Review by Win Wiacek
As you’d expect of a character who was designed as a bio-mechanised weapon, Deathlok is a complex concept with a lot of backstory and many models. Here we’re concentrating on the most successful iteration of the cyborg: an African American enduring living hell, subjugation and slavery to merciless masters who fights for his dignity and liberty with everything he has left to him.
The material provided in The Living Nightmare of Michael Collins was successful enough to prompt a rapid reprint in 1991, leading to Collins earning a monthly series. So co-writers Dwayne McDuffie and Gregory Wright along with artist Jackson Guice certainly did something right.
An eight page prequel titled ‘Test Run’ sees soldier Colonel John Kelly, or at least his brain and assorted organic leftovers, attached to a biomechanical body of intriguingly unknown origins. However, the test is a failure and the story of this Deathlok really begins with ‘The Brains of the Outfit’. Cybertek is dirty and uses subterfuge to achieve its ends. When programmer, engineer, pacifist and devoted family man Michael Collins discovers his innovations are enabling advanced weapons systems and not medical equipment he rebels and quits, inadvertently making himself the next candidate for the organic wetware of Deathlok. The enigmatic war frame requires a human brain to operate, but it doesn’t have to be alive.
Mere days after a tragic “accident”, good friend Harlan Ryker tries to comfort widow Tracy Collins and Michael’s son Nick, even as a new Deathlok is unleashed in Amazon rainforest republic Estrella. Here, future Roxxon profits require a change of environment, a new dam and an end to eco-guerilla resistance. However, the onboard systems malfunction mid fire-fight and the presumed expired personality of Michael Collins takes control of the body whilst striking a détente with the murderously efficient semi-sentient programmed systems.
In charge and very angry, Collins wants Ryker, Cybertek and Roxxon to pay, but cannot abandon his principles. His first action is to institute a “no-kill” command in the super-soldier body he shares with a computer he must negotiate every action with. This does not hamper his combat efficiency in the slightest.
Roxxon’s slimy corporate presence extends throughout. Collins escapes and decides to use his situation to help others, but they consider him a loose end that needs to be eradicated.
A switch of artist to Denys Cowan occurs as the cyborg hero is subjected to intense S.H.I.E.L.D., resulting in a late-in-the-day alliance with Nick Fury, setting up a final face-off that draws in naive Japanese ultra-nationalist/part-time X-Man Sunfire.
The origin of Marvel’s most conflicted champion is a challenging, but rewarding romp for older readers.
