Deathlok Appreciation Page: All versions welcome

[Captain Craig]

Deathlok has seen a few incarnations since he first appeared on the Marvel Universe scene in 1974. Unlike some other characters that have had various mantle holders that were able to grow a large fanbase per incarnation this thread is for all the major incarnations to hold the title Deathlok.

Luther Manning, the original: 70's-80's

Michael Collins: the mid 90's series, 36 issues+specials

Jack Truman: '99-2000 series, 11 issues

Henry Hayes: teen-2000's, 2014-present, 8 issues to date


This thread also welcomes discussion on the Mike Peterson version seen in ABC's Agents of SHIELD.
Feel free to even discuss the minor and one/off iterations of Deathlok but please don't just troll and openly diss another's preferred version of the title character.

For the record I grew up on the Collins version in the 90's and hope to get that run in an Omnibus at some point!!

[FanboyStranger]

Deathlok has seen a few incarnations since he first appeared on the Marvel Universe scene in 1974. Unlike some other characters that have had various mantle holders that were able to grow a large fanbase per incarnation this thread is for all the major incarnations to hold the title Deathlok.

Luther Manning, the original: 70's-80's

Michael Collins: the 90's series, 36 issues+specials

Henry Hayes: teen-2000's, 2014-present, 8 issues to date


This thread also welcomes discussion on the Mike Peterson version seen in ABC's Agents of SHIELD.
Feel free to even discuss the minor and one/off iterations of Deathlok but please don't just troll and openly diss another's preferred version of the title character.

You're forgetting Agent Jack Truman from Joe Casey and Leo Manco's Deathlok series from the late '90s. Which, in my opinion, was actually the best overall series of the four ongoings (but all of them are pretty good to great).

Deathlok_Vol_3_8.jpg

[Marvell2100]

Luther Manning for me.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Another vote for Luther. The original series is still the best in my mind.

[Nomads1]

Collins, even though Manning was the Deathlok I grew up with. The whole pacifist in the body of the world's most perfect combat macchine thing was, for me, a stroke of genius that played against all expectations, especially in the Blood-this, Death-that ultravioalent anti-heroes world of 90's. A gun-totting monster with Death in his name that was actually a true-blue hero that gave a "no killing" parameter to his on-board computer. Fantastic. Collins Deathlok may actually be one of my all-time favorite Marvel characters. I'm actually afraid to check the recent series out of fear that Nu-Marvel may ruin the character.

Peace

[Captain Craig]

Truman w/his 11 issue run under the dead on arrival M-Tech imprint from Marvel probably deserves as much attention as Hayes current series. I could see an argument for that but it seems he's largely forgotten about. Not to say Hayes couldn't end up that way. His title may or may not make it as far.

I edited the OP to give Jack some love.

[Marvell2100]

Collins, even though Manning was the Deathlok I grew up with. The whole pacifist in the body of the world's most perfect combat macchine thing was, for me, a stroke of genius that played against all expectations, especially in the Blood-this, Death-that ultravioalent anti-heroes world of 90's. A gun-totting monster with Death in his name that was actually a true-blue hero that gave a "no killing" parameter to his on-board computer. Fantastic. Collins Deathlok may actually be one of my all-time favorite Marvel characters. I'm actually afraid to check the recent series out of fear that Nu-Marvel may ruin the character.

Peace

I really enjoyed reading Manning's Deathlok in Astonising Tales. The dystopian future, his battle to save his world(and himself), it was just the kinda of sci-fi that was right up my alley. I enjoyed the Michael Collins Deathlok too. But I just felt that his pacifism would limit the kind of stories that could tell with him and it would be something that could be hard to move past. The mini series was fantastic.

[Nomads1]

I really enjoyed reading Manning's Deathlok in Astonising Tales. The dystopian future, his battle to save his world(and himself), it was just the kinda of sci-fi that was right up my alley. I enjoyed the Michael Collins Deathlok too. But I just felt that his pacifism would limit the kind of stories that could tell with him and it would be something that could be hard to move past. The mini series was fantastic.

I'm a huge Buckler fan, and I loved the "resolution" of the Deathlok series in the pages of Captain America. As such, I bought the recent Complete Collection TPB, for there were a couple of stories I'd never read. I couldn't even get halfway through. While the basic idea is very good, I found the experimental writing kind of confusing and the series itself too dated and clichê ridden. A modern approach of writing to the same story might actually have made it fantastic, for, as you've listed, the are some pretty good storybeats to it. (Collins actually accepts and adapts to his new reality much faster and better than Manning, who gets suicidal, which I found awsome, and much more relatable! On the other hand, Manning was a soldier, while Collins was used to the world of computers and machhines, so there's that.)
I also purchased the TPB containing the first 15 or so issues of the Collins series. I read all of it in two days. And yes, the mini-series is fantastic. Ironically enough, what I most liked of Manning's run, which was the art (as I said, huge Buckler fan) i really hated in the Collins series. Cowan was okay in the Question and Hardware, but I really desliked him in Deathlok, especially when he tried to experiment too much and seemed to be chanelling Mignola and Sienkiewick. I wished they'd gone with Guice from the mini. His art was much more to my liking.

Peace

[FanboyStranger]

Ironically enough, what I most liked of Manning's run, which was the art (as I said, huge Buckler fan) i really hated in the Collins series. Cowan was okay in the Question and Hardware, but I really desliked him in Deathlok, especially when he tried to experiment too much and seemed to be chanelling Mignola and Sienkiewick. I wished they'd gone with Guice from the mini. His art was much more to my liking.

Peace

I actually really like some of the experimenting that Cowan and Manley were doing around the end of the first year of the McDuffie/Wright Deathlok series. It was definitely channelling Mignola, but there was still enough of Denys' style to create an interesting combination and dense atmosphere. I don't know how much was Denys and how much was Mike Manley as everything else I've seen by Manley tends to look very "cartoon-y". But I'm also a big Denys Cowan fan in general, and I tend to be a little blind to his faults, which become more apparent with different inkers. Still, possibly the best fight choreographer in the business as far as hand to hand stuff.

Guice is almost always good, though. He's also a guy who tends to elevate the material he's working on, although in this case McDuffie and Wright definitely had a good story.

Also, Deathlok may have had the best run of artists of any Marvel character. Buckler in his prime, Zeck, Guice, Cowan, Leo Manco, Eric Canete... Murderers row there.

[ed2962]

The first one to come to mind is the Luther Manning version. But I want to get more of the Michael Collins version, I got the first issue. I've heard that it had some of the better writing or least was willing to bring up a number provocative ideas?

[Marvell2100]

I'm a huge Buckler fan, and I loved the "resolution" of the Deathlok series in the pages of Captain America. As such, I bought the recent Complete Collection TPB, for there were a couple of stories I'd never read. I couldn't even get halfway through. While the basic idea is very good, I found the experimental writing kind of confusing and the series itself too dated and clichê ridden. A modern approach of writing to the same story might actually have made it fantastic, for, as you've listed, the are some pretty good storybeats to it. (Collins actually accepts and adapts to his new reality much faster and better than Manning, who gets suicidal, which I found awsome, and much more relatable! On the other hand, Manning was a soldier, while Collins was used to the world of computers and machhines, so there's that.)
I also purchased the TPB containing the first 15 or so issues of the Collins series. I read all of it in two days. And yes, the mini-series is fantastic. Ironically enough, what I most liked of Manning's run, which was the art (as I said, huge Buckler fan) i really hated in the Collins series. Cowan was okay in the Question and Hardware, but I really desliked him in Deathlok, especially when he tried to experiment too much and seemed to be chanelling Mignola and Sienkiewick. I wished they'd gone with Guice from the mini. His art was much more to my liking.

Peace

Totally agree. I don't think Cowans art was the style needed for this series unlike Guice's whose art rocked the mini. I think it really hurt the book.

[Marvell2100]

The first one to come to mind is the Luther Manning version. But I want to get more of the Michael Collins version, I got the first issue. I've heard that it had some of the better writing or least was willing to bring up a number provocative ideas?

The writing was good, but I'll let you judge the art. I just wondered how long they could go on with Collins being a pacifist inside a killer cyborg body. How many ways were they going to try to find him not to kill? I know he overrode some of the software and took the kill mode off the table but that seemed a copout to me.

[FanboyStranger]

Totally agree. I don't think Cowans art was the style needed for this series unlike Guice's whose art rocked the mini. I think it really hurt the book.

I disagree, although I will agree that the shift from Guice to Cowan on the mini was very jarring.

Like I said in my earlier post, I really liked the more experimental art from Cowan and Mignola towards the end of the first year of the ongoing. It gave the book a real claustropheric atmosphere that foregrounded the moral quandaries that Michael Collins found himself within. Yeah, I can see how it's not for everyone-- and yeah, it's not garden variety superhero art-- but it served an important storytelling purpose. I read those issues, and I feel that I'm trapped within the Deathlok chassis. It wasn't your usual '90s superhero title, and it needed something that presented the intellectual paradox inherent in the Collins incarnation. Whether it worked or not is up to you, I guess.

[FanboyStranger]

The first one to come to mind is the Luther Manning version. But I want to get more of the Michael Collins version, I got the first issue. I've heard that it had some of the better writing or least was willing to bring up a number provocative ideas?

Personally, I think the Casey version had the best writing, and that's after the first three issues, which were reaching a bit too far. Rich Buckler/Doug Moench had moments of brilliance, but a lot of it reads like sub-New Worlds/bad-'70s sci-fi. McDuffie and Wright's version had a lot of heart, but lacked the challenge of Buckler/Moench and Casey/Manco. The new series is decent, but it fits in better with its contemporary comics, something previous incarnations didn't really do. I kinda want to be challenged by a Deathlok comic.

[Tien Long]

As a child of the 90s, I've always been partial to the Michael Collins version, especially in his appearances in the Spider-Man comics. Who could forget when he made an appearance during the Revenge of the Sinister Six arc when both he and Spider-Man cyborged out:



Or his appearance in the Maximum Carnage series wielding the Alpha Magni-Illuminator a.k.a "The Good Bomb" a.k.a. "Care Bear Stare!" :


Seriously though, one of my favorite appearances of Michael Collins Deathlok was when he showed up in this issue of War Machine:


Don't have a scan with me now, but what was cool about that was how the two communicated with one another using tech that no one else noticed. Indeed, that played into the fact that Collins had that ability to interface with computers.