Deathlok is Luther Manning, a soldier from near-future Detroit who is turned into a combat cyborg that fights against tyranny in a decaying urban landscape.
No, wait. Deathlok is a robot sent back in time to fight Captain America, and Luther Manning is a clone who also travels back in time to stop Deathlok from doing nefarious deeds. But wait, Deathlok is still Luther Manning and the Luther Manning clone never had the mind of Luther Manning. Luther Manning clone dies and Deathlok still has the brain of Luther Manning…
No…wait. Deathlok is John Kelly, and was created by the CIA.
Um, no, wait. Deathlok is Michael Collins, African American professor who becomes a cyborg in modern times and fights in Latin America for The Roxxon Corporation.
NO...he’s Jack Truman, an agent with SHIELD. Um, scrap that, because Jack Truman’s brain is removed from the cyborg and replaced by the brain of former SHIELD agent Larry Young.
Ugh. Way to go Marvel Comics. In the true style of “The House of Ideas,” a great original character concept, a refreshing 1970’s break from the typical superhero comic, is beaten, raped, and left to die.
Marvel did all kinds of stupid Team-Ups (the most irritating being one with The Thing from Fantastic Four) with Deathlok, and several ill-conceived time travel concepts that just beat the life out of what was a great alternative character in Marvel’s Silver Age. That not being bad enough, every several years they took what was a fairly unpopular but very cool and offbeat character and tried to reinvent him in what were very banal and not very clever ways.
But those first few issues of Deathlok were the bomb. Luther Manning was a soldier who got himself blown up, but the military forces that be reanimated his body and attached a computer and cybernetic limbs to it. The look of Deathlok was way ahead of it’s time. Spider-Man once described him as a “zombie cyborg” and that is indeed the look he had. Not only that, but the human portions of his powerful body were still decaying to some degree. Despite an anti-decay liquid that flowed in his veins instead of blood, Deathlok’s friends and foes alike often commented on the rotting smell that accompanied him. Cannibal surivers in the ruined cities could smell Deathlok a mile away, and came a ‘running to munch him up as if the dinner bell had rang.
A cool laser pistol and a magnetic knife (so it would stick to his leg without a sheath) made up his arsenal. Deathlok combated military dudes, suit and tie bodyguards, mutants, post-apocalyptic gang members and bandits, cannibals, robots, and other cyborgs in his grim and gritty original adventures. In the original run, Luther Manning’s brain was supposedly taken from the Cyborg shell and place in a Luther Manning clone. A character saved? Not quite. In usual Marvel style, they would later kill the clone (in a Captain America comic no less) and state that Manning’s true brain still resided in the cyborg. Great way to continue the character, no? Big NO. Some years later Marvel just went ahead and reinvented Deathlok again and again.
When I was a kid Deathlok showed me that there was more to comics than good looking superheroes. I still have those original issues, and every few years I bust them out and have a great read of a great 70’s comic character.
