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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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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Deathlok The Demolisher!

One of the most vibrant and memorable concepts of the Marvel Bronze Age is Deathlok the Demolisher. The creation of Rich Buckler and Doug Moench, Deathlok debuted in a gloriously exciting story in Astonishing Tales #25. Buckler and Moench presented us with a man trapped between life and death, and slave to the whims of a devilish master.

One of the more enthralling aspects of Deathlok was his "'Puter" which spoke to him and with which he had many a frustrating conversation. For some issues there was even a third voice in his head, a weird synthesis of him and the computer. This was sometimes confusing but nonetheless fascinating.

But recently Marvel has pushed to revive Deathlok, thanks in part to the success of the TV version, and so they reprinted most if not all of his original adventures in Deathlok the Demolisher The Complete Collection. It's been decades since I read them and they were revealing.

First it's a perfect example of the dysfunction which ruled Marvel during the Bronze Age, a comics company with only the echo of a vision and run by writers who mostly had their own immediate interests at heart. The Deathlok series is a ramshackle mess of production, overcome with missed deadlines, foreshortened stories, patchwork artwork, and a storyline which at once sputters and stalls and simultaneously fluctuates.

It speaks to the strength of the original idea that it could survive in my imagination so strongly given the miserable presentation it gets in these initial chapters. I don't know who to blame, so I won't blame anyone, but it's a pity that this series suffered so mightily given the absolute power of the concept.

Bill Mantlo's arrival as scripter gives the series some minor cohesion, but by then it was clear they wanted to adjust the direction of the series though frankly they never seemed clear on what they wanted to do. The series gets cancelled and begins many years in the wilderness showing up in spurts in Marvel Spotlight and later as guest-shots in Marvel Team-up and Marvel Two-In-One. The Deathlok character gets brought out of the future but almost immediately is lost in the recesses of the then modern Marvel mythology.

Many years later J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck revive him as part of a memorable Captain America trilogy and attempt to glue all the weird elements together. Some of it works and they leave a workable concept behind, though by that time it was sadly too little too late.

To get the whole story check out this link which gives amazing detail on the now defunct future world of Deathlok.
I love the idea of Deathlok the Demolisher, a remarkable character. But I discovered much to my dismay that I really was not all that taken by Deahtlok's old stories. Sad, but true.

Here are the covers to the issues in this collection.

The Deathlok story here was presented many years later.

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