Tinkerer (Marvel Comics)
Genius inventor who arms criminals with homemade devices.
The Tinkerer (Phineas Mason) is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, usually portrayed as an adversary of the superhero Spider-Man and the father of Rick Mason. Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, he first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #2 (May 1963). The Tinkerer is generally depicted as a genius in engineering who can create gadgets from spare parts, and later storylines have him supplying other supervillains with his devices.
Quick Facts
- Character name
- Tinkerer
- Real name
- Phineas Mason
- Species
- Human
- Publisher
- Marvel Comics
- Debut
- The Amazing Spider-Man #2 (May 1963)
- Creators
- Stan Lee; Steve Ditko
- Alliances
- Masters of Evil
- Aliases
- The Terrible Tinkerer; Hophni Mason
Facts from the source article.
Publication history
The Tinkerer was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, making his initial appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #2 (April 1963) as a villain opposing Spider-Man. He did not return for several years, appearing next in The Amazing Spider-Man #160 (September 1976), again opposing Spider-Man in a losing effort. The character was mentioned in The Amazing Spider-Man #182 (July 1978), his first mention as a supporting side character to other villains.
Fictional character biography
Phineas Mason is a gifted inventor and technician who builds high-tech weapons for criminals and occasionally commits his own crimes. Operating under the alias "the Terrible Tinkerer," he runs a secret repair business from a front that looks like a radio shop. One way a potential client could catch his attention was by bringing in a transistor radio and saying, "I've got a radio that just can't carry a tune." His earliest criminal plan involved hiring a group of washed-up stuntmen and low-level thugs to hide listening devices inside radios and then blackmail state officials and politicians. Since he works alone and supplies dangerous people, he builds safeguards into his creations to avoid being cheated. When the villain Killer Shrike asked him to upgrade his weapon gauntlets and then tried to threaten Mason to skip payment, the gauntlets malfunctioned thanks to a hidden failsafe Mason had installed. Mason's son, Rick Mason, is a top-tier mercenary working for the U.S. government and as a freelance operative. Despite being on opposite sides of the law, the two stayed close and saw each other often. Mason sometimes helped his son, once giving him intelligence about a coup in South America. After Rick was believed killed on a mission, a grieving Mason decided to reform, though he kept ties with supervillains so he could quietly pass along useful information. During the Secret War storyline, Nick Fury traced a connection between many tech-based villains' weapons and the nation of Latveria. It turned out that Mason had received most of his funding, technology, and resources from Latveria as part of a terrorist campaign run by Doctor Doom and Prime Minister Lucia von Bardas. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents located Mason's workshop by using Killer Shrike as an informant, but when they moved in, the security system took down Killer Shrike while Mason escaped to Latveria rather than face arrest.
Other versions
In the Secret Wars storyline The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, an alternate Tinkerer from the Battleworld domain called the Regency left his life of crime behind to run a repair shop. The Ultimate Spider-Man universe introduced a new version, Elijah Stern, modeled after actor Paul Giamatti and created by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley. Stern once worked for Roxxon but was let go after finding a way to harness vibranium for energy. After Spider-Man stopped his plan to kill his former boss Donald Roxxon, Stern was given a choice: join S.H.I.E.L.D. or die. He chose to cooperate, building Spider-Slayers and later reluctantly aiding the Ultimate Six, until the Prowler killed him. The same universe also features a Phineas Mason, a young scientific genius tied to the U.S. government think tank Nursery Two.
In other media
The Phineas Mason incarnation of the Tinkerer appears in The Spectacular Spider-Man, voiced by Thom Adcox-Hernandez; in Spider-Man (2017), voiced by Aaron Abrams, as an eccentric inventor who creates machinery from everyday appliances for his own amusement; and in Marvel Super Hero Adventures, voiced by Michael Daingerfield, creating toys for children that serve evil purposes. Phineas Mason appears in the live-action film Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), portrayed by Michael Chernus, as a weapons maker and former member of a salvage company alongside Adrian Toomes, Herman Schultz and Jackson Brice before it went out of business due to interference from the Department of Damage Control; he helps Toomes steal leftover technology from the Avengers' battles and build advanced weapons. The Tinkerer appears as the first boss of the Master System version of Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin; in Spider-Man (1995) as a boss in the Sega Genesis version and a cameo in the SNES version; as a boss in the PS2 and PSP versions of Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, voiced by William Utay; in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, voiced by Philip Proctor; as a boss in the Nintendo DS version of Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, voiced by Jim Cummings; and as a playable character and mini-boss in Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2, voiced by Kevin Coello.
More in Heroes & Villains
Elsewhere in Spider-Man
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