Deathlok The Demolisher Day!

Rich Buckler was born on this date in 1949. Buckler was a key artist at Marvel and DC in the 70's and 80's. He became a force in the Indy market and was the editor of the Red Circle Line for Archie for a time. He created a powerful figure for Marvel - the focus of today's Dojo celebration -- Deathlok the Demolisher. 

Rich Buckler's Deathlok the Demolisher for certain was in part inspired by Mary Shelly's infamous creation, the dead body of a man from disparate parts (in this case metal) and decaying flesh is brought back to life by a perverse scientific means and let loose upon the world. The story of Deathlok is how that man, Luther Manning, deals with the dark strange transformation. He has become wedded to a computer which yammers at him incessantly while losing his wife to his best friend. He's been dead five years, but it only feels like moments. Unlike Frankenstein though, the creator of Deathlok, a mad military scientist named Ryker is all too keen to look after his creation for grim purposes, hoping to create a killing machine. He does just that but loses control. The struggle for control between Manning and Ryker is what most of the Astonishing Tales issues are all about. 

This struggle takes place in a dystopic 1990's (the near future when this comic came out, but alas the distant past for your reviewer). Deathlok was a story what the world might become if we allowed military might to rule the day, a world devastated by war, writhing with battling gangs of men seeking safety and men seeking other men for nourishment. It's a pretty grim future that Buckler and writer Doug Moench paint for in the Astonishing Tales debut. 

The late Rich Buckler has always been one of my favorite artists. He was a massive talent who brought to any company who hired him a wide array of styles as well as his very own distinctive look. He's not aping Adams or Buscema or Kirby in the Deathlok series, he's fusing his influences into fresh whole which is at once eye-catching and in need of firm attention. 

Doug Moench's scripts are complex as they try to showcase the incessant struggle in the mind of Deathlok between his Manning psyche and the computer which speaks to him relentlessly, a computer buried in his gut. He is a former man bristling with machine parts who nonetheless rejects that side of himself and so resorts sometimes to weapons of an earlier age. 

The Deathlok character continued to meander through issues of Astonishing Tales, but the adventure became increasingly hard to fathom. The "Dreaded Deadline Doom" rose up more than a few times to squelch the momentum of the story and even talents liked the always underrated Bill Mantlo had a hard time finding footing. 

By the time it was decided to move Deathlok beyond his personal war with Ryker and introduced new characters such as the robotic Hellinger and blonde primitive Godwulf, the die was cast. The series was on the way out, but not before it took a few turns back into time. 

Despite the creation of a healthy Luther Manning clone, Deathlok was still presented as a tragic character almost beyond redemption. While in the then modern Marvel universe he teamed up with Buckler's other creation Devil-Slayer. 

Before being captured and programmed to kill then President of the United States Jimmy Carter. As with many of the Bronze Age characters which saw the light of day in this fecund Marvel period, he found his saga getting snipped off in the pages of Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-In-One. 

Until in MTIO during the excellent "Saga of Project Phoenix" he was utterly destroyed. The end had come at last for Deathlok and he was at once at peace in a world in which contentment was never his to claim. Or was it?

J.M. DeMatties and Mike Zeck decided he deserved better and in an elegant time travel story brought Captain America into the near future with a reconstructed Deathlok and there he found not only victory over his enemy Hellinger, but a piece of soul gifted to him by his clone. He was, as much as he'd ever been a complete man with a mission again, one to save the world. 

Then we get a nifty little glimpse back to Deathlok's sad old days when writer David Anthony Kraft and artist Michael Golden tell an untold tale of Deathlok's days of torment in the hands of Ryker's researchers. This story was tucked neatly inside an issue of Marvel Fanfare. 

So, in spite of everything we see that Deathlok, at least when we see him last, he does find some measure of peace. That's more than Frankenstein's Monster was able to discover, so maybe the comparison between them is limited at best. Deathlok has outlived his creator Rich Buckler, and that's not nothing in this ephemeral world we live in. 

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Return To Forever!

This Forever People limited series by writer J.M. DeMatteis and artists Paris Cullins and Karl Kesel has never been collected so contrary to my usual practice, I had to dig out the original issues to read them. Most everything concerning Jack Kirby's Fourth World has been reprinted, so I guess it's only a matter of time, but this does deserve the treatment. 

(The final panel of Forever People #11 by Kirby)

The story opens years after the final scene of the original Forever People #11 which saw the team transported to a lush and beautiful alien world which we learn is named "Adon". They find a primitive people there but use their New Genesis technology to help these folks create a modern civilization. Serifan is presented as dissident, overcome by his desire for the old days. Big Bear and Beautiful Dreamer have married and are expecting a child. Mark Moonrider found a new love and is married with a couple of kids. Sadly, Vykin died creating the new world. 

But things change when the team is brought to Earth and returned (more or less) to their status when they left. Dreamer is no longer pregnant, Moonrider's wife and children are vanished, and Vykin the Black is once again alive. This is pretty potent stuff, a change which would wipe any real person out and possibly throw them into deadly despair. There is some of that, but the members try to deal with the changes and the newer modern world of 1988. 

Moonrider is overcome with sorrow and rage at his losses and falls victim to the shadow demons which are called "The Dark" and which have followed them to Earth. He is seduced by the power and turns against his former allies. The Forever People though are assisted by a mysterious and powerful woman named Maya who claims to be from New Genesis. 

The battles are ferocious as Moonrider turns on the team and they battle. The Dark enemy wants control of the Forever People and the world as a whole. The creatures feed on despair and fear of others, and so set about to create scenarios which will supply their needs. 

It seems the team has been brought to Earth to help a man named Donny who they assisted years before when was an imperessionable boy. He has grown, married and had a child but has been overcome by despair as his life seems to have lost some of its direction and meaning. Eventually Moonrider overcomes his grief and anger enough to once again join his mates and together they bond to send for the Infinity Man. The Infinity Man is able to fend off the Dark, thus saving them all. 

The Forever People now are poised to learn the truth of their origins. It turns out that New Genesis is not their natural home, but Earth is. They are each a young orphan child plucked from across time and space on Earth and taken to New Genesis to be reared. They grew up together and formed the team we know who were drawn to Earth when the war between New Genesis and Apokolips began to do their part. Maya reveals herself to be an incarnation of of the Infinity Man and both are incarnations of the Mother Box. Maya gifts the team with a new Super-Cycle and the team prepares for the future. 

DeMatteis sets up a nifty background for the Forever People which is very much character driven. We learn a great deal about each of the members, save perhaps for Vykin who always seems to get a short straw in these stories. Later stories by other talents revise the status quo of this series and sort of forget that the Forever People are supposed to be from Earth. The Forever People has always been the Fourth World book which was most rooted in its time, the early 70's. The characters are variations of stereotypes of youngsters in the drop out culture which thrived for a time. They are cosmic hippies and so tied to the attitudes of a specific era. This makes it difficult to fit them into a more modern landscape. DeMatteis and Cullins and Kesel to a decent job. 

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Deathlok The Demolished Man!

Rich Buckler's Deathlok the Demolisher for certain was in part inspired by Mary Shelly's infamous creation, the dead body of a man from disparate parts (in this case metal) and decaying flesh is brought back to life by a perverse scientific means and let loose upon the world. The story of Deathlok is how that man, Luther Manning, deals with the dark strange transformation. He has become wedded to a computer which yammers at him incessantly while losing his wife to his best friend. He's been dead five years, but it only feels like moments. Unlike Frankenstein though, the creator of Deathlok, a mad military scientist named Ryker is all too keen to look after his creation for grim purposes, hoping to create a killing machine. He does just that but loses control. The struggle for control between Manning and Ryker is what most of the Astonishing Tales issues are all about. 

This struggle takes place in a dystopic 1990's (the near future when this comic came out, but alas the distant past for your reviewer). Deathlok was a story what the world might become if we allowed military might to rule the day, a world devastated by war, writhing with battling gangs of men seeking safety and men seeking other men for nourishment. It's a pretty grim future that Buckler and writer Doug Moench paint for in the Astonishing Tales debut. 

The late Rich Buckler has always been one of my favorite artists. He was a massive talent who brought to any company who hired him a wide array of styles as well as his very own distinctive look. He's not aping Adams or Buscema or Kirby in the Deathlok series, he's fusing his influences into fresh whole which is at once eye-catching and in need of firm attention. 

Doug Moench's scripts are complex as they try to showcase the incessant struggle in the mind of Deathlok between his Manning psyche and the computer which speaks to him relentlessly, a computer buried in his gut. He is a former man bristling with machine parts who nonetheless rejects that side of himself and so resorts sometimes to weapons of an earlier age. 

The Deathlok character continued to meander though issues of Astonishing Tales, but the adventure became increasingly hard to fathom. The "Dreaded Deadline Doom" rose up more than a few times to squelch the momentum of the story and even talents liked the always underrated Bill Mantlo had a hard time finding footing. 

By the time it was decided to move Deathlok beyond his personal war with Ryker and introduced new characters such as the robotic Hellinger and blonde primitive Godwulf, the die was cast. The series was on the way out, but not before it took a few turns back into time. 

Despite the creation of a healthy Luther Manning clone, Deathlok was still presented as a tragic character almost beyond redemption. While in the then modern Marvel universe he teamed up with Buckler's other creation Devil-Slayer. 

Before being captured and programmed to kill then President of the United States Jimmy Carter. As with many of the Bronze Age characters which saw the light of day in this fecund Marvel period he found his story getting snipped off in the pages of Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-In-One. 

Until in MTIO during the excellent "Saga of Project Phoenix" he was utterly destroyed. The end had come at last for Deathlok and he was at once at peace in a world in which contentment was never his to claim. 

The J.M. DeMatties and Mike Zeck decided he deserved better and in an elegant time travel story brought Captain America into the near future with a reconstructed Deathlok and there he found not onl victory over his enemy Hellinger but a pice of soul gifted to him by his clone. He was, as much as he'd ever been a complete man with a mission again, one to save the world. 

This volume also treats up to a nifty little glimpse back to Deathlok's sad old days when writer David Anthony Kraft and artist Michael Golden tell an untold tale of Deathlok's days of torment in the nads of Ryker's researchers. This story was tucked neatly inside an issue of Marvel Fanfare. 

So, in spite of everything we see that Deathlok, at least when we see him last in this collection does find some measure of peace. That's more than Frankenstein's Monster was able to discover, so maybe the comparison between them is limited at best. Deathlok has outlived his creator Rich Buckler, and that's not nothing in this ephemeral world we live in. 

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