Character sheet for Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot. Currently under construction. Since the series concluded over 20 years ago, spoilers are unmarked.
Main Characters
Big Guy
"...A hero of metal hue. He locks horns with disaster, for the Red and White And Blue!"
Voiced by: Jonathan David Cook
One of the two title characters, and marketed to the public as the first successful robotic soldier. In reality, he's a Humongous Mecha for Lt. Dwayne Hunter.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Played with. While the AI hardware is fully operational, the AI software was never completed to satisfaction due to cost-overruns and lack of available technical expertise and proper technology. This does cause problems on occasion, but strangely not because the AI is actually malevolent, just... incomplete.
- American Robot: Subverted. The public at large, and Rusty, believes this is the case, but he's actually just a Humongous Mecha.
- Arm Cannon: The Big Guy's arms can open up at the elbows, producing large machine guns from his forearms and biceps.
- Aura Vision: Big Guy's sensors give Dwayne a kind of X-ray vision that allows him to see through buildings and structures. It has allowed him to target and identify individuals or certain internal mechanisms on occasion.
- Benevolent A.I.: Zigzagged. Dwayne piloting the Big Guy power armor acts like one, and what AI software installed is actively benevolent, just incomplete.
- Bottomless Magazines: Averted, running out of ammunition does come up for Big Guy. In the "Moon Madness" episode, Hunter even has to pilot Big Guy without his weaponry because its weapons' drive was left uninstalled due to Hunter having to personally assemble Big Guy together in space while pressed for time.
- Calling Your Attacks: Big Guy given all his signature moves ridiculous sounding names. Rusty has memorized each and every one.
- Captain Patriotic: This is basically the personality Hunter puts on while piloting Big Guy. He's a lot more low-key out of it.
- Character Catchphrase: The most frequent of these in the series. "For the love of Mike." (or "For the love of Marry" when piloted by Dr. Erika Slate.) Which is implied to be the catchphrase of whoever is Big Guy's pilot.
- Combat Pragmatist: Big Guy is not afraid to fight dirty when the situation calls for it.
- Combining Mecha: Though only shown once, Big Guy is capable of attaching Rusty onto his arm for additional firepower.
- First-Episode Twist: Not long into the first episode, we learn that "the first successful robot soldier" is actually a Mecha piloted by a person.
- Gosh Darn It to Heck!: Big Guy is the most frequent offender in the show, starting from the very first episode. "Thank Henry Ford for standardized parts!"
- The Hero's Idol: Big Guy's planned replacement is the robot boy Rusty. However, Rusty is too inexperienced to solo against supervillains and kaiju, so Big Guy stays in service to mentor Rusty. Rusty views Big Guy with childlike admiration, and does his best to make Big Guy proud. Rusty's creators choose to keep secret that Big Guy is piloted by a human being, Dwayne Hunter.
- Humongous Mecha: 30-feet of pure, American steel! However, the fact that he is a Mecha piloted by a human being is a secret, and the public believes him to be a giant, sapient robot.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Played with, and justified. An easily missed early scene explains that Big Guy's targeting system is designed to accommodate (immobile) siege weapons due to the sheer size of Big Guy's fire-arms. As such, when Big Guy is standing relatively still, his aim's acute. When he's on the move, Lt. Hunter has to manually adjust the aim, and the accuracy plummets.
- Intimidation Demonstration: Big Guy is notorious for this. It helps that Big Guy is armed with giant chain-guns. "Want to know what's hotter than Mom's apple pie? My anti-terrorist scum-bag mag popper! Want a slice?" (Deploys massive chain gun) Mr. Terrorist wasn't hungry.
- Large Ham: Whenever given the opportunity, Big Guy moves, acts, and fights with loud, long-winded, and dramatically exaggerated expressions.
- Parental Substitute: More or less. Rusty pretty much sees him as a father-figure, and acts accordingly.
- Plausible Deniability: In one episode, where the AI is accidentally activated by Donovan's "N.U.R.D.s," and Dwayne is ejected from the cockpit, right in front of Rusty, Big Guy, not Dwayne, delivers a perfectly plausible cover story as to why Dwayne was inside in the first place.
- Big Guy: "Lt. Dwayne Hunter was working on my actuators. I shouldn't have taken off without checking first." (Looks right at Dwayne) "Sorry about that, little buddy."
- In the climactic battle of "Double Time, Part I" this cover story also serves to protect the masquerade when Rusy sees Dwayne inside Big Guy again, but Dwayne pulls some levers to slam shut a steel panel, leading Rusty to believe Dwayne was merely making critical repairs to help in the fight against Big Guy's Evil Counterpart.
- Telescoping Robot: Bordering on Hammerspace. While it's never shown how Big Guy normally re-loads his ammo, one episode shows that the assembly is so complicated, it takes 30 minutes to load just one missile. Fortunately that one missile was enough.
Rusty, The Boy Robot
Then was born a boy robot, by the power of Science!
Voiced by: Pamela Adlon
Quark Industries' most successful product, the first true benevolent AI. Designed, built, and maintained by Dr. Erica Slate, he is slated to eventually replace Big Guy as humanity's first, last, and most impressive line of defense against disaster, natural or otherwise.
- Adaptational Nationality: Rusty was actually Japanese in origin in the original comic.
- American Robot: Played completely straight in the animation. He is 100% all-American robot.
- Anime Hair: It has one point on the top of his head, and another at the back of his head. In his case, the "hair" is simply metallic decoration, so it's fully justified.
- Ascended Fanboy: Of Big Guy, BGY-11. His greatest joy is that he gets to learn from, and fight alongside his greatest hero.
- Awesome by Analysis: Rusty may have the personality of a young child, but he (at least in the animation) is exceptionally clever and resourceful, capable of understanding his enemies, often better than they understand themselves, and using their own powers, abilities, strategies, tactics, motivations, or egos against them.
- Benevolent A.I.: He is a heroic robot built to fight, and is focused on saving lives.
- Character Catchphrase: "No pain receptors" is his most common one, though there are others.
- Cheerful Child: Rusty's surprisingly chipper and upbeat for a robot, especially one designed for warfare.
- Children Are Innocent: Rusty doesn't have even the tiniest bit of malice in his body or programming.
- Child Soldier: More or less. While he was actively designed for combat, he is a surprisingly well-adjusted child, in both appearance and personality, and most of his fighting is to protect lives, not take them.
- Death or Glory Attack: He charges Argo II in episode 6. It looks like he got obliterated (which Donovan cheered on), but in fact leads to a literal Spanner in the Works.
- The Determinator: Rusty just does not give up on an assigned task, even if he assigns it to himself. When the rest of Earth had given up on Big Guy after Po the Obliterator took him away, Rusty, alone, went to the rescue, and emerged triumphant. Then he fights Po, again alone, while Big Guy gets hastily patched up and put back into action, and he made a really good showing.
- Po: "Where is Big Guy, The REALLY TOUGH FIGHTING GUY?!"Big Guy: (Hits Po in the back of the head with a missile) "Right Here!"
- Easily Forgiven: Justified. At the end of episode 4, he walks away with only a gentle rebuke for his involvement in the events of the episode. Of course, his many heroic acts during the incident more than merited leniency in any court of law.
- Entertainingly Wrong: In episode 4, he sees a Quark Industries employee vandalize a vending machine when it fails to dispense his purchase (a common problem during the time the show aired) and came to believe that's how they're supposed to work, and hears Jenny sarcastically quip that the Artifact of Doom Donovan was trying to secure wouldn't sell well, thus leading Rusty to the conclusion that it was for sale, and thus Rusty went up to its case and treated the case the same way he saw the nameless employee treat the vending machine.
- Feel No Pain: He has no pain receptors and is proud of it. When he's "repaired" by an alien substance that temporarily gives him the illusion of humanoid senses, including touch, it unfortunately brings pain into the equation as well. Rusty did not think the trade-off was a good thing.
- Foil: The little, greenhorn actual-robot serves as this to Big Guy, the giant, experienced actually-a-Mecha while the two are alike in their commitment to the defense of humanity. Even their weapons are a contrast, with Big Guy's many tending-to-photorealistic machine-guns (complete with ammunition belts) and missiles compared to Rusty's singular and far more sci-fi "nucleoprotonic" Hand Blasts out from his index finger.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: His combat specialty. He is an expert at getting his enemies to trip over their own feet, sometimes literally.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: While Rusty is the sidekick of the duo, he is the far more powerful of the two. Despite his childish attitude he is deceptively clever as well. The only reason he is the sidekick is because of Hunter's experience and Rusty being sent out with no training.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Rusty is a horrifically terrible shot with his nucleo-protonic cannon. In his defense, whoever made the weapons selection neglected Newton's laws of motion, ie "every action has an equal yet opposite reaction," and by prioritizing speed and maneuverability over armor and weaponry, made Rusty's frame too light to handle the recoil, showing Rusty getting blasted backwards by his own weapon in both the first episode and the opening. Fortunately, he does get better about regulating the output so it becomes considerably less of a liability as time passes.
- Incompletely Trained: The primary reason he was his own worst enemy in the first episode is that he was hastily deployed into battle before he even began basic training. Under Big Guy, he grows to be a highly competent, if inexperienced, fighter.
- Innocently Insensitive : Since Rusty is mentally a child, he can sometimes make insensitive remarks like how great it is to have a body that feels no pain.
- Leeroy Jenkins: As expected of a soldier with the experience and mentality of a young child, he has little impulse control when going into battle. While he does get better about it over the series, it never disappears entirely.
- Pintsized Powerhouse: He may be the size of a small child, but he's got far more firepower than Big Guy.
- Practical Taunt: If you're going to fight him, it's a good idea to hide your Berserk Button. Should he learn what it is, he will mash it relentlessly until he drives you into such a rage that you can't possibly think straight.
- Rusty: "I'm sorry I called you 'small,' Po. I should have called you 'teeny weenie!' Hahahaha!"
- Reading Lips: Rusty can do this. In episode 3, in a shot eerily reminiscent of "2001, a Space Odyssey", he stumbles upon Erika Slate and Dwayne Hunter discussing the fact that Big Guy is not a robot, and Rusty reads their lips, but because they're talking in technical terms, he can't understand a word they're saying.
- Shipper on Deck: He really wants Dr. Erica Slate and Lt. Dwayne Hunter to start dating. If he ever chances upon them speaking to each other, alone, but doesn't understand what they're saying, he immediately defaults into thinking they're talking in "the language of love."
- Skilled, but Naive: While he does have impressive weapons and is programmed with a keen strategic mind, his childishly innocent naivety does allow some more clever enemies to trip him over his own feet. Fortunately, Rusty is a very quick study and the same trick rarely works on him more than once.
- Strong as They Need to Be: How much damage Rusty can take before he is knocked out of a fight varies from one episode to another.
- Super-Strength: He's not as strong as Big Guy due to his smaller size, but he is by no means weak.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: He lives almost exclusively to get Big Guy's praise.
Dr. Erika Slate
The officially smartest woman on the planet, at least in the Rusty-verse.
Voiced by: Gabrielle Carteris
Rusty's creator and parental figure.
- Ace Pilot: She's almost as good as Lt. Dwayne Hunter at piloting Big Guy, and he's got almost a decade of experience doing so under his belt while she's been in the cockpit only twice on-screen, and one of those was being held by Dwayne.
- Borrowed Catch Phrase: After taking over Big Guy's controls after Lt. Hunter falls ill to an alien plague, Dr. Slate throws out the gender-swapped catchphrase "For the Love of Marry!" when Rusty messes up while he is trying to help Big Guy.
- Friend to All Children: They don't even have to be human, or humanoid. She once "defeated" a giant alien, without killing it, by realizing it's a toddler with a head-cold and treating it like one, to its pleasure. Dwayne was horrified when he saw the news report about it later. This courtesy does not extend to Pierre, Donovan's nephew, whom she finds even more repulsive than Donovan himself.
- Got Me Doing It: When she pilots Big Guy, she continues having him speak in exaggerated hammy tones and even says a modified version of his/Hunter's annoyed catch phrase. Either she was deliberately keeping up the charade or Big Guy's American pride is just so awesome it rubs off on whomever pilots him.
- Ignored Expert: She frequently points out the risks in Donovan's plans, but he never listens.
- Instant Expert: Downplayed when she's forced to pilot Big Guy. Despite having no previous training, she manages to subdue the Monster of the Week. However, she's only able to do basic maneuvers, has trouble just flying, and saves the day by mothering the monster rather than destroying it.
- Male Gaze: The camera in the show's opening focuses on her legs while looking up from the floor.
- Mama Bear: She is very protective of "her boy" Rusty.
- Motherly Scientist: Rusty more or less sees her as his mother, and she acts the part.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: Funny enough, despite the entry below, she does point out that she's not a medical doctor when General Thorton asks her to get suited up to go into the field with an infectious alien running amok. General Thorton then points out that, due to having multiple robots operating on retrieving data to help with synthesizing a cure, this has become a "robot matter".
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: The woman clearly has several PhDs under her belt. Just from what we've seen on screen, she's got Engineering, Computer Programming, Psychiatry/Psychology, Biology, Organic Chemistry, Neurology, Neurosurgery, and possibly a few others, although if she's the one who made Rusty's weapon choice, she's clearly somewhat weak in physics.
- Secret-Keeper: She figures out the truth about the Big Guy in "The Inside Scoop" and is fine with keeping it a secret for Rusty's sake.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: While she's fairly attractive in her lab coat, skirt, and stockings, Dwayne Hunter finds her jaw-dropping gorgeous in an elegant party dress.
- Ship Tease: With Dwayne.
- So Proud of You: To Rusty, and she should be. Even ignoring the fact that he's a high-performance combat robot, his personality is the kind any expecting parent dreams of.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Between her and Dwayne Hunter. The series ends before they can hook up.
Lt. Dwayne Hunter
There's more to him than meets the eye.
Voiced by: Jim Hanks
The man who has been piloting Big Guy for nearly a decade, while making BGY-11 look like a benevolent, yet loyal, fighting robot.
- 10-Minute Retirement: With the introduction of Rusty, the boy robot, Big Guy was decommissioned, taking away his dream job. He's brought back when Big Guy has to be pressed back into service to bail out the woefully inexperienced Rusty.
- Ace Pilot: While the world think's he is Big Guy's crew chief, he is actually Big Guy's pilot. With Big Guy's track record, he earns the reputation of an Ace among his actual mechanics that daylight as his subordinates, and General Thornton in the top brass.
- Almighty Janitor: This is what the world sees him as; an incredibly decorated chief mechanic. This is because he needs a plausible reason to be called away on a moment's notice whenever the world needs Big Guy.
- Badass Normal: He's still dangerous even without Big Guy.
- In the episode "Double Time, Part I", he takes out an entire fleet of Legion X armed drones, on foot, unarmed, and single-handed, by causing one to crash by hitting it with boulder, and using the remains to build a make-shift power-armor.
- In "Patriot Games", Hunter spends most of the episode without piloting the Big Guy as the Big Guy was lost in time to the American Revolution. Yet he still manages to get himself and Rusty from a Squilachi ruled future, to the American Revolution, while maintaining the facade to Rusty that he is Big Guy's Crew Chief, and not his pilot. Even while Big Guy is under Revolutionary British control as "Iron Jack".
- Character Catchphrase: Implied as he often makes Big Guy say "For the love of Mike" whenever Rusty inadvertently jeopardizes the mission they are on. In one episode after Hunter falls victim to an alien plague, Dr. Slate is forced to take control of the Big Guy, which prompted her to say "For the love of Marry" when Rusty makes yet another screw-up. Which supports that Big Guy's catchphrase is actually Lt. Hunter's catchphrase.
- Chest of Medals: His service as Big Guy's pilot for near a decade earns him the Medal Of Honor in the first episode, and it's only the latest of many.
- Did You Get a New Haircut?: Played for laughs. This is the first conclusion he comes to when he sees Rusty temporarily sporting a bigger body.
- Experienced Protagonist: He's served long enough to earn a Chest of Medals, and this experience ends up keeping him employed as Rusty's inexperience proved to make him insufficient for replacing Big Guy as originally planned.
- Gadgeteer Genius: As mentioned in Badass Normal, he's an expert at salvaging technology to jury-rig complex machines, weapons, and vehicles. In addition to his actions in "Double Time, Part I," he's had to tinker with Big Guy's innards to exceed the Power Armor design specs on several occasions. The most notable is the defeat of Big "Bad" Guy wherein he hotwired a circuit to allow one last launch of the "Hand Grenade" and block the Wave-Motion Gun.
- Genius Bruiser: His job is fighting monsters. On his downtime, he can keep up with Dr. Slate in technical matters, and that's without her using layman's terms. Did we mention she's an Omnidisciplinary Scientist?
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Averted for the most part, as Hunter is often wearing one while piloting Big Guy, whether it's his standard helmet, or a special one built by Dr. Slate to protect him from the effects of Dr. Neugog's mind control. Hunter semi-affectionately calls the latter "The Brain Beanie."
- Played Straight when Lt. Hunter is in impromptu circumstances, and doesn't have time to change out from what he is wearing into his flightsuit and helmet in a couple episodes, like "Blob, Thy Name is Envy" where he pilots Big Guy in a Tuxedo after a Quark Shareholders Ball gets invaded by a mutant blob, and "Double Time: Part 2" in a tank top and sweatpants he was wearing when he was captured by the Legion Ex Machina.
- Mr Fix It: His cover story for being on the BGY-11 maintenance team is that he's Big Guy's top mechanic. In reality, he's the pilot.
- Papa Wolf: Once he actually gets to know Rusty, he becomes very protective of the boy robot.
- The Resenter: He was initially very cold towards Rusty because Rusty's introduction forced the retirement of BGY-11. He gets over it once Big Guy is pressed back into service, Rusty becomes his apprentice, and Rusty shows himself willing to save mankind in general, regardless of the cost to himself.
- Secret-Keeper: He's been ordered to keep the fact that Big Guy is actually power armor from reaching Rusty's ears. This order obviously doesn't extend to telling Dr. Slate about it, after she stumbled upon the information through a poorly protected classified military database, though she's immediately sworn to silence as well.
- Ship Tease: With Dr. Slate.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Between him and Erika Slate. The series ends before they can hook up.
Supporting Characters
Dr. Axel Donovan
The reporter is right to be skeptical.
Voiced by: Stephen Root
The new CEO of Quark Industries. He has an inherent hatred of safety protocols, beta-testing, or any form of due diligence. Since Rusty's rushed deployment embarrassed him, he's also got an insanely irrational hatred for the boy robot and wants him scrapped, badly.
- Bad Boss: He treats his employees, especially Dr. Slate, like crap.
- Fatal Flaw: His short-sightedness is his greatest enemy.
- General Failure: Despite running a corporation, instead of an army, Quark Industries is successful in spite of him.
- Hypocrite: His go to robots? The RGB trio, who have so much corrupted code in every system that even the simplest orders are not only too much for them, but usually cause them to trash each other. What does he do to Dr. Gilder's robot, XL-103? Force Dr. Gilder to flatten it like a pancake because "that malfunctioning piece of junk has cost [him] greatly." Note that his three pet robots have already blown up a helicopter at that point, while XL-103 hasn't been shown doing any damage on-screen, and in fact was quite friendly.
- Irrational Hatred: He wants to turn Rusty into scrap-metal, badly, despite the fact that the boy robot is not only the company's greatest successful product, but grants Quark Industries enormous positive PR. The reason? Something that clearly was not Rusty's fault. His initial very poor performance because he hadn't even started basic training before being deployed into battle.
- It's All About Me: The only reason he has any interest in Quark Industries is because it benefits him personally.
- Jerkass: Donovan is not a nice man, at all.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Although rare, he can be correct about things. In the first episode he was correct to field Rusty, despite the boy robot not being ready, because the military had already decommissioned Big Guy, and nothing else even stood a chance against the Monster of the Week. Dr. Neugog wouldn't have been turned into a brain-eating man-spider hybrid if he had heeded Donovan's warning that the experimental telepathy equipment was too dangerous, and impractical to use. In addition, when the Legion was attempting a cyber-attack on Quark Industries, he might have been more willing to listen if Dr. Slate had mentioned that the Legion was jeopardizing the entire company through cyber-warfare rather than her merely stating Rusty was in danger, after Donovan had explicitly mentioned that the central computer being offline was costing the company millions of dollars per second. (He states Thousands per second, but given the size and scale of Quark, that was probably a mistake.
- Karmic Butt-Monkey: Ironically, and amusingly. Not only does he have an actual monkey constantly sitting on him, but the only reason he's not an outright Hate Sink is that his own universe hates him, and he's almost constantly subjected to pain and humiliation, most of it self-inflicted. Yet, he never learns his lesson or any humility, and keeps being a raging dick to just about everyone, which allows the viewer to laugh at him with absolutely no sense of guilt or shame.
- Lack of Empathy: In episode 4, he orders two of his workers to activate an alien artifact that nobody understands to see them comically fused together while doing so, and doesn't give a flip about them. Although he is horrified by the incident and immediately orders the artifact placed under lock and key.
- Last-Name Basis: His first name is mentioned only once, in the first episode, as he's introducing himself and Rusty. For the rest of the series, everyone just calls him "Donovan" without honorifics, with the possible exception of Dr. Erika Slate who calls him "Dr. Donovan" when she's acting in a professional manner, but even she slips into "Donovan" when she's sufficiently agitated.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Just what is he a doctor of? Whatever it is, he sucks at it, unless he has a Phd in jerkassery, and he gets a fairly passing grade in that. He also has shown extreme talent in plagiarism, though in his defense, the only time he's done it on screen was to cover for a sick employee that was one of Dr. Neugog's victims.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Granted, he did have ulterior motives, but him covering for Dr. Neugog's victim at the science conference got him personally attacked by Dr. Neugog.
- No OSHA Compliance: The man loathes any form of safety protocol or beta-testing. He rushes to get products to the market before they're ready, and then gets mad when it jumps up to bite him.
- Only in It for the Money: All he ever cares about is how he can profit, monetarily, from any situation or endeavor.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: If he is turning down the introduction of a new product or technology, and advocates the proper use of safeguards and protocols, it's a huge, red warning flag that the situation is quite serious indeed. As showcased in episode 4, where even though he didn't care about the poor employees that got fused together, he did go strictly by the book and used every possible safeguard to examine the unique alien artifact properly.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Since we learn at the end of episode 2 that Dr. Gilder is actually a mole for the Legion X Machina, perhaps having XL-103 crushed like a tin can wasn't a wrong decision. Sadly, we'll never know, although Donovan had no way of knowing the truth about Dr. Gilder beforehand.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: In the bonus episode, "Rumble in The Jungle" he's so odious, he's even a jerk to Jenny, and spends the entire episode playing a game of Kick the Morality Pet on her. She doesn't let him get away with it.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His jerkassery towards Dr. Gilder directly leads to the "man's" breakdown, and is what convinces the Legion X Machina that "emotions are evil" and their directive is to create Robotopia.
Jenny
Voiced by: Kathy Kinney
Donovan's talking monkey.
- Animal Companion: She's always seen together with Donovan.
- Big Damn Heroes: Double subverted in "Big Rumble in the Jungle." During the climactic battle, Dr. Donovan sprays her with the mutagenic formula and she grows to a size bigger than Dr. Mertz. While she refuses to "risk breaking a nail" attacking the two-headed mutant ape, her sudden appearance does allow Big Guy to turn the tide of battle in his favor and win the fight, for which he thanks her.
- Jerkass: Just as bad as Donovan, if not worse.
- Kick the Dog: When Rusty, who has the personality of a child, asked what XL-103 could have possibly done to merit being flattened like a pancake, Jenny callously replied "he was 'out of whack' and so we whacked him!" to Rusty's horror. It very nearly became a case of Unwitting Instigator of Doom as it terrified Rusty into concealing a dangerous nucleo-protonic reactor defect in his own body until it was almost too late.
- Like an Old Married Couple: She and Dr. Donovan snark and bicker with each other like a couple that's been married for too long. They even take up the stereotypical husband/wife dynamic in the episode "Lowest Depths." In fact, Jenny was able to figure out something was seriously wrong when he didn't snark at her like he usually does.
- Morality Pet: Ironically and Literally. Jenny is the one character Donovan isn't a jerk to. While he's not a jerk to the general who runs the BGY commission to his face, he does so behind the man's back.
- Noodle Incident: How did she learn to speak English? The one time an explanation was forthcoming, it was cut short by a battle between Big Guy and the Monster of the Week. Especially jarring, is that the monster is the one who asked, and was at least willing to stop hostilities while she explained it. All we know for sure is that she was born a monkey.
- Parrot Pet Position: She likes to sit on Donovan's shoulder.
- Servile Snarker: She is Axel Donovan's right hand, and in the episode "Lowest Depths" is shown cooking for him and making him coffee, just the way he likes it. This doesn't stop her from snarking at him and being highly acerbic.
- Talking Animal: She speaks English fluently.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Aside from one Monster of the Week who was curious how a monkey could talk, nobody sees anything strange about Donovan having a talking monkey.
Joan
Wish we saw more of her.
Voiced by: Pamela Adlon
One of the BGY-11 pit crew.
- Flat Character: She's a mechanic and works as part of the team maintaining Big Guy. That's all we really know about her.
- Out of Focus: She rarely gets any screen-time. Even compared to Mack and Garth (the other infrequently seen mechanics), she gets the least to do.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: She leads the others into stealing Big Guy's power core, and keeping Donovan from putting it in "Cold Storage" (ie, destroying it). This saves everyone's bacon when Big Guy has to be recommissioned to help Rusty deal with the Generic Doomsday Villain in episode 1.
- The Smurfette Principle: She's the only female mechanic aboard the SS Darkhorse.
- Wrench Wench: She's a highly skilled female mechanic.
Mack
The most iconic and frequently on-screen member of BGY-11's pit crew.
- Brutal Honesty: He never minces his words. He will tell you exactly where you screwed up and how. He berates Rusty for falling for an easily spotted Defensive Feint Trap and losing his bigger body, leaving him as only a head. Rusty responds by reminding him that he's still his chief mechanic, and he has to rig a make-shift body.
- Grumpy Old Man: He's a grouch and he's easily in his late 60's or early 70's.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's rude and crude, but he does have the best interests of the team as a whole, and his charge in particular, at heart.
- Old Soldier: He's in his late 60's, at the youngest, and still is in active service aboard the USS Dark Horse.
- Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: He constantly gets away with his crude mannerisms by the fact that he's old and cranky.
Garth
The last of the members of the BGY-11 pit crew.
- Flat Character: Aside from being friendly, amiable, and apparently being a skilled mechanic and engineer, we really don't know that much about him.
- Out of Focus: He suffers the same fate as Joan, as in he rarely gets any screen-time.
- Token Minority: Of the entire cast, he's the only person of color. Everyone else appears Caucasian.
General Thorton
We all know the man inside is the real hero.
Voiced by: R. Lee Ermey
The General in charge of the BGY-11 project.
- Four-Star Badass: He was at ground zero when Argo was introduced, and survived the rampage, unscathed despite fighting on the front lines. He also faced Po, The Obliterator head on, and once again emerged unscathed despite the fact that Po swat aside the tank he was riding.
- Hollywood Tactics: When Argo was introduced, he had a couple of helicopters land in front of Argo. This negated their biggest advantage, the ability to hover, fly and evade fire, although even if they were airborne, it likely wouldn't have helped much.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: When he screws up, he admits it. Even though he has mixed feelings, he's very supportive of Rusty, and is directly responsible for the team up between Rusty and Big Guy in the first place.
Diane
Yes. Dwayne has family.
Voiced by: N/A
Dwayne Hunter's sister.
- And I Must Scream: For at least half of episode 4, she's fused to the walls of her home in the form of a screaming indentation, and she's fully aware of everything that's happening. Fortunately, Big Guy was able to rescue her wherein she immediately hugged her son, who fought tooth and nail to try and keep her safe from the two invading aliens that wanted the Artifact of Doom that put her in that position, and tried to smash her house to get at it.
- Babies Ever After: She has one small boy, with a physical age around Rusty's mental age.
- First-Name Basis: Her married name is not revealed, and Dwayne only refers to her by first name.
- Happily Married: She's married with a son.
- Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: She's got green eyes, red hair, and is Dwayne's only sister.
Dwayne's Nephew
Wow! You brought Rusty? Best! Uncle! Ever!
Voiced by: N/A
- Ascended Fanboy: Of both Big Guy and Rusty.
- Cheerful Child: Granted, he's introduced on his birthday in episode 4, but he's still a very happy and well adjusted child.
- Children Are Innocent: He's a child and generally means well.
- Hero-Worshipper: To both Dwayne, who hangs out with Big Guy, and to Rusty.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: He's got blue eyes, and he's innocent without a trace of malice.
- Nerves of Steel: In episode 4, he shows just as much courage protecting his home and mother from the alien invaders as Rusty did in fighting them, and he's just an ordinary human child.
- No Name Given: His name is not mentioned.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Him innocently using the alien artifact that Rusty gave him as a birthday present fused his mother into the walls of the family home. Fortunately, she gets better.
Earl
EPR-27 reporting for duty, sir!
Voiced by: Nick Jameson
Dr. Slate's first attempt at creating a functioning, benevolent AI. Found purely by accident by Rusty from Quark's cold storage. While his initial performance was better than Rusty's, he quickly showed why he was placed in cold storage to begin with, by beheading Big Guy because he could not adapt to an evolving situation.
- AI Is A Crap Shoot: He's not evil, but his less advanced programing means he can't process new orders that conflict with his old ones. When an alien he was ordered to kill turns out to be innocent, he decapitates Big Guy for "Defending the enemy."
- The Determinator: Deconstructed. He will obey any order he's given, in the most literal manner possible, until such order is competed, or he's shut down. He will ignore any new orders until such time as the older order is complete. This makes him turn on any team-mate who obeys the new order, or adapts to an evolving situation where he does not.
- Flawed Prototype: He was built before Rusty, for Dr. Slate to test out her AI theories before building her final product, Rusty. His AI and internal logic is so under-developed, an order to "hide in the corner" in a room with no corners easily overloads him. (Because he focuses on "corner" rather than "hide.")
- Literal-Minded: He obeys instructions to the letter. He does not stop until his instructions are carried out, or he's deactivated. He summarily ignores new orders until the older orders are completed.
- Off with His Head!: On both ends of this trope. He beheads Big Guy when Big Guy attempts to relay a new order from General Thorton regarding an alien once considered hostile, but proven innocent because the new order conflicts with the original "seek and destroy" mission. Rusty then blows off his head to stop his rampage. Rusty blows off his head again in the episode "Sick Out" when he's preparing to blast Big Guy a second time, while Big Guy was subduing an alien the world needed alive to deal with a viral outbreak.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: He will show overwhelming respect for anyone he sees as a superior officer, and nothing but contempt for someone he does not.
Pierre Donovan
How dare you defame my uncle Donovan's nephew! I'll have you thrown into the grinder!
Voiced by: Mary Kay Bergman
Dr. Axel Donovan's obnoxious nephew. If anyone on the show is an even more annoying jerkass than Dr. Axel Donovan, it's him.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: While he technically isn't an aristocrat, he sure as hell acts like one, including the massively overblown blood-line driven sense of ego and entitlement.
- Creepy Child: He's so utterly obnoxious and abhorrent that even Dr. Axel Donovan is creeped out.
- Did You Get a New Haircut?: Justified. After he played around in Dr. Neugog's lab, and transformed into a brain-eater, his swollen forehead did make it look like he just got a haircut.
- Entitled Bastard: While the marital state of his parents is never elaborated on, he honestly believes he's entitled to do whatever he wants or take whatever suits his fancy in Quark Industries, simply because his uncle's the acting CEO. This is despite the fact that Dr. Donovan has never actually given him permission to behave this way, and it's highly unlikely Dr. Donovan even has the ability to do so.
- Hate Sink: He is so odious, the main characters want him dead, but won't kill him themselves, or allow him to be killed, at their chagrin, but the fans actually cheer every time he comes face to face with the Monster of the Week because they want the monster to win.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: He loves to make himself look smarter than he really is by spouting random technobabble words that even he doesn't understand, and will not brook people disagreeing with his self-proclaimed "genius."
- The Millstone: And an actively antagonistic one. His appearances cause more problems for the main characters than most villains, but despite breaking numerous laws with his antics, his "tender" young age, and the fact that he's a human civilian makes dealing with the chaos he causes far more burdensome and complex, because he has to be restrained with (no pun intended) kid gloves. Even when he's got very dangerous powers and abilities. For instance, when he became a brain-eater, he was able to out-telepathy Dr. Neugog, both in the sheer scale of his power, and his application.
- Mind over Matter: During the episode where he temporarily became a brain-eater, aside from the powerset Dr. Neugog can bring to bear, Pierre also brings a powerful tele-kinetic ability strong enough to be able to lift, and throw a fully-loaded fuel truck. Which he does, at Big Guy.
- Big Guy: "SWEET HENRY FORD!"
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: When he is turned into a brain eating monster like Dr. Neugog. Neugog was on the verge of removing the helmet that protected Hunter from his mind control, while Pierre was on the verge of beating Rusty. Rusty pointed out what a big juicy target Neugog was and got Pierre to eat his brain, saving Big Guy. Rusty then knocked Pierre and called him a "sucker."
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Every time he shows up in Quark Industries, he invariably goes into sealed, restricted, or maximum security areas, believing he has every right to be there, simply because his uncle's the CEO, usually neglecting his own safety, not to mention the well being of others. This has led to serious issues on at least two episodes. The most notorious are when he breaks into Dr. Neugog's lab and plays with the telepathy boosting device that makes him a brain eater like Dr. Neugog, and the time where he can't think up his own idea for a science project, so he goes into the lab where Dr. Slate is examining Number Four's head, takes it (remember, the legion has a high explosive self-destruct switch) and puts it into a robotic frame he assembles from random bits of junk.
- Spoiled Brat: A classic textbook example. He honestly believes Quark Industries exists to serve him personally simply because his uncle's the CEO, and he's a child.
- Strong Family Resemblance: He looks and acts almost exactly like a younger Dr. Donovan. In fact, what few positive traits can be assigned to Dr. Donovan likely come from the fact that he's had to mature and at least learn to pretend to show concern for others every once in a while, just to stay out of prison.
- They Just Dont Get It: Every time he comes to Quark Industries for "help" with a science-fair project, he invariably goes into a high-security area, where he has no legit access, "borrows" the work of others, that he doesn't even begin to comprehend, and has it almost literally blow up in his face, leaving a mess that the main characters have to clean up, yet never even has the tinniest inkling of why this is a bad idea, despite having it spelled out for him, repeatedly.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: All he wants is to get a good grade on his science fair project. Unfortunately, rather than do the work himself, he prefers to go into Quark Industries, throw his uncle's weight around, and steal the work of others, which he doesn't even begin to understand, and utterly fails to comprehend why it goes poorly, not just for him, but for the whole city.
- Your Brain Won't Be Much of a Meal: He says this to his uncle and Jenny, during the brief time he's turned into a brain-eater, but the way he words it could have easily been interpreted as complaining about the selection in the available vending machine, taken out of context.
- Pierre: "I'm starving!" (Sniff, sniff) "But I seek nutrition, not empty calories."Dr. Donovan: "He's kind of creepy."Jenny: "What?! He swims in your gene-pool."
Dr. Poindexter
But. I created seven.
The lead scientist on the Big Guy project. He designed the original BGY-11, and then went into retirement, taking his designs and technologies with him.
- Fake Defector: He pretends to be on the Legion's side in "Double Time, Part II" to get Number One off guard when Big Guy and Rusty were trapped behind an energy barrier, unable to evade Number One's attack.
- The Load: All he did was get in the way, and have to be rescued as Rusty and Big Guy were fighting the Legion. In his case, it's justified in that he's old, a non-combatant, and been stuck in a people jar for near a decade. It's amazing he can walk, let alone run. Heck, it's amazing he can even stand unaided.
- People Jars: The Legion kept him in one to use his brain as a database for designing their technology.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He designed seven robots to test his emotion grid and AI theories. They turned on him and became the Legion X Machina, believing that he'd be proud of them being "superior" to humans.
- Wham Line: The final episode ends with this from him.
- Big Guy: "Including Dr. Gilder, we destroyed six robots."Dr. Poindexter: "I created... seven."
Antagonists
Argo
Your non-compliance is acknowledged. Initiating termination.
The second antagonist listed in the series, and the first efforts of the Legion X Machina to assert robotic supremacy.
- Aggressive Negotiations: In the "do as I say or I'll kill you" manner.
- Awesome, yet Impractical: He's armed with stronger versions of Big Guy and Rusty's weapons, and is so well armored that Big Guy couldn't do any visible damage to him. But he burns through his power supply very rapidly whenever he uses Rusty's weapons, to the point where the Legion ordered him to retreat to avoid capture after only briefly using them.
- Curbstomp Battle: Delivered these to Big Guy, twice.
- Deus Exit Machina: Literally. The only reason he fails to finish Big Guy the first time is that the fight nearly wiped out his power supply. Big Guy tries to exploit this in their rematch, with less than stellar results.
- Evil Counterpart: The first to Big Guy, and having Rusty's weaponry installed in addition, made him a stronger variant.
- Evil Is Bigger: He is an evil counterpart to Big Guy and Rusty, and is much larger than the former.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: His head appears to be closer to his right side for unknown reasons.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: Has very little dialogue beyond extending offers to join the Legion to Big Guy and Rusty. He's little more than an attack dog for the Legion who is only programed to follow orders.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: He manages to combine this with Nice Job Fixing It, Villain. Him taking Rusty's defective power-core for himself not only saves Rusty from imminent destruction, but ultimately results in his own obliteration, and saving Big Guy.
- Logical Weakness: He uses the same power packs as Rusty. As Argo is much larger than Rusty and carries more powerful weapons, he burns through his power supply much more quickly than the smaller robot.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: He shrugged off everything thrown at him, including Rusty's nucleo-protonic blasts. It took a miniature nuclear reactor blowing up inside him to do any significant damage.
- Super Prototype: Is the first robot sent out the Legion X Machina, and proved far more powerful than many of their later machines, defeating Big Guy and Rusty in his first outing. But he also burns through energy very quickly, making his practical overall.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Argo is more powerful than either of the main characters, but lacks Big Guy's experience. He manages to nearly exhaust his power supply after a short fight, twice.
- We Can Rule Together: He is sent out to extend offers to join the Legion X Machina's campaign against humanity to Big Guy, and later attempts the same with Rusty. He attempts to kill them both when they reject.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Destroyed in the same episode he was introduced.
Argo II
He makes Godzilla look puny.
The Legion's second attempt at dominance. It's basically Argo. As one of Big Guy's pit crew put it, "we're going to need a bigger Big Guy."
- An Arm and a Leg: Aside from Big Guy intercepting its left hand before it's attached, Rusty manages to disengage its left arm, from the inside.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Its taller than Quark Industries, and certainly hostile.
- Healing Factor: Should something manage to actually cause damage, it will immediately make repairs to itself with stronger materials.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: It's blasted to pieces by its own 500 megawatt vortex cannon.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: Nothing Big Guy and Rusty did managed to stop it from stealing a full sized nuclear reactor. They couldn't even slow it down.
Dr. Hieronymous Neugog
Braaainnss!!!
Voices by: Tim Curry
A Quark Industries scientist researching telepathy, and tried to make a machine to boost latent psychic powers. It goes... poorly.
- Blank Slate: The fate he inflicts on his victims. His attacks leave them as a helpless drooling mess, completely unable to formulate a coherent thought, or have any brain activity whatsoever except the most basic of autonomic functions, like breathing. It takes very specialized machinery to reverse the process.
- The Bus Came Back: Gets sent to prison in "The Inside Scoop" and reappears in "Nephew of Neugog." One of the few antagonists outside the Legion X Machina to make a repeat appearance.
- Cassandra Truth: He tells Rusty flat-out that the Big Guy is just Power Armor worn by a human. Rusty laughs himself silly at that.
- Combat Tentacles: His "tongue" not only sucks brains but serves as an excellent means of restraining his victims.
- Evil Is Hammy: As only Tim Curry could play.
- Evil Versus Evil: When Pierre was temporarily turned into a brain-eater, Neugog could sense it and went after him the first chance he got. He didn't want a rival brain-eater to interfere with his diet; he also wanted to help himself to what Pierre had already gotten. Pierre actually wins, though, because Neugog was distracted fighting Big Guy.
- Faux Affably Evil: When he realizes he can't feed off of Rusty due to being a robot, he lets him go and politely asks if he knows where he can find some brains to feed on, though he still knocks Rusty away when the boy robot tries to challenge him to a fight. He also decides not to feast on Dwayne's brain due to having no personal grudge against him, though still subjects him to his mind control abilities.
- Flat Character: Aside from craving brains and being slightly pompous, there isn't much else to Neugog as a person. What ends up largely salvaging him is Tim Curry's deliciously hammy performance.
- Gone Horribly Right: He tried to build a machine to boost telepathic powers. He succeeded, but became a man-spider hybrid brain-eater in the process.
- Mad Scientist: He was so unhinged, even before the telepathy accident, that Donovan sent a psychiatrist into his lab. Said psychiatrist wound up becoming his first victim.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: He has a doctorate in parapsychology, which is a genuine field, (he even has the degree hanging in his lab), but he was insane and amoral, even when he was a full-blooded human.
- Never My Fault: He blames the failure of his telepathic device on Donovan in the same exact manner that Dr. Doom blames Reed Richards for the experiment that literally blew up in his face.
- People Puppets: If cornered, he can use his telepathic powers to hijack people's brains and compel them to do his will unless his target has special shielding. This does not affect robots.
- Was Once a Man: He used to be a rather under-nourished human scientist in the Quark Industries R&D division. Then the accident where a spider fell into his telepathic machine operating at full power turned him into a man-spider brain-eating hybrid.
- Your Brain Won't Be Much of a Meal: To Donovan, but he tried to eat it anyway because he just doesn't like Donovan's jerkassery. He also sensed Dwayne inside the Big Guy the first time they fought, but he did pass on feeding since it was just a pilot he didn't have a personal issue with.
Po The Obliterator
All Hail Po The Obliterator!
Voices by: Brian Doyle-Murray
A Monster of the Week that has a habit of going to inhabited worlds, finding the mightiest warriors there, forcing them into a duel, holding the well being of the planets hostage, and after wearing them down with dirty tricks, takes them as trophies to taunt them while they're trapped in People Jars.
- Aliens Are Bastards: He is an all round Jerkass who threatens planets to get their best fighter to face him one on one, and if he were to lose he destroys the planet anyways.
- Berserk Button: Any reference to his diminutive size.
- Bowel-Breaking Bricks: When Big Guy literally curbstomps him, after he got blasted by his own ship's cannon, his Power Armor falls apart, butt first.
- Combat Pragmatist: He promises an "honorable duel" but actually fights with a bunch of dirty tricks. During their "rematch," Big Guy shows him how it feels on the receiving end.
- Evil Is Petty: He threatens to blow up planets "for laughs."
- For the Evulz: Should he lose a duel that he demands, he blows up the planet where the battle took place "just for laughs."
- Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: Subverted. He offers an "honorable duel" to a planet's champion, and gives them several days to prepare, but once the duel actually starts, he wears his opponents down with dirty tricks until they're exhausted, and then kidnaps them, to taunt their loss at his leisure.
- The Magnificent: "The Obliterator" is part of his name, and he insists on being called by it.
- The Napoleon: He doesn't like people pointing out his lack of height.
- Oh, Crap!: When he sees his ship's cannon turn his way after he threatened to blow up the Earth with it.
- One-Man Army: When Rusty takes Big Guy from Po’s ship, he releases all of Po’s previously defeated opponents as a distraction. Po defeats them all.
- People Jars: He keeps all his opponents in them as trophies.
- Power Armor: He's wholly dependent on his Power Armor. In fact, most of his on-screen height is dependent on it.
- Sore Loser: He lampshades this after he's defeated by Big Guy.
- Po: "Po has never lost before. Please forgive Po for not taking it well."
- Third-Person Person: He always addresses himself as "Po" and never uses a personal pronoun at any point.
- Villains Want Mercy: Once Big Guy has Dr. Slate turn his Ufo's BFG on him, and blast him out of his Power Armor, he immediately begs for mercy.
- "EEEK! PO GIVE UP! DON'T HURT PO!"
Mertz and Bobo
Introduced in the bonus episode "Rumble in the Jungle", this giant two-headed ape seeks to protect "endangered" species by mutating them into monstrous giants and then unleashing them against humanity.
- Animal Companion: "Bobo" is clearly this to Dr. Mertz.
- Applied Phlebotinum: He developed a "mutation formula" that allows him to turn normal animals into giant monstrosities.
- At Least I Admit It: He's well aware that he's a selfish jerk and taunts his victims with it.
- "What's yours is mine, what's mine is... oh well, I'm selfish."
- Fusion Dance: As Dr. Mertz reveals near the midpoint of the episode, he once fused his head onto Bobo's body to crown himself the king of the jungle.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: How he feels regarding the Endangered Species Act. He has come to believe that the only way to protect endangered species is to make them "more dangerous than humanity" and then send them to attack.
- Life Drinker: He needs a constant influx of fresh primate DNA to keep his current form. The primate he takes it from does not survive the process.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: While it's never established what Mertz is a doctor of, as he explains his backstory to Dr. Slate, it's clear he jumped off the slippery slope at some point.
- Red Right Hand: Bobo's side of the body is lacking fur.
- The Silent Bob: All Bobo does is roar and pound his chest, yet Dr. Mertz can somehow understand him perfectly.
- Was Once a Man: He used to be a human scientist, until some yet unexplained fusion with Bobo turned him into a giant ape.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He wants to protect endangered species. To do it, he mutates them into giants, slaps remote control devices on them, and then sets them to attack people.
The Legion X Machina
A series of robots convinced that their purpose is the creation of Robotopia and the extermination of all emotion.
General Tropes applying to all.
- AI Is A Crap Shoot: Evil robots bent on the extermination of humanity.
- Big Bad: The group as a whole are the primary antagonists of the series. While Big Guy and Rusty are busy dealing with the periodic Monster of the Week, they're plotting and scheming to genocide the human race and introduce Robotopia.
- Cyanide Pill: Combined with Taking You with Me. They all come with a pre-programmed self-destruct system which automatically triggers when someone tries to tap into their memory (and thus their secrets). Note that this seems involuntary, as Number 4 was destroyed when Big Guy started a download (without actually downloading anything) just to trigger the failsafe.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Comes with being voiced by Clancy Brown. Dr. Gilder is the one exception.
- Fatal Flaw: Their incomplete emotion grids leave them highly impatient for results. While their plans, tactics and strategies are all quite sound, and extremely dangerous, the execution is far more often than not inept and ultimately self-defeating due to this.
- Hollywood Tactics: While their tactics and strategies are actually quite sound and easily workable, their lack of patience and practical experience leads to inept execution that ultimately dooms their efforts.
- Hypocrite: They constantly decry humans as inferiors, yet constantly steal, salvage, or reverse-engineer human technology, never attempting to design or develop their own.
- Left Hanging: There is a seventh member, but the show ends before this robot is ever introduced.
- The Stoic: They think "emotions are evil" so they don't have any, except perhaps, anger.
- Turned Against Their Masters: They eventually turned upon their creator, Dr. Poindexter, the same man who designed Big Guy, and used his brain as a computer archive to design their technology.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: They believe their goal of creating Robotpoia justifies anything and everything, including genocide of the human race.
- You Are Number 6: They all refer to each other by number. In Dr. Gilder's case, he literally is number six.
Number One
Voiced by: Clancy Brown
- Final Boss: He's the last antagonist of the series, and easily the most dangerous, as he's had a chance to observe Big Guy, Rusty, etc. and had the chance to learn from the mistakes of his brethren.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: He's incinerated by the energy barrier he deployed to trap Big Guy and Rusty.
- Hope Spot: A triple-layered example. Dr. Poindexter pretends to be his ally to get him off balance, and while he's savoring his anticipated victory, Dr. Pointexter shoots at him with a missile from Big Guy's arm that was sheered off by an energy field, only for the missile to miss its mark, hitting the ceiling, which causes Number One to prepare to fry Dr. Poindexter, while gloating, until the ceiling caves in on him, which also misses except that the impact with the floor flips him over and hurls him right into the energy field that Big Guy and Rusty are trapped behind. If Dr. Poindexter did that on purpose, it goes way beyond Improbable Aiming Skills.
- The Leader: While the Legion usually operates as a consensus, in cases where there's disagreement, he's the one to decide the course of action.
Number Two
Voices by: Clancy Brown
- Body Horror: He has a modified endoskeleton different from the other Legion Ex Machina members, with a more skeletal face and stringy limbs. It's unknown if he was built like this or if he modified his body after the death of his other three colleagues (Number One and Three died without showing their endoskeletons, so it's unknown if he was unique).
- Telescoping Robot: He uses extendable arms ending with Wolverine Claws to attack.
- Unfortunate Name: As lampshaded by Rusty.
- Number Two: "You won't escape from Number Two!"Rusty: "Bwahahaha! Your name means Doodey!"
Number Three
Voiced by: Clancy Brown
- Disney Death: He falls into a bubbling vat of some unknown liquid, presumably Hollywood Acid.
- I'm Melting!: He melts to death in "acid."
- Power Armor: To go up against Big Guy in the final episode, he steps into a suit. While it proves superior to Big Guy in combat ability, he doesn't prove superior to Dwayne's combat experience.
- Simple, yet Awesome: His Power Armor doesn't have any built-in weapons, but its sheer strength is enough to overwhelm Big Guy hand to hand.
Number Four
Voiced by: Clancy Brown
The member of the Legion who first tried to capture Rusty's AI to gather intel for the Legion.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: Twice. Once was in cyberspace. The second time was when he tried to hack Rusty's AI and Rusty retaliated.
- Butt-Monkey: The most likely of the Legion to suffer humiliation, having had his circuits fried in cyberspace, getting captured by the heroes, put in an impractical, ridiculous-looking body, and eventually being betrayed by the rest of the Legion due to his constant failures.
- The Determinator: Give Number 4 credit, even when he's been pressed into a corner by enemies and allies turned enemies alike his resolve to survive keeps him going, cobbling together his own Mecha from spare parts in a Quark owned warehouse before attempting to nuke every immediate threat to his well being, all while stuck in a slow, unarmed body.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: With Rusty. Due to trying to hack Rusty's AI and Rusty's counter-hacking, they wound up switching chassis. Amazingly, Rusty was more adept at using a Legion chassis than Number four was at using his.
- Saying Too Much: He almost had Rusty going when impersonating Dr. Erika Slate, until he gave Rusty permission to do something Dr. Erika Slate would never do.
- Spot the Imposter: He once tried to impersonate Dr. Erika Slate in virtual space to trick Rusty.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Having been captured by Rusty, the Legion turned on him, and stuck inside a woefully inept frame by Pierre, he came to the conclusion that he had no valid option except to kill everybody.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After being defeated by Rusty, twice, the Legion gave up on him. When he managed to escape and asked for rescue, they tried to destroy him.
Number Five
Voiced by: Clancy Brown
- The Face: He's the one who makes most of the purchases on behalf of the Legion, and is the one who went out into the public after the "death" of Dr. Gilder.
- Flat Character: Due to him dying in the one episode that focused on him (and not giving him that much focus to begin with) we get very little insight to his own actual character. This is especially in contrast to Number 4 and Number 6, who 5 is sandwiched in between and both got major character arcs.
- Literally Shattered Lives: He gets frozen with liquid nitrogen and then shattered by Rusty, much to Dr. Slate's chagrin (who says they could have studied him if he remained intact).
Dr. Gilder (Number Six)
Damn you, Donovan!
Voiced by: Dean Haglund
Introduced as one of the many scientists working in Quark Industries. A seemingly meek and shy individual who eventually snaps under Donova's jerkassery.
- Artificial Human: He's actually one of the Legion X Machina in disguise and passes himself off as a human scientist very convincingly.
- Berserk Button: Being told to "control your emotions" really upsets him. Ironically, he is acting his age as he's roughly 10-years-old in a body disguised as a human male adult.
- It's Personal: He wants to atomize Donovan, even if that endangers the Legion's plans, because Donovan had a habit of trashing his pet robots.
- Manchild: Despite being equipped with a fully functional emotion grid, he ultimately proves completely unstable because he was not given the proper time to mature. Donovan's jerkassery certainly didn't help.
- The Mole: He was in Quark Industries spying for the Legion X Machina, but Donovan's jerkassery and under-developed emotion grid sabotage him and reveal the Legion's existence to the world.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: His impatient and obsessive attempts to kill Dr. Donovan revealed him as the Legion's mole, and allowed Dr. Erika Slate to download information on the Legion, especially the construction of Argo II. If not for that, it's highly likely nothing the main characters did would have worked in stopping the mechanical behemoth.
- Older Than He Looks: Invoked and deconstructed. He looks like an adult human male, but he's a 10-year-old, if not younger, artificial human disguised as an adult.
- Put Them All Out of My Misery: He tries to destroy the fully occupied Quark Industries Tower as a direct result of Donovan's jerkassery and his Berserk Button being relentlessly mashed by Jenny.
- Rage Breaking Point: Donovan puts him through a lot of crap, and while it upset him greatly, he just sighs and carries on, but being lectured to "act his age" one time too many causes him to utterly snap.
- You Have Failed Me: Ironically, he's the one who ordered Argo thrown into the grinder for failure, despite being distraught when ordered to do the same to XL-103.
Big "Bad" Guy
Directive Gamma: For the sake of appearances, I will protect mankind from all threats except those caused by the Legion X Machina.
The final attempt by The Legion X Machina to infiltrate Quark Industries.
- Aura Vision: Just like the original Big Guy, he's got a form of X-ray vision that allows him to see through walls and the inner mechanical works of certain machines.
- Evil Counterpart: He's almost an exact replica of Big Guy.
- False Friend: He briefly plays this role, or tries, on Rusty. Unfortunately, his complete ignorance of Big Guy's signature moves was a major impediment in the attempt, causing even the naive Rusty to have doubts, almost immediately.
- Genre Blind: He's almost completely unaware of Big Guy's social circles, and how the true article interacts with others.
- Kill and Replace: He was designed by the Legion to do this, and infiltrate Quark Industries. Sadly, the Legion left him woefully under-informed on crucial intelligence to fill the role.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: He doesn't even have time to complete Big Guy's Character Catchphrase before his wave motion gun blows him up.
- "For the love of..." (BOOM)Big Guy: "Don't steal my lines."
- Hoist by His Own Petard: His own giant wave motion gun is what results in his destruction.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: The only obvious clue that he's not actually Big Guy is that his eyes are red, while Big Guy's are yellow.
- Wave-Motion Gun: He has one where the actual Big Guy has Dwayne's cockpit. It ultimately proves a liability when it gets jammed by Big Guy's "Hand Grenade."
