Bromance with A Bronze Age Brawler

The flu decided to pay us a visit this week, knocking our family's axis off its tilt for several days. While everyone has pretty much recovered, there wasn't much time for blogging at the beginning of the week--so we're playing a bit of catch-up, with each spouse working on a topic. C. L. will have one to post on Monday, and mine is shared below.

A friend recently turned me on to Ollie's Bargain Outlet--a regional retailer of closeout merchandise--as a great place to find deeply discounted graphic novels. What I found there last weekend was a bit of a mixed bag. While there were two floor-to-ceiling shelves devoted to graphic novels and trade paperback comics compilations--a flabbergasting amount, frankly--the current selection skewed heavily towards the latter. And though I was sorely tempted by some of the volumes devoted to Geoff Johns' run on JSA, I didn't feel like a lot of the books represented landmark stories worthy of donation to my local library.

I did however grab a compilation encapsulating essentially the complete story of the bronze age Deathlok. Flipping through it was an interesting journey that reminded me of how the character touched upon several of my favorite series and storylines of the 70s and 80s.

As a kid, I'd been allowed to buy several issues from the character's original run in Astonishing Tales #25 through #36--but I'd have to guess that my parents were unaware of how different these books were from the types of stories I'd been reading in comics like Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Avengers. Set against the backdrop of urban warfare on the eve of the new millennium, Deathlok was serious dystopian science fiction and social commentary packaged as a superhero story.

Luther Manning is a cyborg. And typical of the trope, he's rebuilt based on the agenda of others. But this isn't a surface-level tale of social control and rebellion. In what was extremely dark plotting and dialogue for a comic in the mid-70s, Luther Manning faces genuine existential horror in the face of cloning and transhumanism--which his inner dialogue with the computer integrated into his consciousness lays bare for the reader. It's also a violent story that brings to mind Frank Castle, The Punisher, as Manning kills both as a pawn of his masters to start and then in eventual pursuit of his revenge. So, for those reasons alone, I would have considered the character and story arc memorable and visionary.

But then Marvel's editors did something that was, at that time, very common in their fluidly and fully integrated fictional universe. They continued--and ultimately completed--Deathlok's story in the pages of other title characters' comics. Like a group of experienced golfers "playing through" on a Saturday afternoon, characters could carry their storylines into any number of popular Marvel comics--and two, in particular, were specifically designed to thrive on that kind of story-telling. I have a soft spot in my heart for both Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-in-One, though I'd have to admit that the former was typically the better of the two.

MTU was a monthly comic featuring Spider-Man and another random guest character. (Marvel toyed with the dynamic occasionally making the anchor of the team-up either The Human Torch or The Hulk, but that was always a change-up and never lasted for more than an issue at a time.) This was a great and ultimately rather logical formula as Peter Parker--being a photojournalist working in one of the most superhero-dense areas of the globe--could be expected to bump elbows with any number of other costumed crime-fighters. And when those adventures sometimes took him to more exotic locales in space or time, well--you could wink at that without too much difficulty. Marvel Two-in-One featured Ben Grimm, The Thing, and another guest character. In this case, the story would often revolve around someone coming to the Fantastic Four for assistance and finding only Ben home. That premise got a little threadbare after while, but it was still a charming romp.

These titles were the glue of the 70s and early 80s Marvel universe, as this was a time before limited series were common--back when comic book companies worked primarily through outlets like newstands and drug stores and they were publishing only as many books as would collectively fit on a wire rack. There weren't "niche" books. New characters would have to grab a following either in the pages of anthology books (as the B-side to a more notable character's story), in books that rotated stories and characters (Marvel Premiere, Marvel Spotlight, etc.), or in MTU and MTIO.

Luther Manning made appearances in each of MTU and MTIO that are captured in this compilation. In the case of his MTU visit, Deathlok played host to Spider-Man in the future. But in his MTIO appearances, Luther Manning was the one to switch timelines--becoming planted in the then-present-day Marvel Universe. While not typical for the respective comics, I believe that the MTIO stories are better. That's mostly true however because they link back to what I think is definitively the best multi-chapter story from MTIO and likely the best MTIO story overall--the Project Pegasus Saga, which saw an eclectic group of heroes ranging from Quasar to Thundra to Giant-Man help The Thing to prevent Armageddon at the hands of a villain, the Nth Man, who could/would make a great (and unusual) "big bad" for a later phase of the MCU.

Marvel could have used this as a final, if unsatisfying, chapter in Deathlok's own narrative (as his body ended up seemingly destroyed)--but chose instead to pit the unwilling cyborg super-soldier of the future against its original super-soldier, Captain America in the latter's comic. Not a mindless mash-up, this story brought both characters back into Deathlok's now-alternate future and ultimately tied up most of the remaining loose ends from his run in Astonishing Tales--while giving the good captain a lot of food for thought related to how quickly his country could descend into barbarism.

I'm not saying that this compilation is going to float everyone's boat or--just as importantly--that it's an all-ages read; because it's definitely not. Despite Marvel's protestation that he's an "offbeat superhero," Deathlok is more appropriately described as an antihero. And the book--while perhaps not as gritty as modern takes on similar themes of dehumanization and body horror--is nevertheless a dark science fiction story. (Brace yourself for several references to off-panel cannibalism--even one in the Captain America crossover.)

As a compilation, it also suffers from a problem that many trade paperbacks suffer--inconsistency in the art. With the story crossing the desks of multiple writers, editors, and artists over more than a decade, the look of the character and his environment evolves. The cover to Astonishing Tales #34 is perhaps one of my all-time favorite comic book covers from the bronze age of comics, and I enjoy the pencilwork of creator Rich Buckler throughout that series--particularly, I think, when inked by Klaus Janson. I also enjoy the clean, detailed look of John Byrne's art from MTIO #54, but Byrne deviates significantly from the original character design. And while that difference has a decent in-story explanation, it's an explanation not made until subsequent appearances. Given that I really love the original look of the character, that's a bit of a detractor from my perspective.

Nevertheless, in weighing these factors I ultimately decided that the story's merits and its historical significance far outweigh any of its shortcomings. So I picked it up and plan to deposit as a gift to our library later this week. (Mind you, I should point out that it wasn't a quick and decisive choice; I made my family browse the rest of Ollie's discount merchandise for about 30 minutes before deciding to go back and pick the book up.)

What do you think? Does this initial take on the character--albeit now a bit outdated, set in a dark vision of 1991--sound like something you'd read? Let me know in the comments below. And happy bargain hunting!