As regular readers of this blog might recall, we ended our October post about Astonishing Tales #33 with the observation that with that issue, Marvel Comics seemed to have finally found a solid creative team for “Deathlok the Demolisher”, with the feature’s primary creator, plotter, and artist Rich Buckler now supported by Bill Mantlo as scripter and Klaus Janson as inker and colorist. Meanwhile, Buckler’s frequently meandering plotline seemed to have found some new forward momentum as well. Was it possible that this series — which, to be sure, had still generally been entertaining in (mostly) bi-monthly doses, where one might simply enjoy the gritty atmosphere and violent action without being overly concerned with the incoherence of the overall story arc — was finally on the verge of realizing its considerable potential?
In December, 1975, the fact that the cover of AT #34 was yet another strong one crafted by the team of Buckler and Janson seemed to be a good omen — as were the credits one found upon turning to the book’s opening splash page:
As we’d anticipated, Buckler, Janson, and Bill Mantlo continue here in the same roles they’d filled in the last issue. But it’s interesting to note that Buckler also gets a separate, boxed off “Produced by” credit — a phrasing which recalls the way that the latter-day Silver Age collaborations between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were often billed. Here, the credit probably reflects the fact that Buckler had an unusual contract with Marvel for “Deathlok” which, though it clearly didn’t give him even partial ownership of the character, was supposed to allow him creative and editorial control — though Marv Wolfman, the overseer of Marvel’s entire color comics line at this time, remained the editor of record. (At least for this issue; as you may recall, Wolfman wasn’t credited as the editor of Astonishing Tales #32… but, then again, neither was anyone else.)
As has been the case in just about every installment of “Deathlok” to date, the first scene of this chapter overlaps with the last one of the previous episode. Thankfully, Bill Mantlo got the memo in time for this issue, so that his script for these first two pages closely follows the earlier telling of the same events — unlike in AT #33, where Deathlok seemed to spend the first several pages repeating his actions from the last pages of #32, to no evident purpose.
Although we didn’t mention it last time, the location where our protagonist currently finds himself facing imminent destruction appears to be Central Park’s Belvedere Castle.
When we last saw our old pal Mike Travers last issue, he and his companion Nina Ferry had been hiding out on a rooftop, only to be captured by members of the Provisional Revolutionary Army — that’s right, the folks whose base we just now saw get blown up. How and when did Mike manage to escape from the PRA, and then acquire the ordnance that he appears to have just used to accomplish said blowing-up? Your guess is as good as mine, I’m afraid, because those aren’t questions our storytellers are especially inclined to answer, either now or later. Oh, well.
Okayyy… so the Central Intelligence Agency is yet another faction among the several we’ve already seen vying for control in this bombed-out version of New York City, as well as its environs. And since Mike Travers has allied himself with them, I guess it follows that they were responsible for his rescue from the Provisional Revolutionary Army. Fair enough. But if the CIA are opposed to Ryker, why blow up the PRA, who, from everything we were ever shown, shared that same goal? Why not join forces? I hate to say it, but there’s still too much going on in this storyline that doesn’t make much sense — or at least needs further explanation before it can do so.
Also, for the record, that last panel above is the very last we’ll ever see — or even hear — of Mike Travers; despite Mike having been a reliably recurring supporting character for most of this feature’s run, both Rich Buckler and Bill Mantlo appear to forget all about him after this scene.
It’s nice of Buckler and Mantlo to let us know that Nina Ferry has made it through these recent events safe and well, even though we don’t actually see her in this issue — or ever again, actually. (Talk about a throwaway character — the poor woman has spent most of this series either comatose or catatonic, and never got another word of dialogue following her first appearance back in Astonishing Tales #25.)
From here, we move into an action sequence involving Deathlok trying to land his helicopter on a rooftop and getting into a firefight with a bunch of armed thugs. Given that this is roughly the eleventy-sixth such sequence we’ve had in the 10 9 8 1/2 installments of the series to date, we’re going to skip the prelims and cut to the part where the story begins to move forward again…
At that very moment, a huge surge of energy picks the cyborg up and hurls him across the room. That’s followed by a sonic disruption wave that floors all the other people present, as well. Meanwhile…
Hellinger (aka Harlan Ryker) keeps gloating as though everything is going just like he’s always wanted it to, despite the fact that, as of earlier this same issue, he was trying to blow Deathlok up, and just how he planned to take out his brother Simon after that is anyone’s guess. But I suppose being stark raving mad means you don’t really have to worry about being consistent, let alone logical.
And with that dynamite, photo-incorporating full-page splash, this episode — the penultimate chapter in Deathlok’s long war against Major Simon Ryker — comes to a close.
But before we wrap up this blog post, I’d like to briefly touch on a couple of other Marvel comics that were published on either side of Astonishing Tales #34, half a century ago — two comics which shared the distinction of featuring the first nods to the “Deathlok” feature’s continuity that had been made outside of the series’ own pages since one fairly oblique reference to “the Bionics Wars of the 1990’s” in Defenders #26, which had come out back in May.
Cover to Super-Villain Team-up #4 (Feb., 1976). Pencils by Rich Buckler; inks by Joe Sinnott or Dan Adkins.
The first of these, released in November, was the fourth issue of Super-Villain Team-Up — Marvel’s vehicle for the unlikely pairing of Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner in a single feature. Scripted by Bill Mantlo, with art by Herb Trimpe and Jim Mooney, “A Time of Titans” introduced readers to Captain Simon Ryker — a fellow who, despite the brown hair and mustache (and a bizarre magenta-colored uniform), would have been immediately recognizable to Astonishing Tales readers as Deathlok’s future arch-foe, even if an editorial footnote hadn’t clued us in to that fact.
In this story, Ryker is working on what is explicitly referred to as a “super-soldier” program for the U.S. government — terminology which links the Deathlok continuity to the backstory of Captain America (not to mention that of the Man-Thing). Seemingly operating pretty much on his own (though clearly with substantial financial and technical resources), Capt. Ryker has already managed to invent an artificial cyborg he’s dubbed “the Symbionic Man”. All he needs to bring his creation to life is a sufficiently robust power source — unfortunately, he’s been turned down by the only man he knows capable of building such a high-energy generator, Reed Richards (“The fool!“). But then, fortune seems to favor him when the Navy ship he’s presently using for a base becomes a battleground for Namor and Doom. Presented with the opportunity to siphon off the energy he needs directly from Doom’s armor, Ryker seizes his moment…
…and although Doom breaks free almost immediately, the moment lasts just long enough to animate the Symbionic Man. Doom, however, is unaware of this, so he simply hurls Ryker into a computer bank, and — mistakenly believing that a energy-blast he’d fired off earlier has slain the Sub-Mariner — exits the scene.
Cover to Marvel Spotlight #27 (Apr., 1976). Pencils by Gil Kane; inks by Frank Giacoia or Al Milgrom.
Oddly enough, this story continued in January, 1976, not in the next issue of Super-Villain Team-Up, but rather in Marvel Spotlight #27, which featured the Sub-Mariner in solo action for the first time since the cancellation of his own titular series in 1974. In “Death Is the Symbionic Man!” (again written by Mantlo, with Mooney providing full art instead of just inks this time around), we find that Simon Ryker, little the worse for wear after his brush 
with Doom, is seeking even more juice for his cyborg creation. He thus sends the Symbionic Man after Namor — but while the creature is temporarily successful in leeching off of not only Subby’s strength, but his psyche, as well, the Avenging Son of Atlantis ultimately stymies the cyborg’s attempt to drain him dry, overcoming his foe by his sheer strength of will. Towards the climax of the battle between himself and his foe, Namor hurls a huge squid out of the ocean; the animal randomly strikes the saucer-like aircraft from which Ryker has been monitoring events, sending it plunging into the sea. Thereby freed from his creator’s control, the Symbionic Man willingly gives up his own life, returning the Sub-Mariner’s stolen energy whence it came, while Ryker (whom Namor never encounters directly) is seen no more… at least, not in the present-day Marvel Universe.
While I don’t recall my younger self finding this two-parter to be any great shakes back in ’75-’76, I do remember thinking that it was kind of neat that Marvel had stitched Simon Ryker into its pre-Deathlok continuity. Half a century later, however, I’m not so sure that it worked all that well. For one thing, the Major Ryker of the “1990s” seems to be more of a standard megalomaniac — an “big idea” guy who depends on the expertise a whole lot of other, smarter people to help realize his grandiose fantasies — rather than a scientific genius in his own right. Plus, the Symbionic Man seems a good bit more sophisticated than most of the cyborgs we find in Deathlok’s future world (though I suppose you could argue that the still-mysterious disaster that’s befallen the U.S. in the interval between 1975 and 199x might well have set cybernetic science back somewhat).
In any event, it’s hard to imagine that Rich Buckler — who would state on the record several times in later years that Deathlok was never supposed to be part of the mainstream Marvel Universe — was very happy with this turn of events… even if his writing collaborator, Bill Mantlo, was involved (and despite his own drawing of the cover for Super-Villain Team-Up #4). But the intertwining of the Deathlok continuity with the main Marvel timeline wasn’t going away; if anything, it was only going to get stronger, even as the “Deathlok the Demolisher” feature itself drew ever closer to its end… though, naturally, that’s a topic we’ll need to leave to future posts.
There was a tendency at Marvel back then to try to shoehorn everything into the mainstream MU continuity, even when the material was a poor fit – e.g. Deathlock, Killraven, Conan, or actually clashed with established Marvel history – e.g. Kirby’s Eternals. Why there was this obsessively inclusive approach puzzles me.
As to this issue of Astonishing, it continued the sloppy plotting that had marred the series from the outset. I reread the entire run a while back and found it a hopelessly confused. Some nicely done set pieces along the way, though.
And as you mention the Sub-Mariner solo in Spotlight, I have to say that the Gil Kane cover on that issue is one of my all-time favourites.
I would hardly say Conan got shoehorned in — outside of Chris Claremont using Kulan Gath and Red Sonja I can’t think of any Bronze Age examples.
I should have clarified. I meant the whole REH Hyborian Age/ Pre-Cataclysmic Age mythos rather than just Conan. Kull’s Atlantis was brought in via Tales of Atlantis In Sub-Mariner, which at least implies that Conan was MU canon as Kull and Conan shared the same world if not the same era. Then there’s the Serpent Crown. That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure there’s more. There was definitely an assumption back then that the REH material was part of the MU’s prehistory.
My main point still stands – at Marvel in the 70s there was an almost anal compulsion to try to fit everything together. Why was it considered necessary to drag Deathlock, Killraven and the Eternals into the mainstream continuity? It really bugged me at the time.
I think Eternals suffered worst as “this is the truth behind all legend and folklore” transitioned to “this is the story of some people who look just like Zeus and Athena and Hercules but it’s really a wacky coincidence.”
I was actually pretty happy with the idea that Kull/Conan, Deathlok, and Killraven were all part of the Marvel Universe — as I wrote in my Defenders #26 post, their inclusion just made the MU that much more diverse and interesting, or so it seemed to me. That said, if I’d known at the time that Buckler wanted his baby to be off in its own fictional reality, I’d have respected that, and would have liked for Marvel to have done the same.
The Eternals, for me, were a completely different thing, for the reason fraser suggests — there was just no way to wedge Kirby’s basic premise into the existing MU without doing damage to one or the other. In that instance, the insistence by Marvel that it simply *had* to fit seemed as irrational to me as it did to chris.
Agreed. Kirby was badly hemmed in by Marvel’s obsession with cramming everything into their continuity. Why give a big idea world builder guy like Kirby the opportunity to create something new and then try to impose arbitrary limitations on his vision? It makes no sense.
While I agree that the Eternals being in the Marvel Universe has always been a square peg/round hole-type situation, to be fair, Kirby himself seemed indecisive as to whether or not they were – SHIELD agents show up in Eternals #5, and they reference Nick Fury.
In the same issue, a civilian gets his head briefly changed into a replica of the Thing’s, and his comments imply that the Thing exists in-universe, too (although it is a bit more ambiguous).
From everything I’ve read about the series, that was Marvel editors pushing Kirby into giving the series some connection to the rest of the MU. I suspect that’s why when a Hulk robot runs wild near the end of the series everyone pointedly refers to the Hulk as a comic-book character.
I agree that when I read it first-run, it seemed odd to me too.
They did the same with Machine Man, even though one of the 2001: A Space Odyssey comics he appeared in implied the Marvel superheroes were fictional in that world.
Visually pleasing art and panel/page layouts here, but I didn’t purchase this issue at the time.
Most of what I see in today’s comics has done little to further the medium. Yes, there are better printing techniques and more color options, and global creators have brought a wider variety in subject matter and cultural sensibilities, especially in indie titles—-but I dare say that comics have been in a state of arrested development in the 21st century in terms of visual storytelling.
From the 1940s-80s artists like Milt Caniff, Chester Gould, Bernie Krigstein, Alex Toth, Steranko, Frank Miller and a host of others brought cinematic storytelling techniques into comic strips and comic books. In that timespan there were exciting developments in the use of establishing shots, tracking shots (across several panels), cross cutting, montage sequences, and other techniques derived from film and brought into comics. In the 1960s artists like Gene Colan and Neal Adams challenged the notion of square/rectangular panels with wildly irregular panel shapes in Doctor Strange and Deadman (and X-Men), respectively.
Who are the cutting edge auteurs of the 21st century? All I see are variations of what was already advanced in the 20th century—-with prettier printing/color options. Has the form really hit a ceiling?
These Deathlok pages look fresher today than they should. Consider how quaint most 1930s comics looked in the 1970s.
I only ever skimmed Deathlok but following these reviews, the plotting does seem utterly slapdash. It’s the equivalent of an action film that’s constantly rushing from one setpiece to another.
It would have been ground breaking (at ’70s Marvel) if the Deathlok stories had been conceived as being told by an unreliable – and possibly deranged/hallucinating -narrator who weaves in and out of rationale, perhaps even showing up as a character (or nemesis) in the finale, beginning with a few first person references in the captions before finally appearing on-panel.
Unusual but I hate 90 percent of OMG it was all in his head! stories.
I didn’t mean the “wake up and the end and it was all a dream” cliche. For example, in the 1971 film “The Beguiled” Clint Eastwood is a wounded Civil War soldier who comes to a girls’ school for refuge. As he explains what happened to him prior to his arrival, we hear his voice, but the visuals reveal him to be lying through his teeth.
What I meant is an *unreliable* witness as the narrator of these Deathlok tales: not outright lies or fantasy, but much of what they are—stories with more than a few discrepancies.
Not as “avant-garde” as William S. Burroughs’ ‘cut paper’ method of storytelling (try making sense of the Naked Lunch novel or film), but in that direction.
Okay, that would work much better (Beguiled is an excellent film).
If nothing else prolific child-actress Pamelyn Ferdin got the unusual claim to fame of being the first person to kill Clint Eastwood onscreen in that movie,.
Ms Ferdin was 12 at the time and probably had not yet reached her full adult height of 5′ 2.
I’m fairly sure I got this mag sometime, maybe in the 1990s, but don’t have a distinct memory of it. A rather fascinating mess, but building momentum to some sort of dramatic conclusion to the conflict between Deathlok & Ryker. Well, if this series had lasted a decade or more, there likely would have been repeated duels between the two, as with all heroes and their most prominent arch-foes.
As to the linking of the Deathlok series with the mainstream then current Marvel universe, the Deathlok series is clearly set in a version of Earth in which the super-powered characters of just a decade or so earlier don’t exist. It’d be implausible to insist they’d all since died or retired or somehow otherwise faded away. They’re just not part of the world Buckler conjured up a little over a decade in the then future. Of course, that would also apply to the world that War of the Worlds is set in. A few decades later in the then future, but not so distant that all the characters of the 1970s would all be long since deceased. And both series were set in periods that are now in our past! And most of those characters from the 1970s are still around and not all that much older than they were 50 years ago. Eventually, we’ll all be gone, but the fictional people will mostly live on, in some form or another.
You remind me of something Sax Rohmer, the creator of Fu Manchu, said that the insidious doctor once “told” him:
“It is your belief that you created me. It is my belief that I shall exist when you are but smoke.”
Considering that more people know who Fu Manchu is than that Rohmer’s real name was Arthur Henry “Sarsfield” Ward, I’d say that he was right once again, no doubt to the chagrin of Sir Denis Nayland Smith.
Before Atlas/Marvel had a Yellow Claw, Rohmer wrote a book called *The Yellow Claw.* I’ll have to read it one day, along with *She Who Sleeps.*
It seems to me Doom and Namor meet up as enemies or allies even more often than might be expected by comic book logic. Presumably it has to do with them, and the third leg of this tripod T’Challa, being Marvel’s go-to monarchs.
Truth be told, after about two issues, I gave up trying to maintain any sense of continuity with Deathlok. It was more a matter of enjoying each individual issue with much of that being contingent on Buckler’s art. As a result, I completely agree with Alan that the addition of Jansen and Mantlo made a world of difference. Mantlo did what he could to keep the right plates spinning while Jansen made it all look that much sharper.
And wow! I had completely forgotten about the sorta crossover with SVTU #4 and MS #27. Seeing both in the review definitely brought back some memories. Of course, that I’d completely forgotten probably speaks more about the quality of both comics, but hey, they were a great source of entertainment for a 15-year-old kid at the time!
Just so long as the next review doesn’t resurrect repressed memories of Timmy, the class bully, stuffing me into a locker that he welded shut, leaving me there for the entire Christmas Break back in late ’75… 😉
This series was the worst experience when I was an obsessive completist. I hated Buckler’s art even before learned how much he swiped rather than created. I was totally critical of the bizarre plots and plot holes and would have dropped it had I had the gumption. I don’t like the Deathlok of today being a multi-timeline army of sorts bu I have to wonder if I’d feel differently had Buckler been even a little competent as a writer.
I liked Deathlok as a concept, but for reasons that escape me, I didn’t stay with the book long and therefore missed this one. Might have had something to do with Deathlok being in Astonishing Tales and not his own book. I tended to glance over what to me were the “re-print” books and may have missed Deathlok’s adventures purely by accident. The art by Buckler and Janson was good mostly; there are a couple of panels in this issue where Deathlok is really angry and he looks like he’s having a seizure, but for the most part, it’s fine. The story, however, and the way Mantlo and Buckler get rid of recurring characters without so much as a “sayonara” as they go out the door, would have been frustrating, along with the other story inconsistencies and ruptured story logic. I don’t know what set of circumstances led to Buckler’s sweetheart deal with Marvel, but he didn’t deserve it. He created a great character in Deathlok, then proceeded to do almost nothing with it. Thanks, Alan!
Deathlok was not a character I followed much if at all. I think I didn’t relate to a violent main character/anti hero that the comics code relaxations may have helped spawn. Not sure if I ever had any issues . I mentioned before at the time it came out I generally liked Buckler’s art for FF probably because it was so Kirbyesque, but didn’t learn til the last few years or so , how much swiping he did.
The art here seems a bit “off”, the anatomy and proportions really too loose. eg the female figures or the contortions of others or limbs too large . I know it’s only a comic book, but I’m a life drawing tutor by day and much more critical of that now than as a 13 year old – though I can still very much enjoy Kirby et al and their artistic licence but this example makes me think Buckler was on this occasion not naturally a good comic book artist (which doesn’t mean one can’t forge a career in the field anyway).
it’s odd how one of Buckler’s protégées , George Perez, was probably more able to combine a number of influences (among them, Buckler’s) into a coherent style of his own than Buckler was.
Considering the messy storytelling, it seems odd that Archie would put Buckler in charge of their Red Circle line a few years after this.
IIRC that worked out okay.