Who the Clix? Stilt-Man

Who the Clix? is a series of articles featuring information on comic book characters that have been made into figures for the popular tabletop game Heroclix. These articles are meant to help Heroclix players learn more about the characters behind their favorite pieces.

He could have have a very successful circus career: Stilt-Man

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Appearances in Heroclix:  Spider-Man: Beyond Amazing, Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Sinister
First Appearance: Daredevil #8 (June 1965) 
Team Affiliations: Emissaries of Evil, Gang of Four
Powers/Abilities:  Competent engineer and inventor; Moderately talented disguise artist; Possesses arsenal of weapons and devices; Armored battle suit grants: Superhuman strength, Telescopic legs, Silicon coating against adhesives and Spider-Man’s webbing
Created by:  Wally Wood – Stan Lee

Character is copyright/trademark Marvel; used under Fair Use

Wilbur Day is born in New York City and grows up to become an engineer, inventor and scientist. He is eventually hired by Carl Kaxton, who invents a hydraulic ram device. Wilbur steals Kaxton’s designs and use them to design a massive pair of telescopic metal legs. He then builds an armored battle suit that connects to the legs and begins a life of crime as Stilt-Man.

He begins his life of crime by battling Daredevil several times with varying degrees of failure. Their first encounter he is struck by an experimental molecular condesner ray and sent to the Microverse. He later returns and helped Leap-Frog escape from police custody. He goes on to team with the Masked Marauder, Electro, Matador, Gladiator and is even a founding member of the Emissaries of Evil.

He is later hired to kill the Falcon and steals a large amount of equipment from Trapster. He goes on to battle Black Goliath as well as the Champions and Darkstar. Blastaar recruits him and gives him a new battle suit constructed of “secondary” adamantium. When he faces Thor, the god of Thunder strips him of his battle suit. Stilt-Man gets a new suit only to be essentially mugged for it by another crook named Turk Barrett. Barrett tries to use the suit to get hired by the Kingpin only to be rebuked and insulted. Wilbur then tips Daredevil off to a weakness in the suit that allows the hero to defeat this “new” Stilt-Man. Wilbur makes sure to fix said weakness in his newer versions of the suit.

He continues to commit small crimes until the “Armor Wars.” He becomes a target of Iron Man due to having received an upgrade with stolen Stark tech and is easily defeated by Iron Man. He later battles She-Hulk and is among the villains recruited to attack the Fantastic Four in Washington, D.C. by Dr. Doom. He is also among the villains that attack the rebuilt Avengers Mansion only to be defeated by the construction workers.

When Daredevil’s civilian identity is revealed, Stilt-Man takes his armor in a suitcase to Murdock’s law offices and leaves it there, announcing his retirement and belief that Matt Murdock is actually the Kingpin of crime. During the superhero civil war, Wilbur registers with the government and is given a new suit of armor to act as a law enforcer. During this time, he runs across the Punisher who paralyzes Wilbur before murdering him in cold blood at point-blank range.

Wilbur is later cloned by Miles Warren and his company New U Technologies.

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