Robert MacHale
Far-stretching wastelands, covered in sand and collapsed buildings — that’s the world Robert MacHale knows best. If it weren’t for his old plane constantly breaking down, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. Encounters with others are rare out here, and when they happen, trust is never a given.
Still, MacHale continues to roam the wasteland, offering help where he can — especially to those in need of medical care. He’s no trained doctor, but the knowledge he’s pieced together from scavenged books is often enough. The old ambulance jacket he wears helps strangers feel at ease — and maybe helps him believe it too. He doesn’t talk about the war. Most people hardly remember it, like it was a dream or a story passed down from someone else’s life. But MacHale remembers everything. Once a fighter pilot, he lost an arm in the war and rebuilt it himself from salvaged parts. The life he lived before the war? No one knows.
Maybe that’s why he’s so determined to help others — even when it does him more harm than good - It gives him a purpose.
But the longer he walks the wasteland, the more blurred the line between memory and reality becomes. There is only so much plane-fixing you can do before you go mad.
Creation and Story
I created this character a few years ago after playing some of the Fallout games. The idea of being a lone wanderer in an empty wasteland — with nothing but your own thoughts — struck me as an intense and interesting scenario. Especially when that wanderer would do anything to avoid being alone with those thoughts. It would take a strong will not to lose your mind in that kind of solitude — some might even start to confuse their thoughts with reality…
MacHale is a war veteran with a savior complex that often does him more harm than good. I imagined him as the main character of a comic, one with a strong focus on setting and atmosphere. Encounters with others would be rare, which would make each one feel significant. Can this person be trusted? Will they ambush you? Are they who they say they are? And who can you trust, if not your own judgment — especially when even that starts to slip the longer you spend in the wasteland?
Chapter by chapter, the reader would get small glimpses into who Robert MacHale really is, and why he’s so driven to help others — even when it rarely brings him anything good. There’s a past still buried: Why is he so obsessed with saving people? What did he do before the war? And why is everyone else’s memory of the war so faded, when he remembers it so clearly?
As the story unfolds, MacHale’s thoughts and hallucinations begin to reveal cracks in his identity.
Maybe he isn’t who he thinks he is after all.
