back to the present to inform the Runaways of Victor, then known as Victorious, and his possible evil future, and died soon after due to injuries from the villain. The group quickly set out to destroy the boy, but soon changed their minds after a conflict with former teen heroes who made up the group now known as Excelsior. They brought him back with them to their new base to try and find out just who his father is, as no one but Vic’s mother knew at that point, and stop this future from coming true. Vic tried to play along, but soon got frustrated and tried to threaten his way out when he received a call from his supposed father, Dr. Doom, who had kidnapped Marinella. The teens then worked together again to try and save his mother, with Victor using his powers through a blaster from the Leapfrog to kill the villain, but they discovered that it was just a Doombot. Then, Vic’s real father, Ultron, showed himself, promptly killing Marinella for betraying him, and then turning on Victor’s sleeper switch, forcing the boy to obey him into attacking the Runaways. Vic eventually rejected his programming with help from Gert, and they, plus an arriving Excelsior, destroyed the evil robot. The kids then escaped back to their lair, bringing Victor with them since he is now an orphan, but all of the others still know of his possible evil future and some would not hesitate to kill him if necessary.

Since then, Vic has been trying to prove himself as a valuable member of the team, interacting socially with the others, in fact getting along rather well with most of them, and also proving himself in battle, at one point even single handedly defeating the villain known as The Swarm. Time will tell if he has been able to completely overcome his evil programming or if he will revert into the threat that could possibly kill every hero on the planet, which is still a major threat as Vic has been having what seems to be recurring nightmares where he kills all of his friends.

However, most of the goodwill that Vic had built up was nearly destroyed by the formation of a new Pride. This group, led by a younger Geoffrey Wilder pulled into the present by some internet friends of Alex, hacked into Vic’s robotic systems and used him to spy on the rest of the team for them and to gather info, with Vic knowing nothing about it. But, when Nico tried to find the leak, a spell pointed the finger at Vic and the team, namely Nico and Gert, believed him to have fallen to his evil ways. It was the surprise return of Karolina that allowed them to work out most of their differences and mount an offensive against the Pride, where Vic managed to contain the three internet geeks by himself. Although, after the battle was over, Vic lost the one member who stuck up for him the most as Gert lost her life to save Chase.
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