Deathlok the Demolisher the Complete Collection

Deathlok the Demolisher: The Complete Collection
Marvel, 2014

'Deathlok the Demolisher: The Complete Collection' is a 368 pp, full color trade paperback published by Marvel comics in 2014. It contains the full run of Deathlok stories published in Astonishing Tales, as well as other Deathlok appearances in comics such as Marvel Team Up and Captain America in the 70s and 80s.

'Deathlok the Demolisher: The Complete Collection' is basically a much more affordable version of the content previously released in the hardbound 'Marvel Masterworks: Deathlok, volume 1' compilation published in 2009.

The Deathlok character debuted in issue 25 of Astonishing Tales, August 1974. I've posted the content of that first issue here.

Creator Rich Buckler claims to have had the concept of a cyborg superhero in mind well before the March, 1973 debut of the TV series 'The Six Million Dollar Man'. Be that as it may, cyborgs were very much a 70s 'in' thing, and were embedded in the pop culture consciousness well before 1984 and the release of 'The Terminator'.

When I read the first few installments of the Deathlok character back in 1974, I was impressed: here was an offbeat antihero who freely killed people - innocent people - as part of his programming as a mercenary in the employ of a high-tech cabal. 

Throw in the fact that the Deathlok storyline was set in a devastated New York city of the future (i.e., 1990) where homicidal cannibals lurked among the ruins, and you had  a downbeat, dystopian view of the superhero comic........something new and unexpected in comic books at that time.

The novelty of having an 'antihero' who not only wielded a gun (a rarity for superheroes in the Bronze Age when the Comics Code still dictated content), but routinely used it to kill people, obscured some faults with the comic that now are quite apparent when viewed 42 years later.

For one thing, the Marvel comics of the 70s were very over-written, and Buckler and Doug Moench, the main writers for the Deathlok episodes, were no exception to the trend. The main plot simply gets more incoherent and contrived with each episode, until it's better off to simply ignore it....

But the Astonishing Tales episodes were particularly hampered by the inclusion of not just speech balloons, but the additional placement of both monologue text boxes for Deathlok....and the computer that has been installed in his brain (which expresses itself in 'checkbook' font). This means that practically every panel in the Deathlok comics is burdened with all of this text:

Add the fact that the main story in Astonishing Tales was often allotted only 16 pages - an established policy at Marvel in the early to mid-70s, when the company's burgeoning output exceeded its staff's ability to manage - and the plots simply try to do too much with too small a page count.

At the time he illustrated the Astonishing Tales run, lead artist Rich Buckler was carrying a heavy workload at Marvel, as he was also illustrating The Fantastic Four. By and large his work on the Deathlok character was reasonably good, although there are more than a few panels where it's apparent he was cutting some corners. 

Those few fight sequences that aren't overloaded with text are very good:

After his initial run in Astonishing Tales, Deathlok was put out to pasture, one of the large cast of Marvel characters who were created during the 'anything goes', freewheeling atmosphere in the company's editorial offices during the 70s. 

The character never again took center stage in any series during the 70s and 80s, but he was periodically revived as a guest star in various other Marvel titles, and these are included in this compilation.

These episodes are competent, if not overly impressive, and usually involved some sort of throwaway 'time-travel' angle in order to have Deathlok meet up with one or another of the showcased Marvel heroes.

Deathlok's guest-star appearance in Marvel Two-In-One No. 27 (May 1977) as an unwilling assassin is a quintessential 70s comic, featuring President Jimmy Carter, the Fantastic Four, and even Nick Fury....

Probably the best of these 'guest star' appearances was the three-issue storyline in Captain America, issue 286 - 288 (October 1983 - December 1983). This time Luther Manning travels back in time to 1983, where he tells Captain America that - in what may be the future, or perhaps an alternate future - all superheroes have been eliminated. 

A skeptical Captain America travels forward in time to 1993, to discover that Deathlok may in fact be right....

The inclusion of these Captain America episodes ends the overall anthology on a reasonably high note.

The verdict ? If you're willing to overlook the flaws with the constant monologues that detail Luther Manning / Deathlok's all-encompassing sense of self-loathing, the increasingly unconvincing plots, and the perfunctory nature of some of the character's guest star appearances, these comics still retain a strong, unique sense of a 70s - style dystopia that prefigures not just the whole cyborg phenomenon, but also such pop culture touchstones as Escape from New York. So in that sense it's worth picking up, especially since used copies in good condition can be purchased for under $20.

Me and Joe Priest

Me and Joe Priest
by Greg Potter (story) and Ron Randall (art)
DC Graphic Novel No. 5, 1985

'Me and Joe Priest' (48 pp) was DC Comics Graphic Novel No. 5, published in 1985.

The story is set in the USA, ca. 2193; its premise is that disease, pollution, and radiation have combined to render every man sterile. 'The Great Drying' has left the country a neglected wasteland, where gangs both of bikers and citizens roam the roads in existential anomie, searching for the next 'Experience' to counter their depression as the human race slowly dies out. 

Lummox is one of the 'Desert Rangers' motorcycle gang roaming Arizona. He and the gang stumble across a farmer whose attractive blonde daughter is receiving a special rite from a priest.....

The priest, as it turns out, is..........Joe Priest:

 .......and Joe Priest, it seems, is the only man in the world who is fertile.

When Joe Priest insists that his holy mission consists of impregnating shapely young women across America, Lummox and his crew are less than reverential, beating Joe up before moving on to their next 'Experience.'

But, bored and possessed of a warped sense of humor, Lummox agrees to squire Joe Priest across the Southwest.

In so doing, he comes into conflict with bands of cultists who are out to eliminate Joe Priest. These cultists have been sent by a deranged cleric, a man from Priest's past named Cardinal Baylin.

Despite his initial mocking amusement at Joe Priests' behavior, as the two travel together, Lummox comes to realize that Joe Priest is genuinely convinced of the validity of his holy mission.....and Lummox finds himself risking life and limb, as Joe Priest moves towards his final confrontation with Baylin....

'Me and Joe Priest' is one of those graphic novels / comic books that tries to straddle the genres of action and comedy. Ron Randall's artwork is very good, but Greg Potter's script - which tries to meld episodes of smarmy humor with post-apocalyptic action- reveals the major plot point quite early on in the story, making much of the intervening narrative simple filler.

Summing up, 'Me and Joe Priest' is yet another DC Graphic Novel that is not a must-have. But if you do see it on the shelves for just a couple of bucks, it may be worth picking up.

Dan Dare Vs Mekon

Dan Dare Vs Mekon
from the 'Hollow World' series
2000 AD comics Prog 16 (June 11, 1977)
Scanned from Dan Dare: The 2000 AD Years Volume 1 (2000 AD, November 2015)

In this episode, Dan Dare and his friend Rok - a human/dog alien hybrid (!) - are captured by Dare's old adversary Mekon, who has allied himself with a two-headed alien pirate (!) called the 'Two of Verath'.

Dan decides to make a break for freedom, and in the script by Steve Moore, delivers a brutal dose of Boot Leather to the face of the hapless Two of Verath.

Things don't go the way as planned, however, and soon Dare finds himself subjected to a grotesque inquisition - mediated by a Blob that, according to Mekon, once committed a crime '....so unspeakably alien,that no being in our galaxy can even understand it !' 

Classic British sci-fi, with the irreverent, Punk - era edge unique to the 2000 AD series. 

(And some amazing art by Massimo Bellardinelli.... )

Book Review: Science Against Man

Book Review: 'Science Against Man' 
edited by Anthony Cheetham

3 / 5 Stars

'Science Against Man' (221 pp) was published by Avon books in December, 1970. The cover artist is uncredited.

'Science Against Man' is an anthology of original stories written especially for this volume. Like Damon Knight's Orbit anthologies, which were popular venues for sf short stories and novelettes at the time, the emphasis in 'Science' is on stories with a New Wave dimension.

My capsule reviews of the contents:

The Lost Continent, by Norman Spinrad: Spinrad's work during the New Wave era could be offbeat and imaginative, or offbeat and unreadable. Fortunately this novelette is one of his better works. It's set in a near-future USA brought low by deadly pollution and economic collapse. A group or prosperous African tourists take in the ruins of old New York City; mutants live in the subway system. There are some proto-cyberpunk flavorings here that make this the best entry in the anthology.

In the Beginning, by Robert Silverberg: this is the short story that eventually was expanded into the novel The World Inside. In the future, overcrowding means that humanity is obligated to live in Urban Monads, enormous high-rise structures that house 800,000 people.

The Hunter at His Ease, by Brian Aldiss: in the near future, the Western powers foment eco-destruction of the Third World....just to have something interesting to do.

Man's Estate, by Paul Ableman: in a future Earth ruled by benevolent computers, one of the few surviving humans confronts a crisis. Rendered in a figurative, stream-of-consciousness prose style, this short story is..........incoherent.

Harold Wilson at the Cosmic Cocktail Party, by Bob Shaw: prominent statesmen live on after death, as AIs inside a giant computer.

Statistician's Day, by James Blish: in the future, overpopulation doesn't just mean mandatory birth control......but Death Control, too.

The Invisible Idiot, by John Brunner: when supercomputers go bad, some old fashioned doctoring is required.

Small Mouth, Bad Taste, by Piers Anthony: two imaginative paleontologists make an interesting discovery.

The Ever-Branching Tree, by Harry Harrison: in the future, kids learn about Evolution via time machine. Too pedantic to be effective.

Sea Wolves, by Michael Moorcock: a Jerry Cornelius story, very New Wave-ish, consisting of a series of loosely linked vignettes, rather than a short story per se. I was Bored. 

The Penultimate Trip, by Andrew Travers: a man experiences hallucinations associated with his imprisonment. While its plotless nature makes this story another yet New Wave casualty, it retains enough of an offbeat tenor to make it worth reading.

The verdict ? 'Science Against Man' is no worse, and no better, than any of the other myriad all-original sf anthologies that were issued in the New Wave era. When all is said and done, the Spinrad novelette is what makes it worth searching for.

The Invaders (Weird Worlds)

The Invaders
from Weird Worlds No. 4, August 1971 (Eerie publications)

Eerie publications never provided attribution information in their comics, but judging by the signature in the bottom right-hand corner of the first page, it's likely that Antonio Reynoso is the artist of this atmospheric, effective piece about alien invaders.

[The cover art, by Johnny Bruck, is expropriated from a 1960s issue of the German tabloid magazine Perry Rhodan.....Myron Fass and Carl Burgos at Eerie Publications weren't shy about stealing art from other publishers].

Book Review: The Probability Corner

Book Review: 'The Probability Corner' by Walt and Leigh Richmond

1 / 5 Stars

‘The Probability Corner’ (177 pp) was published by Ace Books in September 1977. The cover artist is uncredited.

I picked up ‘Corner’ with an eye towards seeing if it was an undiscovered gem of a proto-cyberpunk novel. 

It isn’t. 

In fact, it’s pretty bad…..

The novel is set in the late 70s in Minnesota, where a mainframe computer in a corporation that does top-secret work for the government shows signs of having been hacked by enemies unknown. A trio of FBI agents is assigned to investigate.

Nearby, a young teenage genius named Oley discovers that he is ‘receiving’ thoughts of breakthrough technologies, including energy modulating coil assemblies, and a pedal-powered ultralight airplane. In his workshop - a converted fallout shelter - Oley begins work on assembling the equipment whose images and designs he has 'received.'

The two separate plot lines gradually converge, and it becomes increasingly clear that a new type of human-computer interface has been created – one that allows a newly formed AI to ‘telepathically’ communicate with young people. This Apple II – era Singularity is in peril, however, because an overzealous FBI agent is convinced that Oley and his young friends are the hackers who have compromised federal secrets……

‘Corner’ could have been an interesting novel despite its rather far-fetched premise; unfortunately, the husband-and-wife team of Walt and Leigh Richmond are intent on using the novel as an advertisement for ‘The Centric Foundation’. 

According to the relevant entry in Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature: A Checklist, 1700-1974, Volume II (1979), edited by R. Reginald,

Accordingly, much of the content of 'Corner' is devoted to expounding - in tedious passages of pedantic dialogue - on the philosophy of The Centric Foundation, which, at best, sounds like a bad version of the hokey physics showcased in such 70s touchstone New Wave books as The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu Li Masters. 

These dialogue passages are really awful - Oley the 70s teen refers to people and concepts which he dislikes as 'nits', his older sister Hilda refers to him as 'Afterthought', and the discourses on computer programming are little more than gobbledygook - for example, there are references to the 'physical brain and psionic brain' that defines our intellect. It's the sort of pretentious language that is used by people who have done some Reading on the Subject, but don't really know what they are talking about.
  
The verdict ? 'The Probability Corner' is a not an undiscovered gem of a proto-cyberpunk novel....... It's a dud ! Stay away from this one.

The Trigan Empire

The Trigan Empire
by Mike Butterworth (story) and Don Lawrence (art)
Crescent Books, 1978

'The Trigan Empire' (189 pp) was published by Crescent Books in 1978.

'The Trigan Empire' was a British science-fiction comic that first appeared in September 1965 in the magazine Ranger, before transitioning to the magazine Look and Learn in 1966, after which it ran for an impressive 854 issues until April,1982.

This Crescent book - back in 1978, the term 'graphic novel' didn't really exist - compiles episodes from 1965 - 1968. It's not an overly quality-conscious effort; Crescent was a 'budget' publisher whose titles dominated the contents of the remainder tables in bookstores throughout the US in the 70s. This book is 'bare bones'; it lacks any sort of Introduction or Preface that provides information about the comics or their creators.

The narrative relates the History of the Trigan Empire, which flourished long, long ago on Elekton, an Earth-like planet located in a distant galaxy.

The initial episodes describe the founding of the Empire by a bronze-age nomadic tribe led by the brothers Trigo and Brag. Although severely outgunned by the technologically superior Lokans, the warmongering tribe who seek to conquer all of Elekton, the bravery and resourcefulness of Trigo and Brag wins the day, and allows the Trigan Empire to become established as a global power.

The remaining episodes in the compilation deal with various challenges and plots to the supremacy of Trigo and Brag; increasingly, the narrative features as lead protagonists two boys, Janno and Keren, with whom the readership of Look and Learn would more closely identify.

The scripting for these episodes was done by Mike Butterworth, who wrote the majority of the scripts for the series. 

Butterworth's plots are simple and straightforward, obviously reflecting the fact that the strip was appearing in a magazine for a juvenile readership. The Trigan Empire regularly finds itself threatened by conspiracies and plots from within, as well as the machinations of the other, hostile civilizations of Elekton. That said, although wordy compared to modern sf comics, Butterworth's scripts are fast-moving and entertaining, and succeed in holding the attention of the reader, something that many contemporary US comics are not able to do.

Indeed, I thought the level of the writing also is quite sophisticated by comparison with contemporary comics for kids and tweeners, which are necessarily simplistic, as they are aimed at a generation of 'post-literate' readers who perpetually are glued to tablets and smartphones. 

It's also surprising to see how many deaths are depicted in 'Trigan', particularly when you remember it was published in a magazine for kids; although these deaths are never depicted in a graphic manner, they are part of the overall moral message of the series, i..e, good triumphs, and evil will eventually be punished. It's doubtful that as high a body count - which often is mediated by falling from great heights - would be permitted in any contemporary children's comic..........

The pages of this Crescent Books compilation appear to have been generated from photographs of copies of Look and Learn, rather than the original artwork. 

Despite the low-res quality of the reproductions, the cheaper grade of paper, and the poor color separations of this compilation, the high caliber of the artwork and the coloring used in the original series still is apparent. (Although Don Lawrence is the name most associated with the Trigan comics, a number of other artists also contributed.) 

The artistic team is adept at drawing human faces and expressions, buildings, landscapes, futuristic vehicles, and even a monster or two. The draftsmanship on display in these comics from the mid-60s remains unsurpassed by anything in contemporary graphic art.

Stylistically, 'The Trigan Empire' is an offbeat mix of Greco-Roman culture and architecture; most of the narrative takes place among tribes situated in Mediterranean-like desert and mountain landscapes. 

The spaceships, military vehicles, and weapons wielded by the inhabitants of Elekton are of the postwar, Atomic Age variety:

Summing up, 'The Trigan Empire' remains one of the high points of British sf comics. 

Sadly, finding a copy of this book at an affordable price is difficult (those advertised on amazon start at $161, which is very steep). Hopefully a more affordable reprint collection will be produced in the coming years.......