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Apex

Led Belly
Real name
Led Belly
Current alias
Apex
Alignment
Affiliation
Ally of Ro-Jaws
Universe
Base of operations
Greasy Gracie's

Characteristics
Gender
Eyes
Hair
Unusual features
He's a robot
Status
Citizenship
Marital status
Occupation
Robot rights activist
Origin
Origin
Built in a factory
First appearance

2000 AD prog 111

History[]

Led Belly is a character from the 2000 AD strips Ro-Busters and ABC Warriors. Blinded years ago in an anti-robot riot (and unable to be repaired since his optics had been discontinued), he relied on a robotic guide dog, Sparko, to lead him around.

Led Belly was the resident pianist at the robot bar Greasy Gracie's, but was also secretly a robot rights activist who used the nom de guerre of Apex and led the civil rights organisation 'Nameless', condemned as 'roboterrorists' by the bigoted human government. In his rôle as Apex, Led Belly made impassioned speeches on a pirate television channel, disguising his features with a mask resembling the head of a Hammerstein war robot. He accused Howard Quartz of causing multiple disasters — falsely attributed to roboterrorists — in order to profit from clean-up and reconstruction contracts.

Before Ro-Jaws joined Ro-Busters he used to go to Greasy Gracie's to listen to Led Belly. Because Ro-Jaws looked 'cool', Led Belly implanted a transmissible 'Defiance Code' in him which would be the key to robots overthrowing the yoke of slavery. Ro-Jaws, however, simply thought that he had a bad attitude to authority.

Led-Belly and his associate Gottlieb aided Ro-Jaws, Hammerstein and the rest of Ro-Busters in escaping Earth when they were marked for destruction by Quartz, after Ro-Jaws blew the whistle on Quartz's crimes. He fitted Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein with memory patches so that they wouldn't remember that Ro-Jaws was carrying the Defiance Code until the time was right. Led Belly's body was de-activated by the police, but not before he had managed to transfer his consciousness to a different musical robot so that his fight against oppression could continue.

Powers and abilities[]

Abilities

Playing the blues; fighting injustice.

Weaknesses

He's blind.

Paraphernalia[]

Equipment

Piano.

Transportation

The Satan Dart (given to Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein).

Links[]

Discover and Discuss[]

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