Author’s Note: Cyborg by Martin Caden is a novel of my childhood, considering it was turned into a TV show in 1974, my father was interested in both the novel and the TV show as a kid, and recently, I read the book Cyborg. I have been watching the TV show since I was about 2 years old, and since I read the book, I’ve been dying to do an essay on it! So, enjoy!
Imagine being a world class Astronaut, loved by the entirety of the United States of America. Your career is almost over, and you’ve been spending the last of it test piloting landing vehicles, when suddenly, your entire world literally crashes down around you. How would you feel to wake up from that crash, having only 25% of your original extremities? Would you panic? Would you be scared? Would you lose the will to live? Would you think you were less than human? Colonel Steve Austin rode that exact emotional roller coaster. He was testing the M3F5 prototype space shuttle that was being tested for soft earth landing, and as he was just about to land it crashed. The next time that the Colonel woke up, he was told that he was now in the care of the OSI and was being given a new arm, two new legs, and a brand new left eye to make up for what he had lost in the crash, all courtesy of the US government. He reacted like any of us would, with rejection. Steve was forced to change how he looked at himself, and to accept these new limbs, and their extra special abilities. Bionics.
OSI. Office of Scientific Intelligence. The providers of Steve’s new limbs, also known as Bionics. These bionics have special attributes that set them apart from the typical prosthetic arm or leg; these limbs give Steve the ability to run at the speed of 60 miles per hour, and lift ten men, or more if he wanted to. His eye gives him the ability to see an inhuman amount ahead of him. Oscar Goldman is the head of the OSI and the manager of the Cyborg project. Steve and him start off as adversaries, because Oscar is the one who decided to put the bionic limbs on him. Granted, he didn’t know it was Steve he would get, because if he did, he might not have given Steve the bionics at all. But as the story progresses, Mr.Goldman and Steve become great friends. Dr. Rudy Wells is one of Steve’s closest friends, and the person who performed the operation of attaching the bionics to his broken body. Rudy had been Steve’s doctor before the crash and kept the idea of bionic replacements a secret from him. Even though bionics are a great thing that could help the entire world, bionics remain classified. As does the word Cyborg.
The word Cyborg. When Steve wakes up in the California Hospital bed, the word is unfamiliar to him. But when Dr. Rudy Wells shows Steve what would soon be attached to him, he hides from it. He obviously does not want something so cold, so robotic to be put onto his body. But as he realizes he has virtually no choice but to go through with the operation, Steve becomes angry. He loses the will to live, to even try to get up in the morning, and just let’s them do what they want, because in his opinion, he doesn’t have anything to lose. But maybe, he has something wonderful to gain.
After Steve wakes up from the Bionic operation, and looks at his new bionic arm, he tries to cut it off. Granted, it looks just like his human arm, but to him, it’s simply a machine and will never be apart of him. He begins to think he is a monster because of his bionic attachments, and the readers begin to think that he will never be able to accept the bionics that the people of the OSI and Rudy Wells worked so hard to put on him. He seems almost like Frankenstein’s monster in reverse, he thinks of himself as a monster, while everyone else views him as a normal human being, versus Frankenstein’s monster, who is technically a monster, but is truly a good person beneath his abnormal appearance.
When Steve recovers from the surgery that gave him the bionics, and learns how to walk again, see again, and use his left arm again, he soon learns that the OSI is expecting him to pay for his bionic replacements in missions. He has to go on dangerous missions that only a cyborg could complete, in order to fulfill his debt to the OSI. He begrudgingly agrees to these terms. Before Steve goes on his first mission, him and a nurse who tended to him in the Hospital decide to go on a picnic together, when suddenly, a car crashes. Steve is the only one who can save the little boy inside the car, and when he does, he rips the skin on his bionic replacement. The mother of the child sees this, and calls him a monster. That is when any form of development in Steve’s overall character dissolves, and he doesn’t speak to anyone. Until, it is decided for him to go on a mission.
The mission that Steve goes on forces him to go to a terrain he has never been to. The desert. Here Steve is forced to use his super speed, super strength, and the rest of his newly found upgrades. Steve has to free an OSI agent who is imprisoned among terrorists, and also free all the men and women who are trapped there. On this mission, Steve witnesses life and death experiences once again and is reminded of what it is like to actually live like a normal person again. Granted, he will never be a normal person. Steve comes to terms with this fact and embraces it as the upper hand in his fight against the terrorists to get the imprisoned men and women there. The mission is almost like his moment of clarity, the moment when he stops thinking of himself as a monster, and thinks of himself as Steve again.
In the year that has passed since Steve Austin’s crash has been quite an emotional journey. He has gone from a hero, to having no will to live, to thinking he’s a monster, and then finally being fully aware of himself and being acceptant of the qualities that he thought made him a monster. His bionics made him reach his highest and his lowest, both making him a more well-rounded person.
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