Hardware (comics) - Fictional Character Biography

Fictional Character Biography

Curtis "Curt" Metcalf is a genius inventor who, in his Hardware identity, uses a variety of high-tech gadgets to fight organised crime. A central irony of the series, (of which Metcalf is fully aware,) is that Metcalf's employer, respected businessman Edwin Alva—who provides the resources Metcalf uses to create Hardware's hardware—is secretly the crime boss who Hardware is trying to bring down.

Metcalf was a working class child prodigy who was discovered aged 12/13 by a big-time businessman, Edwin Alva Sr., who with the blessing of Curt's parents, enrolled Curt in A Better Chance, "a program intended to get minority students into elite prep schools". Curt proved to be much smarter than all the other prep school students, graduating at age 14, and earning his first college degree at age 15. Alva paid for Metcalf's whole college tuition up to six additional college degrees, in exchange for Metcalf coming to work, after graduation, in Alva Industries' "Inspiration Factory" program, with his "own lab, entirely too big a salary, and mandate to indulge curiosity by investigating whatever struck fancy"; Metcalf's inventions made Edwin Alva Sr. many millions of dollars.

After a few years, and wanting a share of profits earned by his inventions, Metcalf asked Alva for a "royalty point or two". Alva's answer was, "Curtis let us dispense with any misconceptions you may be labouring under. You are not family. You are an employee. Neither are you heir apparent. You are a cog in the machine. My machine. You are not respected, Curtis. You are merely useful. You may go now." Metcalf's first thought was to quit, but his contract forbade him from working for any competitors: "If to work in field, had to do it for Alva."

Metcalf thought that with some advanced hacking, he could find something on Alva to use as leverage, but found that almost everything about Alva was "Stone Cold Crooked":

Metcalf: "It took me weeks to put it all together, but the evidence was clear and incontrovertible. Edwin Alva Sr. is at the center of an incredibly complex web of corruption. My benefactor and role model, the economic savior and humanitarian pillar of the city of Dakota has connections to organized crime. He launders tens of millions of dollars in drug money, he has most of the city and state government in is his pocket, he illegally manufactures weapons and sells them to foreign governments."

Metcalf decided to stop Alva first by anonymously sending "copies of evidence to the FBI, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the state and local police, several newspapers and, just for fun, Hard Copy and A Current Affair." Then he waited a while for the fireworks, but learned that Alva was too big, beyond the reach of the law. But Metcalf decided that maybe Alva wasn't beyond his own reach; so with Alva's own equipment and resources, Curt created "Hardware—the High Tech Creature of the Night, who's been checkmating Alva's illegal operations for the last ten months is, in a way Alva's own creation."

So just about every night Metcalf dons a selection of his many high tech gadgets (which he hides away in an abandoned basement/bomb shelter connected to his private lab) to track down and destroy all of Alva's illegal business operations and Alva's factories where weapons of war are manufactured. "This used to be a bomb shelter. Now it's where I keep all the stuff I've scammed from Alva. He's turned the city upside down looking for Hardware. I live in his basement."

Hardware works with many other superheros over his career, such as Blood Syndicate and Icon. He even teams up with a few that he considers fictional, such as Steel and Superman. In one instance, he assists in the evacuation of Utopia Park, a newly built theme park, which is being destroyed by riots.