Deathlok 1991-1994

Deathlock (1991-1994)

Marvel Comics

I've always been a fan of the 'Deathlok' character from Marvel comics, starting with his first appearance in 'Astonishing Tales' No. 25 (cover date August 1974). Deathlok, created by Rich Buckler circa 1972, predated Martin Caidin's 'Cyborg' as an iconic cybernetics - based superhero.

 

Buckler's Deathlok, which appeared in 'Astonishing Tales' from 1974 to 1976, was a marked departure from the Marvel superhero paradigm. Deathlok was set apart from the Marvel universe, in a dystopian, 1990s USA marked by social anarchy and a military-industrial complex run riot. 

 

The stories had a bleak, existential quality and featured content that pushed the boundaries of the Comics Code as far as violence was concerned; Deathlok would just as soon shoot somebody, as opposed to knocking them out for later incarceration.

 

In 1990 Marvel published a four-issue miniseries, titled 'Deathlok', and the response was encouraging enough for the company to relaunch the character in his own eponymous series, which ran for 34 issues, from April 1991 to April 1994.

 

The Great Comics Boom of the 1990s then was underway. It's worth noting that, according to Jason Sacks and Keith Dallas in their book 'American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1990s,' in November of 1993 Marvel produced 128 comic books, compared to 92 comics for November 1992 (page 117). Anything that Marvel thought might sell, got packaged and sent to the stores.

Last summer I picked up the entire 1990s run of Deathlok (including the two Annuals) for a very affordable $15.

Also worth noting is the 2015 trade paperback, 'Deathlok: The Souls of Cyber-Folk,' which compiles the first 15 issues, and one Annual, from the 1991 series.

Unlike the 1974 Deathlok, the 1991 version was part of the Marvel universe, a move which allowed for well-known Marvel heroes and villains to make guest appearances (and boost circulation).

 

 

 

Whereas Luther Manning, the original Deathlok, was somewhat ambiguous in terms of his racial identity, the new Deathlok, Michael Collins, was black. Writers Denys Cowan and Dwayne McDuffie were black as well. Black superheroes and creative teams were starting to gain momentum in the early 1990s, and in 1993, Cowan and Mcduffie would go on to form Milestone, the first black-owned comic book publishing company, which issued its books through DC comics.

Reading the 1991 series, I have a mixed reaction. On the one hand, the series definitely has some energy to it, with plenty of segments of furious action that recall the tenor of the original series. On the other hand, Cowan and McDuffie, and later, writer Gregory Wright, are insistent that Michael Collins exhibits a pacifistic attitude, which deprives the character and setting of the edgy quality of the original series. After a while, the humanistic homilies that drive the Michael Collins Deathlok get tiresome.

  

 

 

However contrived, the appearances of various guest stars from elsewhere in the Marvel pantheon does lend some interesting twists to the storylines. This is particularly true of the final four issues (#31 - #43) when, in the 'Cyberstrike' story arc, the original Deathlok arrives to team up with the Michael Collins incarnation of the character. Lots of big guns, in the style of 1990s action comics:

In the early 1990s cyberpunk was a growing pop culture motif and the Deathlok writers worked it into their story lines. Michael Collins was a computer expert prior to becoming Deathlok, and as the cyborg, he routinely would enter cyberspace for one reason or another. The artists did a reasonably good job of depicting this facet of the series.

One of the better story arcs involves a three-issue adventure in Wakanda, with the Black Panther fighting side-by-side with Deathlok to prevent a usurper from taking over the country
 

 

Looking through these 1990s comics, I'm struck by the various gimmicks and come-ons, such as foil-embossed covers, that were part and parcel of the comics boom of that era. It's also interesting to see that, in the 90s, artists and editors with a high-profile status were able to earn money via independent appearances at comics-related events.

 

One area where these comics have not aged well is in the color schemes. Page after page of these Deathlok issues, like so many Marvel comics of the early 1990s, have remarkably ugly coloration. It's as if Pantone had a 'dogshit shades and hues' category, which Marvel was partial to. 

 

To be fair, the crappy color was due in part to the decision by World Color in Sparta, Illinois, to switch from their old and failing letterpress equipment to 'Flexographic' printing, using rubber plates. Flexographic meant that Marvel and other publishers could continue to produce comics, at the cost of shittier print quality.

 

The result was panels and pages (like the ones below) where the colors make your eyes hurt......

 

 

 

Interestingly, as I was perusing these 1990s Deathlok issues earlier this Fall, Marvel released a 'Luther Manning.....Deathlok' one-shot comic as part of its commemoration of the character's 50th anniversary:
 

As the title indicates, this one-shot revives the original character and places him in the dystopian New York City of the 1974 incarnation.

Much as I like Deathlok, this one-shot was a disappointment. The opening sequence of the book, designed to introduce the character to the 21st century readership, was incoherent. Once the narrative moved into present-day (so to speak) and the ruins of the city it steadied a bit, although still it tried to cram too many story beats into too few pages (a common failing of Marvel titles). The ending was contrived and made no sense, other than to try and provoke those few people who still buy 'floppies' (i.e., traditional comic books) into keeping an eye out for some future Deathlok limited edition series.

 

In keeping with the mercenary marketing philosophies that rule Marvel nowadays, this 50th anniversary issue had four different covers, designed to pry more cash from the fanboys. Needless to say, I resisted and just got the one book.....

When all is said and done, the 1990s incarnation of Deathlok is a readable, if not overly memorable, series. If you can find the comics for a reasonable price, and you like the franchise and science fiction-themed comics, then it's worth getting. I am not aware of any Marvel 'omnibus' in preparation that would collect the 34-issue run but if I do get word of such a production I'll post about it here at the PorPor Blog.

Book Review: Plunder

February is Gold Medal Books Month at the PorPor Books Blog

Book Review: 'Plunder' by Benjamin Appel

 

3  / 5 Stars

'Plunder' (180 pp.) is Gold Medal book No. 266 and was published in October, 1952. According to his New York Times obituary, author Appel (1907 - 1977) published more than 25 books between 1934 and 1977, many of these novels in the noir and crime genres. 'Funhouse' (aka 'The Deathmaster,' 1959) is science fiction. 'People Talk: American Voices from the Great Depression,' first issued in 1940 and reprinted by Touchstone in 1982, is an oral history of that era.

Stark House Press has republished some of Appel's crime novels, including 'Plunder.'

Appel also wrote a number of books for juveniles under the 'We Were There' imprint, such as 'We Were There in the Klondike Gold Rush.' I may well have read some of these when I was a kid - !

'Plunder' is set in the Philippines in April, 1945, just a month or so after the end of the brutal Battle for Manila (which killed an estimated 100,000 civilians). Vice and corruption seethe in Manila, as the destitute and impoverished Filipinos try to make as much money as possible from the American military, before it ships out in order to pursue the Japanese elsewhere in the Pacific. Amid the ruins of the city, neighborhoods have been turned into Red Light Districts, where bars, brothels, and souvenir shops compete for the pesos being spent by G.I.s. 

In the opening chapter we learn that the novel's protagonist, Joe 'the Lawyer' Trent, is in the stockade for deserting the battle in order to work in a brothel called the Five Sisters. In the stockade, Trent befriends a swarthy G.I. named 'Blacky' MacIntyre, who is willing to buy into Trent's promises of wealth and women. Trent makes a bargain with First Sergeant Murdock, the stockade NCO, to escape confinement. Fifty miles later, Trent and Blacky are back in Manila, and Trent is ready to wheel and deal.

Working with Tommy Cruz, the owner of the Five Sisters, Trent schemes to masquerade as a Military Police (M.P.) officer, and acquire easy pesos by coercing the owners of the other red light brothels and bars into paying protection money. Trent is very good at exploiting the avarice of the officers in charge of various Army logistics units in Manila, into playing along with one clandestine business arrangement after another.

As the novel progresses, Trent's flair for illicit commerce leads to the creation of a syndicate that has its fingers in all manner of commodities, and Joe is a thorough man-about-town, consorting with a rotating cast of beautiful mistresses and influential gangsters. But Joe has a big weakness: his greed has no bounds. Sooner rather than later, Joe Trent is going to discover that once dishonesty exceeds a certain threshold, retribution is all but assured.....

One thing 'Plunder' does very well is remind the reader of the aspects of the American involvement in World War Two that tend not to be mentioned in the history books: the massive scale of corruption and profiteering that mushroomed in the war zones once the shooting stopped, and the hustlers saw their chance to operate. In such an environment morals evaporated and transgressions became commonplace.

Appel was present in the Philippines following World War Two, as an aid to the American High Commissioner (and later Ambassador) Paul McNutt, so Appel's descriptions of wartime Manila, its commerce (open and clandestine), Tagalog phrases, and G.I. slang and idioms, give the novel considerable verisimilitude.

Where the novel falters is in its final third, where the prose gets florid and Blacky's psychological turmoil gets so much attention that it drains momentum from the narrative. As well, readers are unlikely to be surprised by the denouement, which takes its time in arriving.

Summing up, 'Plunder' is a solid Three Star crime novel. If you like a blend of noir and exotic locales, then it's a worthy read.

Lookin Out for #1 BTO

Lookin' Out for #1

by Bachman Turner Overdrive

1976

An underappreciated, brilliant little gem of a song. 'Lookin' Out for #1' was recorded on the 1975 BTO LP Head On, and released in the USA in 1976 as a single. It reached number 65 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

 

The song starts off as a downbeat, bluesie number, one with a stark message perfect for the 'Me' decade. But then, in its coda, it suddenly transitions to a progressive rock - jazz fusion melody. Stuff that bands could do, back in the mid-1970s.

 

You can listen to 'Lookin' Out for #1' here.

Book Review: Mad River

 January is Gold Medal Books Month at the PorPor Books Blog

Book Review: 'Mad River' by Donald Hamilton

1 / 5 Stars

Donald Hamilton (1916 - 2006) was a very successful writer of paperback fiction from the 1950s on into the 1980s. Twenty-eight of his 42 books were novels about the secret agent Matt Helm, but Hamilton also produced several western novels, one of these being 'Mad River,' first issued in 1956 by Collier, and later reprinted (date unknown) as Gold Medal book No. k1500.

'Mad' is set in the Arizona Territory, in the late 19th century. The protagonist is Boyd Cohoon, who, at twenty-four years of age, has just finished serving a five-year sentence at the territorial prison in Yuma. As the novel opens, Cohoon is returning to his hometown of Sombrero, which, unfortunately is under the thumb of the mining tycoon Paul Westerman.

It transpires that Cohoon's prison term is linked to a robbery that cost the life of Westerman's son Harry, and Westerman has nothing but animosity for Cohoon. And a message: get out of town, and don't come back.

Of course, Boyd Cohoon isn't scared of Westerman, nor of the town Marshall, Willie Black, who takes his marching orders from the mining magnate. Cohoon is less interested in following Westerman's dictates, and more interested in trying to figure out who bushwhacked his father and brother while Cohoon was imprisoned in Yuma.

Cohoon's also in town to settle accounts with the Paradine family. Claire Paradine once was his fiancee, but Cohoon knows that things can change with five years apart. There is her brother Francis, who shares complicity with Cohoon in past misdeeds in the arroyos and canyons outside of Sombrero. And then there is Colonel Paradine, who is accustomed to using guile, as well as wads of cash, to deter potential problems.

Sticking around Sombrero and prying into things left better left alone is a good way for Boyd Cohoon to put his life at risk from any number of parties, including the 'General,' a mysterious bandit who has been robbing the town bank with a disturbing regularity. As Cohoon makes his way around the dry and dusty streets of Sombrero, he'll need to keep an eye out for firearms leveled at him from the shadows.......

'Mad River' is a perfunctory effort from Donald Hamilton. It reads as a crime or mystery novel that was repurposed to a western. Even though the novel is only 143 pages in length, it is a  sluggish read. There is no real action until page 85, and Boyd Cohoon doesn't even fire a weapon with deadly intent until page 140. Much of the narrative is taken up with dialogue passages that relate the emotional interactions of the lead characters, and the final chapters rely on contrivances to pull together various complicated intrigues, and Whodunit revelations, that are out of place in a Western novel.

While I certainly wasn't expecting 'Mad River' to have the energetic violence of a George Gilman / Terry Harkness 'Edge' novel, it's a bloodless adventure reminiscent of the Marvel  westerns of the Post Comics Code-era, when the Two-Gun Kid, the Rawhide Kid, and Kid Colt all had to shoot the guns from their adversaries' hands because the Code discouraged depictions of people being struck by gunfire. 

If you enjoy that sort of western, you might like 'Mad River,' but all others can pass on this vintage Gold Medal title. For the sake of fairness, however, I will point out that a review at the Vintage Pop Fictions blog found the book to be more rewarding.

Book Review: The Hoods Come Calling

January is Gold Medal Books Month at the PorPor Books Blog

Book Review: 'The Hoods Come Calling' by Nick Quarry

 3 / 5 Stars

 

'The Hoods Come Calling' (160 pp.) was published by Fawcett in 1958, as Gold Medal Books No. 747. It's one of a number of Gold Medal crime novels, featuring private eye Jake Barrow, authored by Marvin H. Albert under his pen name 'Nick Quarry.'

 

Albert (1924 - 1996) published over 100 nonfiction and fiction works, the latter in a variety of genres.

 

'Hoods' is set in New York city in the late 1950s. After a two-year absence, Jake Barrow has returned to the place where he grew up. Barrow is hoping to start his own private-eye business. To do this, he needs the $1,600 that his estranged wife Carla presumably has been safekeeing in their joint bank account. 

 

Getting the money won't be easy. Jake and Carla have a troubled history. Carla is quite a looker, but also has a problem with staying faithful, one of the reasons Jake felt compelled to leave the city in the first place. 

 

At a party hosted by Eddie Jerango, a childhood friend and now a mover in the city's underworld, Jake meets a swell dame named Sandy Adams. Jake also learns that Carla now is the squeeze of Buddy Jerango, Eddie's brother. Hot-headed and intemperate, Jake creates a public scene with Carla and Buddy, a scene that ends badly for Jake.

 

When, soon after, Carla is murdered, Jake finds himself the lead suspect. With just days to find the murderer and clear his name, a desperate Jake prowls the summertime streets and hood haunts of the city, looking for clues to the identity of the perpetrator. Luckily Sandy Adams is willing to help him out; she's got beauty and brains, and seems to show up in the right place at the right time. Maybe Sandy is too good to be true...........?

 

'Hoods' is one of those rarer Gold Medal titles that, for most of its length, delivers a well-told, and well-plotted, hardboiled crime story. Author Quarry / Albert has the style down pat:

 

    It was a cheap hotel, down near Times Square. A small room and bath with a view of an open airshaft for two-and-a-half a day. The first dirty streaks of dawn were creeping into the night sky as I let myself into the room and locked the door.

 

    I didn't turn on the light. I went straight to the bureau and opened the top drawer. The flat pint of rye was still there, under my shirts. I carried it into the bathroom, got a tumbler and poured the rye into it. The neck of the pint kept clinking against the glass as I poured. 

 

    I gulped it all down without taking the glass from my teeth. When I poured again, my hands were no longer shaking. I carried the bottle and the filled glass into the other room and sat on the edge of the bed. I sat there till I'd finished the bottle. My brain was rocking like a rowboat in a squall. 

 

'Hoods' is standard-issue private-eye fiction from the postwar era; when it comes to hand-hand combat, Jake takes on all comers and, while he may suffer some superficial damage, always manages to get the best of his adversaries. Helping to sooth his injuries and tribulations is the fact that Barrow regularly meets comely young women who, for some reason, can't help wanting to sleep with him. 

 

Where the novel falters is in its final chapters, where all sorts of loopholes and contrivances lead to the discovery of Whodunit and their fate. It's a flaw not unusual in many private eye tales but, given the higher quality of the initial chapters in the book, it seemed as more of a letdown to me.

 

I'm willing to investigate other entries in the Jake Barrow franchise, but I'm hoping their conclusions are more convincing that what I read in 'Hoods.' 

Playboy January 1974

Playboy

January, 1974

Time to travel back in time 51 years, to January, 1974, and take a look at the latest issue of Playboy magazine. It's a thriving publication, with a hefty 294 pages celebrating the magazine's twentieth anniversary. And all for $1.50 ! Compare and contrast to today's magazines.........

 

There is quite a lineup of premiere contributors for this special issue, all of whom are very much in tune of the magazine's major demographic; men over the age of 40:

The Interview features none other than Hugh Hefner himself. Hef is living large in these mid-1970s years, enjoying the company of his girlfriend Barbi Benton, and hanging out at the Playboy mansion amidst all the cool people who want to see and be seen. Hef is very much  the international man of adventure, looked upon with admiration. 

 

In the Interview he does display some rancor towards Bob Guccione and Penthouse (which by '74 had a larger circulation than Playboy), Gallery, Genesis, and other 'imitators,' but Hef seems secure in the knowledge that these 'copycats' fails to offer anything that is 'fresh and original.'

This January issue features a portfolio of all 12 Playmates from 1973. Ironically, these photos all have adopted the soft-focus photography pioneered by Guccione. But, hey: whether soft- focus or not, these are some foxy ladies !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Along with the portfolios, there are some interesting fiction and nonfiction articles in this January issue.

A profile of comedian Jerry Lewis is particularly sharp and acidic. O'Connell Driscoll, the author of the piece, was allowed to 'tail' Lewis for several months in the spring of 1973.

 

Driscoll apparently was able to record everything Lewis said, verbatim, although the article does not explicitly state this. 'Birthday Boy' starts off with Lewis staying at the Deauville Hotel in Miami in March, 1973, where he is co-performing in a comedy show with Milton Berle. Lewis has just turned 47 and his career is fading. He is frustrated and unhappy with having to do a lame show with Uncle Milty, a signal of has-been status, playing to the elderly Jewish retirees in the Miami area. As the article progresses, it becomes ever clearer that Lewis is flailing, trying to find some outlet that will grant him the fame and appreciation in the USA, that he enjoys in Europe.

At the close of the article, Driscoll is present when Lewis is doing the edits on the footage of the (never-released) movie The Day the Clown Cried. Seemingly indifferent to the fact that he is being recorded, Lewis shows how odious and unpleasant a person he can be:

You can read the entire 'Birthday Boy' article here.

 

'Haiti, Goodby,' an article by Bruce Jay Friedman is decidedly more appealing. Friedman, having left behind his days as an editor of 'sweat' magazines at Martin Goodman's Magazine Management publishing firm, describes his 1973 stay at the Hotel Oloffson, a resort hotel in Port-Au-Prince. It's bizarre to realize that fifty years ago people would willingly go to Haiti on vacation, although - as Friedman tells it - the Europeans and Americans he encountered at the Oloffson were towards the stranger end of the spectrum.

John Updike was one of the leading authors in the USA in 1974, and he has a short story in this January issue.

'Nevada' features Updike's favorite type of character: a Jewish man, closer to middle-age than he would prefer, who is confronting a personal crisis. Culp is the character's name, and his crisis, a divorce from his wife Sarah. While the ex enjoys a honeymoon with her new hubbie, Culp is tasked with looking after his two daughters. The three of them take an existential journey through the heat and emptiness of Nevada, where, by the story's end, Culp finds a measure of self-renewal. It's a good story.

And that, dear reader, is how it was, back in January of 1974...........

Book Review: Lucinda

 January is Gold Medal Books Month at the PorPor Books Blog

Book Review: 'Lucinda' by Howard Rigsby

 

2 / 5 Stars

Howard Vechel Rigsby (1909 – 1975) wrote a number of novels and short stories in the gothic romance, suspense, and western genres in the 1950s and 1960s. ‘Lucinda’ was published in 1954 by Fawcett / Gold Medal books.

The novel is set in the late 1940s / early 1950s. Judson Hay is a young artist who travels the back roads of northern California, looking for painterly scenes. When his girlfriend Julia asks him to try and find her employer, a lawyer named Malloy, who was last located in the coastal town of Mussel Point, Hay somewhat reluctantly agrees. But Hay’s efforts to travel to Mussel Point are upended when a chance encounter in the unmapped wilderness of the mountains makes him a witness to the murder of a man in a corduroy hat.

Labeled a possible suspect, Hay winds up hiding out in the remote fastness of Squatter’s Valley, a strange and rustic collection of log cabins and hillbillies straight out of a ‘Lil’ Abner’ comic strip. 

However impressive the mountain scenery surrounding Squatter’s Valley, it pales in comparison to the beauty of the eponymous Lucinda Plumb, a stunning 17 year-old girl whose parents are seeking to marry her off in a ‘Dogpatch’ – style convocation of eligible bachelors. The convocation, to be held few days hence by Lucinda’s mercenary father, has drawn the interest of all of the Valley’s bachelors, an unsavory lot of rustics with bad hygiene, missing teeth, and unsatisfied erotic yearnings.

While preoccupied with trying to learn who killed the 'corduroy hat man,' someone who well  may be trying to kill Judson, too, our hero finds himself falling for the amazing Lucinda. But identifying himself as a suitor for Lucinda draws the ire of those others seeking her hand: hard men, desperate men, who have no problem with loosing rifle shots at any competitors, especially ones from outside the Valley……..

‘Lucinda’ is a competent Gold Medal novel. There are some plot twists and turns that at times get a little too complicated for their own good, and the ending relies overmuch on sentimentality. I can’t say it’s worth searching out, but those with a fondness for the ‘milder’ Gold Medal titles may find it interesting.