Deathlok M-Tech Marvel Comics 1999

Deathlok: M-Tech

1999

Marvel Comics

In 1999 Marvel decided to try and leverage the excitement surrounding cyberpunk by issuing an imprint, called 'M-Tech,' that took existing characters and presented them in a cyberpunk milieu. The three comics in the imprint were Machine Man (re-christened X-51, to try and draw in X-Men fans), Warlock, and Deathlok.

None of the titles sold well enough to survive a year. The M-Tech Deathlok appeared in 11 issues, from September, 1999, to June, 2000.

 

Being a fan of the Deathlok franchise, I am interested in showcasing the good and bad of the M-Tech incarnation of the character to any party who may be wondering if this limited series is any good.

 

[ My previous post on Deathlok's first appearance, in 1974 in 'Astonishing Tales,' is here; an overview of the compilation of that early run of Deathlok is here; Deathlok's 1983 team-up with Captain America is here; an overview of the 1990 Prestige format incarnation is here; and an overview of the 34-issue followup of that incarnation, is here.]

 

The M-Tech version of Deathlok was completely independent of the earlier incarnations, with this Deathlok being a cyborg containing the soul and personality of a deceased SHIELD agent named Jack Truman. 

The Truman Deathlok was intended to be a super-soldier in service of SHIELD, but predictably he was uneasy with any role as a utility man / assassin for the organization. Throughout the 11 issues there is much psychodrama on the part of Truman and his struggle to accept that he is part man, and part machine.

 

The initial issues of the M-Tech character see Truman fighting a rogue SHIELD force and leveling a good chunk of Las Vegas in the process. During this struggle, Truman / Deathlok utilizes a 'Tibetan Mind Trick' to transfer his consciousness into that of a boy named Billy Bailey........?! This idea is fully as lame as it sounds, and after issue 3 the Billy storyline abruptly vanishes. 

The major story arc in the series involves a new supervillain, dubbed the Clown, who is introduced in issue 4, as a hitman whose path eventually crosses that of Jack Truman.

One of the more high-profile guest stars in the series is Nick Fury.

Where the M-Tech Deathlok does well is with the artwork by Leonardo Manco. It has the super-detailed, stylized nature of 1990s comic book art, and is ably colored by Mark Bernardo, with letters by Comicraft.

For two issues, there is fill-in artwork, assigned to Matthew Smith and Eric Canete, with (in my opinion) less than stellar results.........

Casey's writing is the weakness of the M-Tech Deathlok. Aside from the above-mentioned Little Boy Billy Bailey plot device, and the regular references to personal angst and existential despair, the writing has an ad hoc, disjointed quality, as if Casey paid only partial attention to the series. The Clown character is introduced in issue 4 but soon recedes to the background, sharing story beats with the legacy (i.e., 1941) villain the Ringmaster. The rivalry between the two villains get resolved in the final issue, so things are not left dangling as they could be with some book cancellations.

For all of the intent on cyberpunk that underlined the M-Tech imprint, in Deathlok, the cyber aspects are at best an occasional motif, with Deathlok 'jacking in' every now and then to advance a plot point.

Summing up, the 1999 M-Tech edition of Deathlok never really does much with the cyberpunk concept and comes across as something of a missed opportunity. If Marvel's management had stuck with the series for another year, and there had been some concentration in terms of the writing duties, it's possible the series could have done better. But as it stands, it's best recommended to diehard Deathlok fans.

If you're going to investigate the M-Tech version then I recommend purchasing the 456-page 2015 trade paperback, 'Deathlok: Rage Against the Machine,' which not only features the 11 issues of the Deathlok title, but several issues of Cable and Uncanny X-Men that lay out the backstory to the life, death, and 'cyborgization' of Jack Truman. There also is a Kindle edition available.

 

Book Review: Floating Dragon by Peter Straub

Book Review: 'Floating Dragon' by Peter Straub

1 / 5 Stars

'Floating Dragon' first was published in 1982 in hardback by Underwood-Miller. This Berkley Books paperback edition (595 pp.) was issued in  March, 1984.

 

I remember reading this Paperback from Hell back in 1984, and finding it underwhelming. Is it any better when revisited 42 years later ? The answer is, unfortunately, no..........

 

The novel is set in May, 1980, in the idyllic bedroom community of Hampstead, Connecticut. Hampstead is all about suburban affluence and comfort, steeped in Old Yankee history - some of this history a trifle unpleasant, involving long-ago murders committed by unstable individuals.

 

As 'Floating Dragon' opens, a laboratory researching clandestine bioweapons has an accident, and an aerosol known as 'DRG-16' escapes into the atmosphere. This 'floating dragon' of the novel's title has varied effects on those exposed to it; some people die instantly, others succumb more gradually. Some people are psychologically deranged, while others seemingly are unaffected. The cloud drifts over Hampstead, and mayhem ensues.

 

Adding to the tragedy, it turns out that a colonial-era warlock, named Gideon Winter (aka The Dragon), has been reincarnated in his past home of Hampstead. Winter is reincarnated every 100 years or so, and he's quite happy to add to the body count triggered by DRG-16. While his true appearance is not very appealing, as in Douglas Wayne Barlowe's portrait (below), Winter has the sort of shapeshifting ability enjoyed by the creatures known as the 'wendigos,' in Straub's 1975 novel 'Ghost Story.' This makes him a particularly worrisome adversary for the hapless residents of Hampstead. 

 

As in a number of novels by Straub and his collaborator Stephen King, there is a Magical Child present in 'Floating Dragon,' in the persona of an adolescent boy named Tabby Smithfield. Like Charlene 'Charlie' McGee in 'Firestarter,' Jack Sawyer in 'The Talisman,' and Danny Torrance in 'The Shining,' Smithfield has some otherworldly abilities, such as precognition and esp. 

 

Smithfield makes the acquaintance of three other Hampstead residents: Graham Williams, Patsy McCloud, and Richard Allbee, all of whom - like Smithfield- are Descendants of the town's original settlers. And, like Smithfield, they also have esper abilities. 

 

The plot basically involves having Winter, in some instances aided and abetted by DRG-16, whittling down the population of Hampstead, while our four heroes struggle to learn just who it is that Winter is impersonating. For all their esper skills, and the vivid hallucinations and visions generated by such skills, the witless four Descendants don't figure out who to target until very late in the novel. 

 

'Floating Dragon' has a lot of the weaknesses of many Paperbacks from Hell. For one thing, it's much too long; the novel would have benefited from being a good 250+ pages shorter in length. There's a rambling, unfocused quality to the narrative that made me fatigued well before the denouement. Indeed, nothing of real import happens until around page 250, when Tabby and some of Hampstead's juvenile delinquents get up to mischief.

 

The narrative is padded with interminable vignettes involving various Hampstead residents and their travails. Once in a while these lend something to the plot, particularly the misadventure of one man, who elects to take a trip into New York City and 42nd Street and its sleaze parlors. This gives 'Floating' a badly-needed episode of dark humor and imbues the narrative with some authentic early 80s flavor. But most of the vignettes Straub trots out aren't very engaging. 

 

The final confrontation with Winter drags on so long, and becomes so tedious, that by the novel's end I really didn't care all that much who lived or died and what became of Hampstead.

 

Summing up, when it comes to Paperbacks from Hell, 'Floating Dragon' is a real dud. It suffers from some of the same problems with wordiness and pacing that afflicted other of Straub's novels ('Koko' comes to mind here). Only those with a formidable patience are advised to pick up 'Floating Dragon.'  

 

P.S. my brother - the same one who coined the (mocking) term 'PorPor book,' just reminded me that when Tabby and the Descendants go to confront Gideon Warlock, they do so singing 'The red, red robin goes bob-bob-bobbing along' to keep up their courage. Fuck.....that's cringe !  

Book Review: The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks

Book Review: 'The Sword of Shannara' by Terry Brooks

5 / 5 Stars

 

The story goes that after spending 7 years writing 'The Sword of Shannara,' Terry Brooks (b. 1944) submitted the manuscript to Lester Del Rey, who was the head of fantasy publishing at Ballantine Books. In November 1974 Ballantine accepted the novel and in 1977, both hardcover and trade paperback editions were published. 

 

The novel was illustrated by the Brothers Hildebrandt, at that time the foremost fantasy illustrators in the world.

I picked up the mass market paperback edition of the book shortly after its release in May, 1978. How does the book hold up after the passage of 47 years ? Quite well. In fact, it's a Five Star novel. 

 

I should state at the outset that 'Sword' is a pastiche of the Lord of the Rings (LOTR). As a pastiche, it was (and is) very successful, being one of the bestselling fantasy novels of the 1970s. 

Brooks is unapologetic about relying on LOTR for inspiration. Lin Carter, who was a prominent editor and author in the fantasy field in the 1970s, was incensed by 'Sword,' devoting a chapter in his 1978 anthology 'The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: 4' to criticizing Brooks for writing 'a complete rip-off' of Tolkein. I believe Carter was angry more because Del Rey had not approached him to produce a 700-page pastiche of LOTR, choosing instead to showcase a novice author.........

 

In the 726 pp. comprising 'Sword,' Brooks reprises the storyline of LOTR: 

 

A Dark Lord (designated the 'Warlock Lord') threatens the free world, and elves, dwarves, and men must unite to combat the menace. Under the direction of the mysterious druid Allanon, a multi-racial party is assembled to embark on a quest to recover a mythical talisman, the Sword of Shannara. Playing the role of Frodo Baggins is the Valeman Shea Ohmsford, whose half-human, half-elf heritage makes him the only person in the world capable of wielding the sword, which expressly has been designed to be effective against the Warlock Lord.

 

The initial third of the novel sees the party jointly encountering all manner of dangers, be they gnomes, Skull Bearers, or monsters. Thereafter 'Sword' settles into the narrative of LOTR in which tribulations of one sort or another sunder the party, and the storyline alternates between groups of characters. The closing chapters of 'Sword' focus on the siege of the fortress city of Tyrsis (the counterpart to Minas Tirith) and this account of a desperate struggle to hold off the armies of the Warlock Lord is well done by author Brooks.

 

'Sword' is written for 'all ages' (12 years old and up), and the narrative stays comparatively tame in terms of describing the mayhem between good and evil factions; even the climactic dispatching of one particularly odious character is done 'off-screen.' But it must be said that for a first-time author Brooks displays skill in keeping the plot moving through all 700+ pages, a feat many authors of lengthy fantasy novels (and here Richard Adams's 'Shardik' comes to mind) have problems executing.

I confess that after finishing 'Sword' I was not overly motivated to take up some of the other 40+ novels and short story collections that make up the franchise. However, younger readers may be more motivated to do so than I.

The verdict ? 'The Sword of Shannara' is one of the most successful epic fantasy novels of the 1970s, and thus, a good starting place for anyone who wants to get the sensibility of the genre in that era. 

Book Review: Be Pure ! Be Vigilant ! Behave ! by Pat Mills

Book Review: 

'Be Pure ! 

Be Vigilant ! 

Behave !' 
2000 AD and Judge Dredd: The Secret History

by Pat Mills

3 / 5 Stars

One super-fan would come into IPC HQ at Kings Reach Tower, and patiently explain to me at great length where I was going wrong, why I needed the benefit of his expert advice and why 2000 AD should be more like Heavy Metal or Metal Hurlant. I’m so glad I didn’t take his advice because I understand he ended his days sleeping under a railway viaduct.

‘Be Pure ! Be Vigilant ! Behave ! 2000 AD and Judge Dredd: A Secret History (255 pp.) was published by Millsverse Books in 2017.

Pat Mills (b. 1949) is of course one of the most well-known representatives of the comic book business in the UK and one of its more iconoclastic figures. As the above quotation shows, excessive modesty and humility are not in particularly abundant supply in the pages of ‘Be Pure !’, which chronicles Mills’s career in comics from the early 1970s up to 2017, the 40th anniversary of the first issue of 2000 AD.

The book consists of brief chapters, arranged in a loose chronological order. Things start in 1971, when Mills and fellow talent John Wagner were living and working in Scotland for D. C. Thompson and its lineup of romance and humor titles. The narrative then moves to London, where Mills was involved with Battle Picture Weekly and Action before being asked by IPC in 1976 to launch a science-fiction title, one capable of exploiting the anticipated boom in the genre associated with the release of an American film called Star Wars.

That sci-fi comic was of course 2000 AD and, as they say, the rest is history.

Mills rightly devotes considerable space to his work developing 2000 AD and his collaborations with other artists and writers to create the memorable characters that made the comic so successful when it launched in February 1977. These are the book's most interesting chapters.

Subsequent chapters describe Mills’s freelance career writing for additional 2000 AD comics, such as Crisis, for which he created ‘Third World War’. Mills also offers vignettes about working for American publishers Marvel and DC; his involvement with the indie comic Toxic in the early 1990s; and his partnership with the French artist Olivier Ledroit on the title 'Requiem: Vampire Knight'.

Throughout ‘Be Pure !’ Mills, as one might expect, freely expresses his opinions about the comic book industry in the UK and its faults (which, as Mills sees them, are myriad). Mills regards anyone who interfered with his creative vision as a cretin, and thus, former 2000 AD editors Steve McManus, Alan MacKenzie, John Tomlinson, and David Bishop (among many others) all are the targets of his animadversions.

Mills’s ongoing antipathy (which has reached pathological levels, in my opinion) for the De La Salle Order and its former faculty at his grammar school, St. Joseph’s College in Ipswich, also comes in for treatment in the pages of ‘Be Pure !’. It seems that the De La Salle Order members Brother James and Brother Solomon, as Mills refers to them, were the inspirations both for Dredd, and 'Torquemada' from 'Nemesis the Warlock'. 

Mills, who is a Marxist (a de rigueur stance for almost all of those members of the British intelligentsia who do comics, science fiction, and other pop culture media), also takes pains in the book to present himself as a friend and champion of the Oppressed Proletariat. Make no mistake, dear reader: Mills is a man who diligently has used the comic book medium to advocate for the rejection of the status quo, the repudiation of Fascism, and the emancipation of the downtrodden. 

This virtue signaling gets a bit tedious at times............

So, who will want a copy of 'Be Pure ! Be Vigilant ! Behave !' ? Well, fans of the early years of 2000 AD certainly will find much to be of interest, as will those who desire an insider's point of view of the British comics scene since the 1970s. I do recommend that Mills's book be read in conjunction with viewing the 2017 documentary Future Shock! The Story of 2000 AD in order to obtain a more ...........rounded, shall we say, overview of the franchise.

Vintage UK Sci-fi Ads and Stores

Vintage UK Sci-fi Ads and Stores

Everyone remembers the geek store(s) where they went to get their comics and sci-fi paperbacks when they were young and first discovering the genre. For me, growing up in Upstate New York, it was at first a mixture of various pharmacies and convenience stores, before graduating to regular trips to Gordon's Cigar Store and, in downtown Johnson City NY, 'Fat Cat Books'.

Below, I showcase some interesting blog posts looking at how sci-fi and fantasy media were marketed and sold in the UK back in the 1980s. As a smaller country, the UK tended to have a comparatively smaller number of retail stores, but these elicited lifelong feelings of fraternity on the part of their patrons.

The Vintage Toy Advertiser and Darkest London blogs have a nostalgic look back at the signal comic and book shops that were the places for sci-fi geeks to go, back 'in the day'.

According to the Darkest London post about the Forbidden Planet store at 23 Denmark Street:

I only have to see a glimpse of the Brian Bolland artwork which used to adorn the plastic bags (and the associated t-shirt my dad bought me on one trip) and I’m straight back to the uneven wooden floor, the smell of pulp paper, the shafts of light streaming through the dust which hung in the air, and the vague unease of my mum as the till rang through each 75p I’d spent on the recent releases.

The Forbidden Planet store at 23 Denmark seems to have been the place to go back in the early 80s if you were a sci-fi fan in the London metropolitan area. It certainly had some great advertising support, such as a photo essay in which Torquemada, the archvillain from the 2000 AD comic 'Nemesis the Warlock', makes an in-store appearance:

The 23 Denmark Street and New Oxford Street stores also had their share of celebrity visitors, including Mark Hamill, Stephen King, Stan Lee, and Nichelle Nichols, among others.

American expatriate Dan Slott, who resided in London as a kid, remembers how things were when he had to patronize the Newsagent's stall, before the advent of Forbidden Planet:

Beano? What is this, where's my Spider-Man, where's my Avengers, where's Batman, why am I only getting this Beano thing and this guy Judge Dredd is kind of cool….....the pages would be in black and white for no reason.....!

A video clip featuring Slott's reminiscences is available here.

A more expansive post at The Vintage Toy Advisor covers a range of UK and US shops, mail order firms, and advertisements from the 80s.

If this back cover advertisement from a 1986 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special is any guide, it appears that 'Forbidden Planet' had two retail outlets, with the one on Denmark Street devoted to sci-fi books and comics, while the St. Giles High Street retail outlet was devoted to cinema and television media.

Forbidden Planet has since moved to a larger and more presentable retail locale in Covent Garden. But it remains the 'go to' place in the London for sci-fi and comic fans. Maybe I'll travel there someday........

Three more from 2000 AD

Three more from 2000 AD

I stopped in at my comics shop last week and found some recently acquired 'vintage' 2000 AD graphic novels issued by Titan Books in 1983: Ro-busters Volume One and Volume Two, and Nemesis the Warlock Book One. They were just $4 each. 

As always, I like the larger format of 9 inches wide x 11 inches tall (when these comics get 'shrunk' to fit the dimensions of American graphic novels, some details get lost in the process).

Lots of great, Old-School black-and-white artwork in these compilations, from such talents as Kevin O'Neill, Mike McMahon, Mike Dorey, and Dave Gibbons !

Gideon Faust: Warlock at Large

Gideon Faust: Warlock at Large
by Howard Chaykin (art) and Philip DeWalt (colors)
from Star*Reach Classics No. 5 (Eclipse Comics, July 1984)

This 12 page comic first appeared in Star*Reach No. 5 in July, 1976, as a black and white comic. When Eclipse Comics began reprinting selected Star*Reach strips in its 'Star*Reach Classics' comic, this was among those selected for reprinting in colored format.

Although nowadays the sub-genre of 'steam-fantasy' is well established and represented by many titles on the shelves of bookstores, back in '76, using it as a theme for a comic was 
imaginative for its time.

The Birth of Death by Jim Starlin

The Birth of Death
by Jim Starlin
from Star*Reach No. 1, April 1974

Although by 1974 he was regularly working for Marvel Comics, Jim Starlin nonetheless found time ro contribute a number of memorable black and white strips and color covers to the indie sf comic Star*Reach. 

This entry, from the inaugural issue of Star*Reach, is fully as 'cosmic' as any of Starlin's simultaneous work on Captain Marvel and Warlock for Marvel, as well as displaying an equally impressive level of draftsmanship.....for example, just how long did it take Starlin to draw each of the tiny outlined 'blebs' that make up the intricate stippling effect on the panel in the lower left-corner of page 4 ?!

Solar Wind by Peter Jones

Solar Wind
by Peter Jones
Paper Tiger (UK) 1980

Peter Jones was born in London in 1951 and began illustrating sf paperbacks in 1974, while he was a student at St Martin's School of Art in that city. He quickly became one of the most successful illustrators of UK sf and fantasy books during the 70s and 80s; today he does a variety of commercial and studio art works under the rubric of his company 'Solar Wind'.

clockwise from the upper left: Scenaptic Manhunt, Dark Twin,The Warlock in Spite of Himself, The Chalk Giants 

Solar Wind, the book, is a collection of Jones's sf and fantasy artwork published during the interval 1974 - 1980. While the majority of Jones's commissions were for UK-based publishers like Granda, Futura, and Sphere, some of his works are going to be recognized by US readers, particularly those repurposed as cover illustrations for classic early issues of Heavy Metal magazine.

The Second Experiment

Jones's artwork during the 70s had a more consciously 'artistic' sensibility as compared to some of the other artists also providing book covers at the time, such as Chris Foss. 

Jones tended to avoid a hard-edged, representational approach of Foss's compositions, and instead relied on depicting the spaceman, swordsman, serving-wench, or spaceship in a more metaphorical, figurative style.

Inferno

The Fabulous Riverboat

The Robert E. Howard Omnibus: 'Kidnapped'

If you were a sf and fantasy fan during the 70s, then it's highly likely that you'll be familiar with the works for which Peter Jones painted book covers. But there are certainly going to be some titles that are new, and seeing Jones's artwork may lead you to investigate reading them.  

A World Out of Time (top); Infinite Dreams (bottom)

So for that reason, as well as for those who simply appreciate great sf art, picking up a copy of 'Solar Wind' is well worth the effort. Both hardbound and softbound copies in good condition can be had for very reasonable prices, and as with all Paper Tiger / Dragon's Dream art titles, the reproductions are of good quality.

The Venus Trap (Perry Rhodan)

clockwise from the upper left: Buy Jupiter, Nightwatch, Today We Choose Faces, The Best of Robert Silverberg

The Wizard of Anharite

To Here and the Easel

The Neural Atrocity

New Eden