Madame Menace (Earth-616)

Dr. Sunset Bain, aka Madame Menace, is a supervillain appearing in storylines by Marvel Comics. She is the arch-enemy to the synthezoid super-hero Machine Man, and a business rival for Tony Stark.

History
Sunset Bain was born in San Diego, California, and proved to have a genius level intellect at an early age. As a child, she heard roboticist Dr. Abel Stack and was impressed by his brilliance. Bain received a PhD in Technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She would meet Tony Stark for the first time when he was enrolled at the school. At the time, Tony was 18 while Sunset was 23. One night, while Sunset is helping Tony with his homework, he reveals the security codes to the headquarters of Stark Industries. Not long after this, a team of mercenaries raided the headquarters and stole blueprints for several experimental prototypes. By the time Tony had made the connection, Bain had broken things off with him and was in the wind. Within the next year, she had used the stolen data as the foundation for her own technology firm, Baintronics. At some point later she became involved with Obadiah Stane, they would have son named Ezekiel.

Baintronics did not openly compete with Stark Industries on the level that Hammer Industries, Cross Technologies, or Roxxon Energy did. Instead, Bain maintained a clean public image for her company while she secretly served as "Armorer of the Underworld" in the guise of Madame Menace. After learning that the synthezoid X-51 was operating as the superhero Machine Man, Bain saw value in him as an efficient, multi-functional combat unit. After Machine Man loses his left arm in a battle with the supervillain Brimstone, a thug named Krager retrieves the inert limb and offers to sells it to Bain. She then sets a trap for Machine Man, hoping that, upon recovering his blueprints, she could mass produce a robot army and sell it to the highest bidder. Machine Man is lured to an auction on Bain's yacht, where she attempts to overpower him with her sonic disruptor cannon. However, he recovers his stolen limb and Madame Menace is forced to set her yacht to self destruct to cover her escape. She attempts to secure an alliance with Senator Miles Brickman and capitalize on negative publicity Machine Man is facing after a battle with the Hulk. However, Brickman is soon publicly exposed as a crook, and Madame Menace is forced to flee again.

Madame Menace made a deal with Doctor Octopus, selling him weapons that he had hoped would give him an edge against his long-time foe Spider-Man. The proceedings were interrupted by Hawkeye. As Hawkeye had recently suffered hearing damage in a battle against his arch-enemy Crossfire, the sonic disruptor had little effect on him, so Madame Menace and Doc Ock were forced to flee.

To recover from these setbacks, Bain decided to meet with Stark to discuss business deals between Stark Industries and Baintronics. The proceedings were interrupted when Machine Man arrived with the head of the synthezoid Jocasta, who had fallen in battle against Ultron. Machine Man was hoping to bring her back, but he was on the run from a dangerous techno-virus, the Terminus, and is trying to prevent her head, and himself, from getting assimilated. Bain feigned a desire to help, secretly using the opportunity to create duplicates of Machine Man. Her plans backfired when Terminus attacked her plant, forcing her to call on Iron Man to help. However, she managed to swap the head of Jocasta with a fake in the ordeal, planning on decoding the AI of the real head in secret.

During a time when Tony Stark was presumed dead, many of his assets were acquired by Japanese businessman Kenjiro Fujikawa. Mr. Fujikawa renamed the company Stark-Fujikawa and appointed Morgan Stark manager of international projects. Tony decided to start a new company, Stark Solutions, a freelance problem-solving firm which would get him back to his Silicon Valley roots. He unveils this new company at a "Welcome Back Party." He assures the other guests that his new startup will not be competitor for Stark-Fujikawa - in fact, one of his first projects will be working with Morgan to develop a new line of microchips, dubbed Starkware. Bain is one of the many guests in attendance. Claiming to be inspired by how Tony buried the hatchet with Morgan and Mr. Fujikawa, she proposes a similar joint venture between Baintronics and the newly minted Stark Solutions. There is friction between her and Mr. Fujikawa's granddaughter, Rumiko, who has begun to develop romantic feelings for Tony. When Bain is told that Stark Solutions has a busy schedule and it will be difficult to fit Baintronics in at the current moment, Bain hires mercenary Parnell Jacobs to "make an opening" in Stark's schedule by attacking Aerodyne Solutions in a replica of War Machine armor. James Rhodes, who had temporarily retired from using the identity, quickly learns of the impostor and warns Stark. Despite not yet recovered from injuries he sustained battling the Mandarin, Stark suits up to fight the impostor, who is driven off with the help of Warbird. Bain calls Stark after the attack, offering to help him raise money for the Maria Stark Foundation and noting he probably has an opening in his schedule now. While Stark is now convinced she is responsible for the attack, he collapses from his injuries before he can find any proof.

After Iron Man fully recovers and defeats Fin Fang Foom in battle, Baintronics is subcontracted by the Navy to transport the creature to a secure S.H.I.E.L.D. containment facility. Bain invites herself to a party that Stark is throwing, where she again proposes her joint venture with Stark Solutions. Stark agrees, hoping he can find evidence to link her to the impostor War Machine. Bain warns Jacobs not to kill Iron Man until after Stark Solutions is able crack the encryption in the Jocasta's head.

Stark goes to work on decrypting the AI, but eventually starts to recognize Jocasta's brain patterns. Bain attempts to distract him by seducing him, but after she leaves he returns to work. Awakening Jocasta sets off alerts Bain's security forces, but Jocasta manages to help him escape. Jacobs attacks Iron Man in the War Machine armor, but when Rhodes arrives on the scene, he stands down: Rhodey saved his life when they were in the military. Jocasta transfers her consciousness into Stark's computers, and Bain is forced to destroy the weapons she built from Jocasta's blueprints to avoid implicated in the attack on Aerodyne.

Bain gained an unlikely ally when Tony Stark's long lost brother Arno joined Baintronics. When Stark Unlimited created a new virtual reality program called eScape, Bain enabled Controller to hijack it, then covertly helped Iron Man take the madman down after he had done enough damage. Bain then offered to help repair the damage if she could be given partial access to the eScape network. This provided an opportunity for her and Arno to steal sensitive data.

As Bain began to question Arno's true agenda, they were faced by a resurgent Ultron. Now seeing himself as the perfect synthesis of flesh and steel, the strength of both and the weaknesses of neither, he had sought to raise all of humanity to his level of perfection. Bain asked Arno to use his technology to heal injuries she sustained in the battle. Instead, he places her in a stasis pod while a Life Model Decoy he created takes her place.

The LMD Bain, who officially referred to herself as Madame Menace, immediately fired at the stasis pod with an energy weapon, seemingly killing the original Bain. She worked with Arno in an elaborate plan to delegitimize Tony Stark, leaking information that indicated that the real Iron Man died fighting Captain Marvel in the Second Superhuman Civil War, and that the current one is an artificial creation with the memories of his predecessor. This enables Arno to secure Stark Unlimited and the mantle of Iron Man. The "new" Madame Menace proceeds to assist the "Iron Man of the Future" in earnest. After Arno is defeated, Jocasta forces Madame Menace to accept all criminal responsibility for his crimes.