Connection
Joseph "Robbie" Robertson
- Infos
- Photos
- Best films
If you like this character, let us know!
Real name Robbie Robertson
Joseph "Robbie" Robertson is a supporting character in Marvel Comics's Spider-Man series. Created by Stan Lee and John Romita Sr., he first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #51 (August 1967).
Robertson was one of the first African-American characters in comics to play a serious supporting role, rather than act as comic relief. He has usually been a high-ranking editor at the New York newspaper The Daily Bugle and a close confidant of publisher J. Jonah Jameson, acting as a voice of reason in Jameson’s campaign to discredit Spider-Man. He is more friendly and supportive of Peter Parker (Spider-Man’s alter ego) and other Bugle staffers than the brash Jameson. In the 1980s his backstory was explored with the revelation of conflict with a superhuman hit man Tombstone, with whom he attended high school.
Biography
Joseph Robertson was born in Harlem, New York. He is married to Martha and they have had two sons. Their first son, Patrick Henry Robertson, died when he was only six months old. Their second son, Randy, is currently divorced. Growing up in a working-class family and being a member of an ethnic minority, Robertson seemed to sympathize with the downtrodden, including Marvel Comics' mutants, and he preached tolerance. He was forced to practice what he preached when his son came home from college with his white Jewish wife, Amanda.Robertson is the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Bugle, the newspaper at which Peter Parker works and sells his photographs of Spider-Man. Unlike the Bugle's volatile Publisher, J. Jonah Jameson, Robbie tries his best to remain objective towards Spider-Man instead of automatically assuming he is a criminal. Robbie is also the only Bugle employee who does not fear the wrath of his boss and is ready to stand up to him on editorial matters. Robbie has served as Publisher when Jameson temporarily stepped down. Robbie was a close personal friend of Captain George Stacy, and it has been implied, although not outright stated, that Robbie has deduced Spider-Man's secret identity, as Stacy did. Robbie's son Randy is also a close friend of Peter Parker, and the two briefly shared an apartment when Mary Jane was presumed dead and Peter had been evicted.
Robbie grew up in Harlem, and as a teenager was a classmate of Lonnie Thompson Lincoln, later infamous as the brutal hit man Tombstone. Writing an article for the high school newspaper about Lincoln's bullying and extortion, Robbie retracted it after being threatened by Lincoln. Years later, while working as a reporter in Philadelphia, Robbie encountered Lincoln again, who this time had just murdered one of Robbie's contacts. Once again, Lincoln threatened Robertson, and the journalist fled to New York and began working for the Bugle. He told no one of the murder he witnessed.
Twenty years later, when Tombstone began his career doing jobs for the Kingpin, Robbie, determined not to be intimidated again, began collecting evidence of past crimes that would have Tombstone incarcerated for life. Furious at his former acquaintance's betrayal, Tombstone hunted Robbie down and supposedly broke the journalist's spine with his bare hands. Robbie was laid up for months as a result of this, but later made a full recovery, as his spine was not broken after all.
Sometime later, Tombstone was arrested and tried, thanks in part to Spider-Man. Breaking 20 years of silence, Robbie testified against his old schoolmate in court. The judge, however, was on the Kingpin's payroll and circumstances led to Robertson having to agree to serve 3 years himself for withholding evidence of the Philadelphia murder. Robbie and Tombstone ended up in the same cell block, where the hit man made the former journalist's life miserable. So broken was Robbie's spirit that he half-heartedly went along with a jailbreak. However, when Tombstone attacked an interfering Spider-Man, Robbie regained his nerve and attacked. The two men fell out of the escape helicopter and landed in a river near an Amish farm.
Things came to a head when Robbie moved to defend the farmer's family from Tombstone, stabbing him with a pitchfork and not caring about preserving his own life. Seemingly stunned by this, Tombstone backed off. While Tombstone has not abandoned his murderous ways, he has officially called off his vendetta on Robbie. Robbie received a pardon for his efforts to protect the Amish family, and resumed work at the Daily Bugle.
Recently after Peter's "coming out", Robbie revealed he knew Peter was Spider-Man at some point and stood up to J. Jonah Jameson after all these years about his treatment to Peter/Spider-Man. Unable or rather unwilling to admit that he had gone too far in his hatred of Spider-Man, Jameson fires Robertson. Later, Spider-Man learns of this from Betty Brant and decides that he and Jameson should have a long overdue 'chat.' Sometime later, Jameson shows up at the Robertson house, with a bottle of wine, two black eyes and a broken hand. Robbie lets him in, and is relayed the story of what happened; Jameson discovered his office at the Bugle covered with webbing, with a note attached telling him to meet Spider-Man at an old gangster lair. Spider-Man tried to persuade Jameson to rehire Robbie, and Jameson gave him a choice, to have the lawsuit against him dropped, or for Robbie to be rehired. Spider-Man chose the former, revealing that he did so because he believes Jameson only fired Robbie to get a rise out of him. Spider-Man then told Jameson to hit him, as many times as he'd like, to finally work out his frustrations for him. Jameson was initially reluctant, until Spider-Man started goading him, threatening to inform his wife and son of his "cowardice". Jameson snapped, and started hitting Spider-Man again and again and again, resulting in his broken hand. When it was over, Spider-Man went into the rafters and gave Jameson a roll of film, containing pictures of their "fight", telling him the photographs depicting him standing back and letting Jameson beat him up would sell "a gazillion copies", and leaves. Later, at the Bugle, Jameson crushed the film with his foot, not knowing quite why he was doing it. As he turned to leave, Betty Brant accidentally hit him in the face with a door, resulting in his two black eyes. Back in the present, Jameson tells Robbie that he is rehired. Robbie asks why he should come back and Jonah tells him that he looks up to him as the person he still aspires to be.
Post-"One More Day"
During the "Brand New Day" storyline, where all knowledge of Peter Parker's marriage to Mary Jane has been erased by Mephisto and Spider-Man's secret identity has somehow been removed from the minds of everyone in the world, Jameson suffers a heart attack brought on by arguing with Peter Parker, and the Bugle is bought by Dexter Bennett, who turns it into a scandalous, muck-raking rag. Robbie, though disapproving, decides to stay, hoping Bennet will get better. He soon realizes that is not going to happen, particularly after learning the DB was indirectly responsible for the death of several people shown on their paper from one of their scandals and resigns in the following issue seeing that Bennett cared more about making money. Later it is seen that Robertson now works as the editor for Ben Urich's newspaper, Front Line.
Sometime after the DB's destruction, Jameson, as the Mayor of New York City, cashed in the DB shares he acquired from Bennett and gave the money to Robbie Robertson. Jameson asked Robertson to remake Front Line (which itself was on hard times) into the new Daily Bugle.
After Phil Urich was exposed as the new Hobgoblin, to protect the Daily Bugle's reputation which was being smeared due to Phil's affiliation with them and the fact they have unknowingly hired other known supervillains before, Robbie is forced to bench Ben Urich until this situation blows over because of him being Phil's uncle and fire Phil's ex-girlfriend Norah Winters as she worked closely with Phil before his identity was exposed. During the later Goblin coup of New York, Ben attempted to arrange a meeting to talk Phil down and convince him to accept a cure for the Goblin formula, but when Robbie was discovered in the area, Phil believed that Ben had been trying to set a trap and delivered a serious injury to Robbie before Spider-Man appeared. Phil was able to get away when Ben convinced Spider-Man to take Robbie to hospital, but Ben made it clear that he had no interest in protecting Phil and was simply trying to help Robbie while he could still be saved, accepting that Phil liked what he had become and was uninterested in redemption or help.
Best films
Played by the actors
Filmography of Joseph "Robbie" Robertson (4 films)
Add to a movie list
, 1h40Directed by Axel Braun
Origin USA
Genres Pornographic
Themes Films about animals, Films about sexuality, Films about spiders, Spider-Man films, Superhero films, Super-héros inspiré de comics
Actors Xander Corvus, Capri Anderson, Ash Hollywood, Sarah Shevon, Sarah Shevon, Brooklyn Lee
Rating52%
J. Jonah Jameson is attempting to run the Daily Bugle, which is harassing the "menace" known as Spider-Man, while his employees Betty Brant and Robbie Robertson have intimate relations in a back room. Across town, a power line accident results in an electric company worker being granted the power to generate and control electricity. The worker decides to become a supervillain, and so dons a costume and rechristens himself Electro. Electro hires a prostitute, and electrocutes her after they have sex. The Kingpin of Crime, Wilson Fisk, then approaches Electro, and hires him as part of an elaborate scheme.
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
, 2h19Directed by Sam Raimi
Origin USA
Genres Science fiction, Thriller, Fantastic, Fantasy, Action, Adventure
Themes Films about animals, Films about children, Films about computing, Films about spiders, Spider-Man films, Superhero films, Cyberpunk films, Super-héros inspiré de comics, Children's films
Actors Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace, Daniel Gillies
Rating63%
Peter Parker plans to propose to Mary Jane Watson, who has just made her Broadway musical debut. A meteorite crashes near the two in Central Park, and an extraterrestrial symbiote attaches itself to Peter's moped. While fleeing police, escaped prisoner Flint Marko falls into a particle accelerator that fuses his DNA with surrounding sand, allowing him to shapeshift at will as the Sandman. Peter's best friend, Harry Osborn, who blames him for his father's death, attacks Peter using weapons based on his father's Green Goblin technology. Harry injures his head and suffers partial amnesia, forgetting that Peter is Spider-Man and his desire for revenge. During a festival honouring Spider-Man, Marko robs an armored car. NYPD Captain George Stacy tells Peter and Aunt May that Marko was Uncle Ben's killer, and Dennis Carradine was only an accomplice. While a vengeful Peter sleeps, the symbiote bonds with him. Peter wakes up hanging from a skyscraper. His costume becomes black and his powers increase, but the symbiote brings out Peter's dark side. Wearing the new suit, Spider-Man locates Marko and battles him in a subway tunnel, reducing him to mud using water.
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
, 2h8Directed by Sam Raimi
Origin USA
Genres Science fiction, Thriller, Fantastic, Fantasy, Action, Adventure
Themes Films about animals, Films about children, Films about computing, Films about spiders, Spider-Man films, Superhero films, Cyberpunk films, Super-héros inspiré de comics, Children's films
Actors Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Alfred Molina, J. K. Simmons, Rosemary Harris
Rating74%
Peter Parker struggles to balance his crime-fighting duties as Spider-Man with the demands of his normal life. He loses a job, faces financial difficulties, and struggles to attend his physics lectures at Columbia University on time. Estranged from both love interest Mary Jane Watson and best friend Harry Osborn, who intends to seek revenge on Spider-Man for his father Norman's death, Peter additionally discovers his Aunt May is facing foreclosure.
Spider-Man (2002)
, 2h1Directed by Sam Raimi
Origin USA
Genres Science fiction, Thriller, Fantastic, Fantasy, Action, Adventure
Themes L'adolescence, Films about animals, Films about education, Films about children, Films about computing, Films about spiders, Spider-Man films, Superhero films, L'enfance marginalisée, Cyberpunk films, Super-héros inspiré de comics, Children's films, Films about school violence
Actors Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Cliff Robertson, J. K. Simmons
Rating73%
High-school senior Peter Parker visits a genetics laboratory with his friend Harry Osborn and love interest, Mary Jane Watson for a school field trip. There, Peter is bitten on the hand by a genetically engineered "super spider". Shortly after arriving home to his Aunt May and Uncle Ben, he goes unconscious. Meanwhile, Harry's father, scientist Norman Osborn, owner of Oscorp, is attempting to preserve his company's critically important military contract. He experiments on himself with a new but unstable performance-enhancing chemical vapor that increases his speed, strength, and stamina. However, it also drives him insane and he kills his assistant, Mendel Stromm. The next morning, Peter finds that his previously impaired vision has improved and his body has metamorphosized into a more muscular physique. At school, he finds that his body can produce webs and his quickened reflexes let him avoid injury during a confrontation with bully Flash Thompson. Peter discovers he has developed superhuman speed, strength, the ability to stick to surfaces, and a heightened ability to sense danger.