Elaine Girbachs

Elaine Girbachs © Juke Box Productions AstroFacts Status: Real Name: Elaine Base of Operations: Small Town somewhere in the Plains States Personal Data Relationships: Dr. Gearbox- father Occupation: High School Math Teacher Date of Birth: Late 1950s/Early 1960s Civil Status: Married InfoDump Appearances (in Publication Order): Astro City: Beautie #1 Event Timeline Elaine Girbachs Elaine Girbachs, daughter of the criminally infamous robotics inventor Dr. Gearbox. She possesses his knack for robotic engineering, but proved far more skilled. Witness what was probably her greatest creation, the sentient, and highly original robot known as Beautie. History Continuously shunned by her father, she attempted to prove her skills and abilities to him. It became ever worse after Elaine's mother died. She was able to reprogram the droids and robots that helped around the house. But her crowning achievement was in creating a life size robot of the famous Beautie doll. She intended the doll to be someone to help keep her company when her father was away and to help out with other tasks. But upon finding out about her achievements on his return from bank job foiled by Supersonic, he once again berated Elaine that math and sciences were for men and that she should stay out his affairs. Understandably upset she commanded Beautie, to go away and that she never wanted to see the android again. Her father ended up being killed while battling Honor Guard when his Robosaur accidentally malfunctioned, after which Elaine observed it was because of a design flaw. Dr. Gearbox never took the time to even look at his daughters achievements and abilities, for if so he would have seen someone who was more advanced than him and not even a teenager yet. Elaine did all she could to compartmentalize her and her father's history, focusing instead on her future. She became a math teacher at the local high school. Through the years Beautie's internal programming kept slipping and the natural questioning or who she was and where she came from, kept overriding her dominate instructions to forget. On each return visit with Elaine, she would be dramatically turned away, physically, emotionally, and most damaging of all, mentally. Throughout the first decade of the 21st century, these encounters became more and more frequent. One particular visit, M.P.H. secretly followed Beautie and overheard the emotional dialog between Elaine and her incredible creation. Following Beautie's abrupt departure, M.P.H. approached Elaine, who explained some of her disturbing history with her father. It was perhaps, an attempt at emotionally justifying her distasteful attitudes regarding Beautie. M.P.H. took her what she had to say and offered a kinder, more humane approach, pointing out that while she can't do anything about her bad relationship with her father, her "daughter" is out there now, and needs her help. Whether Elaine ever has a change of heart and accepts Beautie is currently a tale yet to be told.