Guy Goddard

Guy Goddard was the Middleman in the 1960s. He battled numerous supervillains (who all, like more modern supervillains, tended to refer to their plans as being "Sheer elegance in its simplicity), but his archnemesis was The Candle.

Early Career
Nothing is known of Guy Goddard's life before he assumed the identity of The Middleman, and little is known of his service in the 1960s. He battled The Candle on numerous occasions, usually defeating his foe by shutting down his melting ray in the last minute. He is known to have time-traveled at least once, spending three days in 1972, during which he acquired the missing eighteen-and-a-half minutes.

Guy was the consummate 60s swinger, drinking swanky drinks (such as Cuba Libres) and romancing the Brazilian fashion model Jaguar, whom he "entertained" so much that he failed to update the Middle-Lore. He was so charming to Ida that, even though she was an android devoid of human emotion, she still became fond of him.

However, there was also tragedy in Guy's life. He was married four times, and three of his wives were murdered by supervillains. His statement that "you sweat the satin, share a few laughs, and then she gets her face melted off by some ray-gun wielding beatnik" suggests that The Candle personally murdered at least one of the wives. His second wife, the only one who did not die tragically, instead left him for a supervillain.

In 1969, The Candle faked his death. Realizing that his disappearance had been a ruse, Goddard had himself frozen in The Middleman Cryogenics Vault, ordering Ida to unfreeze him if the Candle should ever return.

Modern Times
"Wendy Watson...Boss...allow me to present, all the way from 1969..."

"You can call me the Middleman."
 * Ida and Guy Goddard

In 2009, an attack on Klebbs Fine Jewels with a melting ray convinced the Middleman of the day and his trainee, Wendy Watson, that The Candle had returned. When they mentioned this theory to Ida, she followed her forty-year-old orders and unfroze Guy Goddard. Tensions quickly arose between Goddard and the Middleman; each referred to himself as "the Middleman" and expected Ida to follow his orders. Reasoning that Guy had been her boss first, Ida deferred to Guy's instructions.

Guy quickly took over Middleman HQ, dispatching Ida to put an ad in the Thrifty Nickel for Balthorium G, as a ruse to draw out The Candle, and having her pick him up a bottle of Hai Karate. When a call came in responding to his ad, Guy led the Middleman and Wendy on a stakeout to ambush his nemesis. While waiting for The Candle to appear, Guy tried to convince Wendy not to become emotionally invested in her boyfriend, Tyler Ford, sharing the story of his wives and suggesting that love was an impossibility for Middlemen.

When "The Candle" was apprehended, however, it quickly became clear that he was an imposter. The young man confessed that the Candle had died, and left him instructions on finding the melting ray. Guy did not believe the story, however, and threatened to knock out the boy's teeth and break his fingers before the Middleman intervened. After a confrontation, the two fought briefly before Ida disarmed Guy, saying, "Sorry sugar buns, there can only be one Middleman, and he's it."

Sheer Elegance in Its Simplicity
Outnumbered, Guy consented to retire, and reassumed his identity as "Guy Goddard", surrendering the title of The Middleman. However, his acceptance of retirement was a ruse; shortly after leaving HQ, he devised a plan to regain his status as the Middleman. He informed Wendy that Lord Jeremiah Purcell had imported 4,000 angstroms of Balthorium G into the country, and that a single angstrom could melt an entire city. Though she still believed the Candle to be dead, Wendy accompanied Guy to Purcell's nefarious mansion. After dispatching Purcell and his villainous compatriots, Wendy and the Middleman (who had come to rescue her) found Guy in a melted vault, his left hand melted with it. The dejected former Middleman claimed that The Candle had stolen the Balthorium G and melted his hand, and was planning to melt the moon.

Back at HQ, Guy was fitted with a prosthetic hook, and announced a plan to defeat The Candle, who he claimed was hiding in his lair on Snake Island. Guy, Wendy, and the Middleman invaded the island fortress in the Middlesub, and split up to check three separate chambers for the melting ray. Guy and Wendy had empty chambers, but the Middleman had been led into a trap; when he entered, the melting ray activated. Unable to escape, the Middleman was forced to slowly retreat as space ran out.

Guy attempted to convince Wendy that The Candle had killed the Middleman, and that they needed to flee. When Wendy demanded to see for herself, however, Guy revealed the truth; he had set them up, intending to kill the Middleman and become the Middleman again himself, with Wendy as his sidekick. When he described his plan as "Sheer elegance in its simplicity", though, Wendy forced him to see that he had become what he had sworn to fight. Distraught, Guy was disarmed by Wendy, and led her into the melting ray chamber.

Realizing The Candle had finally learned from his defeats all those decades ago and built a melting ray without an "Off" switch, and that the Middleman was certain to die, Guy began to climb the weapon's structure. Asked by Wendy what he was doing, Guy sighed and replied, "Don't worry. My plan is sheer elegance...in its simplicity..." With a roar, he slammed his prosthetic hook into the melting ray. The action destroyed the ray and killed Guy, vaporizing him instantly and leaving only a shred of his uniform behind.

Legacy
"Snake Island will always be remembered as the field where The Candle and the Middleman had their ultimate confrontation."
 * The Middleman

Following Guy's death, the Middleman created a memorial for him at HQ, featuring his uniform, an American flag, and a bugle. Ida added a bottle of rum. The Middleman resolved to write in the Middle-Lore only the above quote; when Wendy questioned the truth of this, the Middleman replied, "I am telling the truth. Its only the facts I'm changing."

In the events of "The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse", the Middleman summoned an army of every fallen Middleman to face the forces of Manservant Neville. Given his heroic sacrifice and repentance at the very end of his life, Guy was allowed to return amongst his fellow Middlemen to battle evil one final time.

Appearance and Personality
Guy wore Middle-Clothes similar in color to those of Clarence Colton, though he opted for a regular suit jacket. He wore his chin-length hair loose, and wore Hai Karate cologne. Unlike his modern compatriots, he preferred a silenced gunpowder weapon to the Middle-Gun.

Due to his heyday in the 1960s, Guy was sexually unabashed, content to walk around naked in front of his colleagues and repeatedly making sexual innuendos to Wendy. He was very charming, flirting with Lacey and Ida, a smooth talker and, in Ida's words, "a snappy dresser too".

However, Guy had a very contentious relationship with Colton, whom he called "the new model". Each expected to be in command of the organization, and tension levels grew as they offered competing plans for dealing with The Candle. The conflict came to a head when Colton stopped Guy from beating an interrogation suspect. The two came to blows, with Clarence merely shrugging off Guy's first punch. The fight was interrupted by Ida before serious harm was done, but Guy began to plot the Middleman's demise afterward. He greatly resented being treated like a "comical throwback to the summer of love", and was unable to accept retirement. In the end, however, the qualities that made Guy a Middleman triumphed over his pettiness, and he finished his life with nobility and self-sacrifice.

Guy had a strange mix of worldliness and outdatedness. He had a HEYDAR of his own and was unimpressed by "modern" technology such as the internet and cell phones. However, he continued to smoke, believing the Surgeon General to be "a red dupe" and was unaware of the monumental success of the Star Trek franchise. He also seemed unaware of the potential danger of the asbestos-shielded Middlesub.