Allies of the Superwomen of EVA #1: Deathlok
"A few years prior to the beginning of the Angel attacks on Tokyo-3, pacifistic biomechanical engineer Dr. Michio Kohmyoji and his son, Jiro, were abducted by wet-works agents of the cybernetics corporation Cybertek, a subsidiary of the globe-spanning Roxxon Energy Corporation, headed by American SEELE lieutenant Hugh Jones. Under the direction of Jones's operative Dr. Harlan Gill (head scientist for Cybertek), Kohmyoji was forced to rework his creation-a super-powerful android body, meant for exploration in extreme conditions-into a weapon of war. Gill then shot Jiro with a sedative, and while unconscious, Jiro's brain was transplanted into the android, which Gill rechristened 'Deathlok'; meanwhile, Jiro's real body was hidden away in cryogenic suspended animation. Gill and Jones presented Deathlok to the rest of SEELE's leadership as their ultimate enforcer, eliminating anyone who would attempt to investigate and uncover their plans for the battle against the Angels. (Secretly, Gill aimed to use Deathlok to kill off Jones and the rest of the council, in order to acquire their vast resources and influence and take control of the world for himself.)
During one mission in which he was to take out the rest of Kohmiyoji's family-daughter Mitsuko and youngest son Masaru-Jiro's brain reawakened, halting the cyborg programming before the android body could land any killing blows. Horrified at what it-he?-was about to do, Jiro/Deathlok fled the scene and went on the run, hoping to take down Cybertek and their masters, while also searching for his father and his real body. He later learned that his father secretly implanted a means for Jiro to put his new android form to 'good' use: although his brain was intended to serve only as a medium for the android's programming, he is able to assert his will over it (with his father also installing a "no-killing parameter" into its programming in the process). The computer within the android is fully willing to listen to Jiro, though he must take care to present his orders in a way that helps fulfill the mission and keep people from dying. The computer is fully capable of understanding distinct concepts, such as bluffing, as when Jiro is forced to pretend to take a hostage.
As Deathlok, Jiro would seek to take down Cybertek's operations across Japan as well as gain more information that would hopefully lead him to SEELE, causing him to cross paths with Ryoji Kaji, a triple-agent working for the Japanese government as a spy infiltrating both SEELE and NERV, the U.N. special agency tasked with destroying the Angels. His activities would bring him to the attention of the global peacekeeping organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D., and he would find himself teaming up at different points with some of the superwomen protectors of Tokyo-3 (the location of NERV HQ), including Iron Maiden (secretly scientific wunderkind Mana Kirishima), Spider-Woman (secretly NERV head scientist Ritsuko Akagi), Ms. Fantastic (secretly NERV computer technician Maya Ibuki), and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s own 'inside girl' within NERV, Evangelion pilot Mari "Illustrious" Makinami (who is also the new Captain America). Deathlok would eventually face off with Gill himself after undergoing his own cybernetic transformation into the powerful Hellinger."
*Author's Note(s)*
An unusual candidate to pop up early in my series was the cyborg warrior Deathlok, by way of legendary manga-ka and tokusatsu godfather Shotaro Ishinomori's Android Kikaider mythos (with my Deviation seeing me recolor significant portions of the Kikaider character model from the 2001 anime reboot). For this take on Deathlok, I primarily borrowed elements of the Michael Collins version of the character (which was most prominent during the early 1990s), while merging a few with some aspects of the Kikaider story (Harlan Gill is basically an amalgamation of Marvel's Harlan Ryker and Professor Gill, with a hypothetical Hellinger form based off of the evil Hakaider android). Tying further into the blend of EVA and Marvel is putting Hugh Jones and Roxxon within the sphere of SEELE, which wouldn't be that off considering the makeup of SEELE's leadership would include a number of obscenely-rich businessmen.