Cyborg

Cyborg is Victor Stone, a DC Comics superhero who first appeared in a preview of *The New Teen Titans* published in *DC Comics Presents* #26 in 1980. Writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez created him as a founding member of that new Titans team.

In the original comics, Victor is a gifted athlete whose parents, scientists Silas and Elinore Stone, want him to pursue their academic interests. An experiment involving an interdimensional portal goes wrong: a creature kills Elinore and gravely injures Victor. Silas saves his son by replacing much of his damaged body with mechanical parts. Victor survives, but struggles with his altered appearance, his lost athletic ambitions, and his anger toward his father. Raven recruits him to the Teen Titans, where his friendship with Beast Boy becomes one of the team’s enduring relationships.

DC’s 2011 *New 52* continuity gives Victor a different origin and a different place in superhero history. In *Justice League*, a Mother Box transforms him during Darkseid’s invasion of Earth. This version becomes a founding member of the Justice League rather than joining it after a career with the Titans. Across versions, his equipment has included a sonic cannon, communications systems, and the ability to interface with technology, though the details change with each story.

Cyborg reached a wider television audience in the animated *Teen Titans* series, which began in 2003. Voiced by Khary Payton, he is the team’s engineer as well as a fighter. The episode “The Sum of His Parts” centers on Fixit, who offers to replace Victor’s remaining organic parts; Victor refuses because those parts matter to his identity. Payton also voices him in the more comedic *Teen Titans Go!* series.

In live action, Lee Thompson Young played Victor in *Smallville*. Ray Fisher later portrayed him in the DC films, appearing briefly in *Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice* before taking a larger role in *Justice League*. *Zack Snyder’s Justice League* gives Victor’s relationship with Silas and his use of Mother Box technology substantially more attention; Silas sacrifices himself while helping the team locate the Boxes. Joivan Wade plays another television version in *Doom Patrol*, where Victor works alongside the show’s unconventional heroes rather than the familiar Titans lineup.

Those adaptations do not tell one continuous story. They draw on different comics histories, but each retains the central conflict established in Victor’s debut: technology saves his life while forcing him to decide what kind of life he wants.