Flatman

Perennial underachiever, community college dropout Val Ventura was a Mutant born with the ability to flatten and stretch his body, allowing him to pick up a job as a professional Mr. Fantastic impersonator for parties and events. Spending enough time pretending to be a hero, Ventura decided to become one himself, forming the Great Lake Avengers to watch over Wisconsin as Flatman.

After a cease and desist order from Tony Stark prevented them from using the GLA name, Flatman would rename the team the Great Lake X-Men, Defenders before finally settling as the Great Lake Champions, signing the Superhuman Registration Act and becoming an officially licensed team under The 50 State Initiative.

After major financial restructurings of Stark Industries assets lead to Flatman regaining sole legal ownership of the Avengers brand; something he was willing to barter back to Stark at the cost of officially allowing the GLA to reclaim their original name; with The Great Lake Avengers reformed, now based out of Detroit.

Flatman (Wave 11)
Released coinciding alongside the 11th wave of the Toybiz run of the Marvel Legends line, Flatman's action figure is an interesting case in the history of the line; he's not advertised on any of the wave's promotional material, or included in a traditional box. The figure was included in the Great Lake Avengers: GLX-Mas Special comic, featured on the final page as an extra "Christmas Bonus" item and officially labeled with Marvel Legends branding, despite being made of paper. Collectors were urged to cut out the Flatman and glue or tape him together, creating an appropriately flat, in-scale rendition of the character boasting what the book describes as "infinite points of articulation".

Despite his nature as a paper cut-out, the figure includes three accessories- paper word bubbles that can be cut out separately and affixed to the figure, or left free floating nearby to render the illusion of the character speaking, with the book boasting that the action phrases can be said "with your own voice". The three word bubbles include the phrases "Let's go, Team!", "That's Flat-Tacular!" and "I'm not Mr. Fantastic!"

The artwork is drawn by Mike Wieringo, despite Wieringo drawing neither any of the stories including the GLX-Mas Special, or any prior appearance of the GLA characters.

Heroclix - Flatman #WXM-021
Flatman was immortalized in plastic for the first time via the long-running Heroclix collectable tabletop game, where he appeared in 2013's Wolverine and the X-Men set, where he was an uncommon rarity figure and #021 overall in the set. He has a cost of 28 points, and has synergy tags for his fellow Great Lakes Avengers characters and for other scientists.

While not particularly powerful in his own right, Flatman is a low-cost character with a number of key abilities- allowing him to ignore walls during movement, allows him to more effectively deal with ranged attacks thanks to his Giant Reach ability, and pays homage to his character's less than reputable doctorate by allowing him to use the Outwit ability, but only on units with a cost of 100 points or cheaper.