Ted Roberts

[Sandy Hausler]

They never even dated in the original story. He was interested in Jean, but she was just his friend. She was in love with Scott. Both Warren and Scott were jealous of him because he got to spend time with her, but that was it.

In fact, during the Cobalt Man story itself, Jean is at a diner with Ted and his brother, Ralphie. Warren recognises her hair from the street and walks in with Scott (whom the professor had asked to return her some books she had loaned from Metro's library). She asks them to join the party. Ralphie invites them to visit his new lab after they eat. Warren - annoyed with all the competition around Jean - decides not to join them and go meet Bobby and Hank, who were out with their girlfriends (and that's when he meets Candy Sothern again, who will become his girlfriend shortly after). Scott is interested in actually visiting the lab, but he's also planning on talking to Jean alone after the visit. During the visit, though, Ralphie leaves Scott and Jean looking at some slides while he takes Ted to another room where he shows him his Cobalt Man armor. While wearing the armor, he gets out of control, knocks Ted out and becomes a menace. Scott and Jean go deal with Cobalt Man, both of them annoyed that Scott had been interrupted just as he's about to finally ask her out.

Some issues after, Ted calls Jean and asks her to rescue Ralph, who had been captured, with the X-Men. And I *think* that's the last time Ted appears in the original run.

Well, we can see my memory is not as sharp as I thought. But I believe Ted never said he knew who the X-Men were, but when he needed help with the threat of his brother, he called on Jean and her friends, so it was pretty clear.

[Grinning Soul]

Well, we can see my memory is not as sharp as I thought. But I believe Ted never said he knew who the X-Men were, but when he needed help with the threat of his brother, he called on Jean and her friends, so it was pretty clear.

In the end of the Cobalt Man issue, he makes a joke that implies he figured out that Jean and Scott were Marvel Girl and Cyclops. Then, some issues later, when his brother is captured, he asks Jean to get the X-Men to the rescue. And I think he doesn't appear anymore after that.

So we can't tell how certain he was of his suspicion, but it was certainly enough for him to act on it when he thought his brother was in danger.

They never really explored it, but I think it's fair to say he was upset (at least a little) with Jean when the X-Men showed up. She notices he's barely looking at her. But after this issue, he disappeared from the book never to be even mentioned again (as far as I remember), so we'll never know.

[Sandy Hausler]

And what happened to the Cobalt Man. I know he appeared once in Iron Man with a different armor, but I don't remember seeing him again. (Maybe he died in that story.)

[Sandy Hausler]

And what happened to the Cobalt Man. I know he appeared once in Iron Man with a different armor, but I don't remember seeing him again. (Maybe he died in that story.)

I was wrong about him appearing in Iron Man (honest mistake -- I'm shocked that IM and CM have never tangled). I meant The Hulk. I decided to stop being lazy and checked Wikipedia (which, I guess, is another way of being lazy), and this is what I found (for any one who's interested):

Roberts later used a bulkier Cobalt Man armor to achieve superhuman size due to the radiation that was slowly killing him and attempts to show the dangers of nuclear power by destroying himself and Sydney, Australia, but has confrontations with the Hulk and he seemingly dies safely away from Earth.[91]

Cobalt Man was forced as a pawn for Egghead's Emissaries of Evil, fighting the Hulk once again until the Defenders helped restore his sanity and he appears to have sacrificed himself in a contained nuclear explosion alongside his tormentor.[92] However, Roberts actually survived and fights the Hulk once again.[93]

Cobalt Man, now with a streamlined armor, has a confrontation with the Avengers where he is defeated by Iron Man and the Vision, and subsequently impersonated by Tony Stark in order to infiltrate the Thunderbolts.[94]

After the Raft's massive supervillain escape, Roberts went in hiding in Stamford, Connecticut with other escaped convicts who were located by the New Warriors (stars of a reality-TV show); the ensuing fight results in Nitro's powerful explosion which killed hundreds, apparently including Roberts and most of the New Warriors.[95]

When Hercules travels to the Underworld, Cobalt Man is among the dead in Erebus with a chance to return to life by winning at gambling.[96]

Cobalt Man somehow reappears alive when Deadpool & the Mercs for Money capture him for the company Umbral Dynamics.[97]

[Sandy Hausler]

There's actually a ton of one-off mutant characters that only ever appeared in Spider-Man issues, for example. Either as villains or criminals, or as like, people Spidey helps. Mutants actually probably show up more in Spider-man comics than any other franchise outside of the X-books - they're just not typically the big ones.

I know of Mindworm and there was a Bat character in Kurt Bucieck's Untold Tales of Spider-Man. Any others? (Probably are based on your post.)