Bulletman
From Transformers Wiki
- Bulletman is a human member of the Adventure Team from the IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
Richard Ruby, aka Bulletman, The Human Bullet, was a member of the Adventure Team and a former Navy SEAL and test pilot. Through the use of his suit, he had the ability to fly and plow through objects like, well, a bullet.
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Fiction
2005 IDW continuity
Richard Ruby was born in Clyde, Ohio. Seeking fame and fortune from an early age, Richard Ruby left his sleepy hometown behind after a brief stint as a high school athlete and joined the Navy as an aviator. The fallout from the disastrous Operation Eagle Claw prompted Ruby to change tack and eventually join the newly formed SEAL Team Six. After a tour of duty, Ruby was honorably discharged and started a new life as a test pilot, eventually becoming a stunt pilot in Hollywood.
On the set of J.J. Hackensack's Space Battle, Ruby met Soloman Galt, who helped him develop an experimental jetpack system constructed from damage-resistant materials. While testing his new flight suit in the Sierra Nevada mountains, Ruby rescued the small town of Poverty Flat from excessive snow runoff by creating a makeshift dam. By chance, this feat was witnessed by Joe Colton and Mike Power, who recruited Ruby into the heroic Adventure Team; with Ruby's induction, the group became known as the "Super" Adventure Team. Ruby became "Bulletman", and struck up a friendship with Mike Power, the other enhanced member of the team. Bulletman profile
Over the course of their career, the Adventure Team battled threats both natural and supernatural; on one mission, they encountered Action Man. Secret Raiders. In 1984, the Adventure Team travelled to Egypt to investigate the disappearance of former Screaming Eagle Garrison Kreiger at the Tomb of Amtoltec in Egypt, Stalker and Mayhem called Bulletman and Atomic Man in for help with a group robotic mummies. The pair of enhanced heroes took the robots out with ease, showboating for the "normal soldiers". After G.I. Joe called the team for help against Soundwave, who had disguised himself as Dr. Elliot Marsh's tape recorder, Bulletman attacked the Decepticon by plowing into his chest. After Soundwave retreated, Ruby noticed how much interest Kreiger took in the mysterious Talisman the team had unearthed. The Secret of the Mummy's Tomb
A subsequent mission to rescue Emil Burkhart from more of the mysterious robots turned tragic when Mike Power's famous "atomic" limbs weren't capable of reaching their target in time. Falling into a deep depression, Atomic Man went missing. Power and Glory Joe Colton subsequently reforged the Adventure Team into the "Adventure Force"; leading the team on a search for their missing member. In 1994, the team discovered that Mike Power had fallen in with Garrison Kreiger, and launched a raid on Kreiger's research base in Brasnya. They arrived too late: Power had apparently died from Kreiger's most recent experiments, and the team left empty-handed after a brief standoff. When Eagles Scream Years later, Ruby still held that Kreiger had murdered his friend. The Secret of the Mummy's Tomb
Deprived of their most powerful asset, the Adventure Force was mothballed and Colton was shunted higher into the military's command structure. Ruby helped Clayton Abernathy develop what would become the basis for G.I. Joe, the Adventure Team's successor. Ruby became the public face of the Adventure Team, enjoying a tour on the talk show circuit. On one reality TV appearance, Ruby inadvertently returned to duty when he and the future Cover Girl battled pirates from Nanzhao. Bulletman profile
The recent spate of media attention inspired Ruby to return to his Hollywood roots; after starring in some notable films, Bulletman profile Ruby became a low-budget movie director. In 2017, Ruby was shooting a movie when he was approached by Ian Noble, Ayana Jones, and Garrison Blackrock, masquerading as a group of movie producers looking to turn one of his Adventure Team stories into a movie. When asked what happened to Kreiger, Ruby said that he killed Mike Power. Ian then asked if he had ever heard of Baron Ironblood, to which Ruby simply responded that he "doesn't do superhero movies anymore" before returning to set. Kup commented that he was not a fan of Ruby's films. The Secret of the Mummy's Tomb
During Thundercracker's production of Starscream: The Movie, Marissa Faireborn arranged for the Seeker to present an early screening of the film to Ruby for critiquing. Ruby was indeed very critical, saying that a human audience would only be interested in a film about Cybertronians if it involved them blowing each other up. While Thundercracker went off to do re-shoots, Rumble and Frenzy had released a brother duo/action film that completely bombed and turned humanity away from Cybertronian cinema. Ruby informed Thundercracker that as a result, his biopic could only be released through a streaming service called "Coma". Starscream: The Movie
Notes
- The original Bulletman toy seems to be based on the Golden Age Fawcett Comics superhero of the same name, right down to a silver bullet-shaped helmet and red outfit.[1]
- Bulletman's true identity was never given until the third volume of IDW's G.I. Joe.
- The IDW incarnation of Bulletman is depicted as close friends with Mike Power, the Atomic Man. This is likely a reference to the fact that the original characters formed the "Super Adventure Team".
- Most of the actors and directors mentioned in Bulletman's Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook profile hail from the Parker Brothers board game International Movie Maker... which may qualify for the most obscure reference ever made by an IDW author. "Space Battle", meanwhile, references the ride of the same name from IDW's Robots in Disguise tie-in comic.
- The incident in which Bulletman saved the town of Poverty Flat by creating a makeshift dam is taken from the original advertisement for Bulletman's Adventure Team toy.
References
External links
- Bulletman at the IDW Hasbro Wiki
