The Middleman is an agent for O2STK.
That strange acronym breaks out to the "Organization Too Secret To Know". It's important to note that this name is not - repeat, not - the official name. If there is an official one, we do not know it and neither does the Middleman. The acronym was created by the Middleman and his colleague, Ida, because, well, they had to call it something and since whoever is in charge did not bother to give their or its name, a substitute was thought up.
Regarding the organization itself, well, no one knows anything about it including those we meet who are in it. Its purpose, at any rate, seems pretty benign as the motto of the Middleman, and one would assume the organization, is "fighting evil so you don't have to". What evil, you wisely ask? As the Middleman tells his potential recruit, "You know how it is in comic books, how there's always lots of mad scientists, androids and robots, all trying to either destroy the world or take it over? Well, it really does happen like that." That kind of evil.
To do this evil-fighting, O2STK learns about the trouble (how? no idea!) and then passes it on to Ida (more on her later) and Ida tells the current Middleman who handles it. Problem on one side, victims on the other, with the Middleman being the, well, man in the middle. Or woman.
The current Middleman is named Clarence Colton although it is a long time after meeting him that we learn that piece of information. We learn right away that he is a former SEAL who was released due to insubordination (that's all we know) and obviously chosen soon thereafter to become the new Middleman. He is tall, strong, rugged, handsome, dashing (not sure what that really means) and dedicated to his work. He is hardly ever flustered. He almost never swears and admonishes his training for her 'potty mouth'. He drinks several glasses of milk a day as he was taught.
Each Middleman picks his or her own replacement and sees to that person's training. We meet the current Middleman's prospective one in the first adventure. In fact, we meet the lovely and seldom flustered herself Wendy Watson before anyone else and we watch her as she sits as a temp receptionist at a lab whose catchphrase is "re-scrambling your DNA". An oops there produces a very icky looking butt-monsters who snatches up Watson in a tentacle to eat her. She grabs a pair of scissors and defends herself just before Middleman shows up to put the creature down. He was so impressed by how she did not go nuts that he offers her a job with him.
That is when he introduces her to Ida. Ida is described as a cranky librarian. She/It acts the part perfectly. Note the pronoun use there. She is a she because It choses to do so. Ida is a "soulless android from outer space" picked by O2STK to interface with the Middleman. She can connect to any electronic device. She can come up with oodles of cool and bizarre weapons. Apparently she used to be able to change her appearance and personality to match any situation but then something went goofy and now she is stuck as we see her.
With Ida's help and direction, the Middleman and Watson are always on the move fighting really nasty things to save us all.
Good Lines:
- When introduced to a computer-enhanced gorilla in a lab, Wendy Watson comments, "Genius primates - because that's a problem that needed solving".