Character History[]
Phineas Mason was born in Goshen, Indiana on July 28th, 1940. A brilliant inventor and technician who designs advanced weaponry for criminals and sometimes undertakes crimes of his own. As the "Terrible Tinkerer", he runs an underground fix-it shop disguised as a radio repair shop. On at least one occasion, a potential customer gained the inventor's attention by presenting a transistor radio and telling Mason that "I've got a radio that just can't carry a tune". Tinkerer's original scheme involved the employment of a team of petty has-been stuntmen and thugs. They specialized in placing bugs into radios and blackmailing state officials and politicians. Tinkerer tried to present himself as an alien to confuse his pursuers by leaving behind a mask that looked like his face when he escaped from Spider-Man in a hovercraft shaped like a flying saucer.
His next encounter with Spider-Man resulted in deploying the Toy, a hi-tech robot that serves as an assistant and lackey. The Toy also helped Tinkerer escape from his hideout when it was raided by the police. He is known to have created the suit for Mysterio, a man that once worked as one of his alien-suited servants. Much later, he was hired by the Kingpin to rebuild the Spider-Mobile to destroy Spider-Man.
He redesigned Rocket Racer's rocket-powered skateboard, designed an armed wheel-shaped vehicle called the Big Wheel, and repaired the Goldbug's bug-ship. He robbed loan companies by using remote-controlled toys until stopped by Spider-Man. Tinkerer also provided Whirlwind with improved armor and weaponry, provided Diamondback with new throwing diamonds, built the Grim Reaper's scythe-like weapon, and even fixed Grizzly's exo-skeleton harness and grizzly suit. Since he is a small business operator who works alone (and arms criminals), the Terrible Tinkerer takes precautions to prevent being cheated.
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2: Story[]
Prior to the game, Nick Fury and his superiors had discovered that the Tinkerer was responsible for augmenting the powers and armor of several supervillains. Sometime later, Nick Fury found evidence proving that he was receiving support from Lucia von Bardas, acting ruler of Latveria at the time. But, because of the work she put into mending relations between Latveria and America, Nick Fury was denied government support for his efforts to investigate the connection. Thus, Nick Fury talked several heroes into accompanying him on a mission into Latveria to shut down the Tinkerer's operation. During the raid on Castle Doom, several heroes encounter the Tinkerer in the labs and fight several of his creations, including a large tank-like structure he uses in an attempt to get rid of them. After the fight, the castle's reactor goes critical, causing the place to explode just like Nick Fury and the rest of his team escape.
Sometime later, Nick Fury talks the Tinkerer into helping him investigate the source of the disturbance that cost the pro-registration forces their control over the nanite-infused supervillains. Upon receiving data sent from a computer in the Negative Zone prison, the Tinkerer discovers that the nanites used to control the villains became sentient and took control. The Tinkerer went off the radar after the heroes escaped the prison, which became overrun by nanite-controlled prisoners. Sometime later, it's revealed that the Tinkerer was recruited by the nanites, now calling themselves The Fold, for technical support. On their way to shut down the nanites, the heroes not infected by The Fold fight the Tinkerer, who is accompanied by several nanite-controlled soldiers. He escapes and blocks the stasis signal from the top of the tower, only to be knocked out by the heroes once they reach the top.
Dossier[]
Tinkerer's Dossier can be found within Stark Tower HQ base 1 (the Stark Tower base after clearing the Tinkerer Tank Bot stage).
Real Name: Phineas Mason
Capabilities: Mechanical genius specializing in custom-purpose weaponry and human augmentation systems.
Special Damage Types (Tank Bot): Impact, Fire, Energy
Formerly a weapons supplier for low-level villains, Phineas Mason entered into a partnership with Lucia von Bardas after the death of his son. In exchange for near-unlimited resources, Phineas upgraded her personal army with modified super-villain tech. Under Latveria's sponsorship, he also re-opened his ties with his American tech criminals, supplying their equipment at greatly reduced prices. Whether this was an attempt to recruit future soldiers or merely incite U.S. instability remains unclear.
We'd let the Tinkerer slip through the cracks for too long, and this was the price we paid for it. Just goes to show: sometimes the most dangerous types aren't the ones shooting off their mouths.
Trivia[]
- Tinkerer narrates a large number of audio recordings found during the adventure. Most if not all of the recordings he speaks in concern his research.
Gallery[]
.png "Tinkerer Icon (MUA2).png (97 KB)"){kind=icon}