Roberta

Thanks to Eric for pointing out another character I missed, this time from 2007 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. When General Hager enters the Baxter Building, he interacts with the Fantastic Four‘s secretary, Roberta… who’s actually a hologram, immediately deactivated by Sue Storm as she greets the general in person. Portrayed by Patricia Harras, she’s another character coming from the comics, although originally she’s not a hologram, but rather a very physical and concrete robot (Rob-erta… yeah…), who’s proven several times to be an active and useful part of the family. Let’s take a look.

When the family of adventurers the Fantastic Four became an actual enterprise, Fantastic Four Incorporated, the heroes found themselves in need of a secretary and receptionist to deal with part of their business… but there weren’t many candidates to work in a life-threatening position, exposed to all kinds of attacks from malicious aliens, interdimensional warlords and armored megalomaniacs. Because of this, Reed Richards decided to build from scratch his ideal secretary: Roberta, a self-aware artificial intelligence connected to the Baxter Building’s security system, a dutiful and capable secretary who was also a reliable security guard, capable of identifying impostors and even shapeshifters thanks to the many upgrades received by her creator. Initially, Roberta lived within her room, the intern 30c at the 30th floor of the Baxter Building, as she was literally attached to her desk and could move behind it thanks to a robotic arm protruding from the desk itself. Much of Roberta’s work, initially, was to welcome the building’s guests, such as Penny Grimm (albeit at the time was malfunctioning and kept repeating herself), and to receive calls meant for them, such as when Johnny‘s friend Sharon Selleck called from King’s Crossing, in desperate need of help after being attacked by humans mutated by the milk they obtained from cows that were actually Skrulls trapped in that form by Mr. Fantastic (a long story). Unfortunately, most of the times people, even heroes like Shadowcat, The Thing, the Black Cat or Sunspot, called for the Fantastic Four, Roberta could only answer that they were out, somewhere off-world, without any clue on when they would have been back.

Soon, however, it became quite clear that Roberta’s tasks could (and would) have gone beyond those of a simple secretary, and that was part of the reason for which Reed had to build a robot in the first place. The Baxter Building was a point of reference for every hero in the world, sure, but also for villains who wanted to attack the family… and Roberta found herself being the last line of defense against them. Her first real exploit against a supervillain happened when Trapster managed to break into the building to steal from Richards’ tech: immediately realizing the threat, Roberta jammed his weaponry from remote, then she guided him to the reception area by closing doors at his passage, leaving only one possible path. An increasingly nervous Trapster saw Roberta and mistook her for a real woman, and tried to take her hostage… only to be swiftly and efficiently subdued by the super-strong robot, much to his embarrassment, and later delivered to the NYPD. Some villains, however, weren’t so easily dispatched: Kristoff Vernardt, who at the time believed himself to be Dr. Doom, launched a massive attack against his enemies, lifted the entire Baxter Building into orbit, and blew it up… along with Roberta, who was obviously still inside. Richards, however, had a backup file with her personality and all her memories, and when he rebuilt the building he made sure to restore also his secretary. This time, however, he decided to give her a better chance to survive such an event, and changed her mobility, mounting her on top of a tripod, later replaced by a wheeled platform, and so on until Roberta received the upgrade of a full robotic body (albeit she often came back to her old half-human bodies, both because she felt more comfortable in them, and because the wheels gave her useful extra speed). The Fantastic Four still needed her services, and now Roberta was more equipped than ever to deliver.

Roberta is most definitely not a simple animatronic: she’s a fully aware and sentient artificial being, who prefers to refer to herself as “mechanized human”. Dutiful and careful, she’s always connected to the Baxter Building’s defense system, and through it she’s aware of everything happening within it, having access to scans, cams and sensors; she possesses superhuman strength and speed (the latter only in her mobile version), and she has great computational capabilities, making her extremely intelligent… albeit she still misses some human finesse, such as sarcasm. Initially purely functional, Roberta developed a personality of her own, and even a private life, moving in with fellow robot Elektro: her loyalty to the Fantastic Four is not programmed, it is earnt.