Marvel Comics Group · Astonishing Tales #25 · August 1974 · 20¢ · 36 pages
Grade: VF 8.0
Cover by Rich Buckler and Klaus Janson.
“Deathlok the Demolisher!” — written by Doug Moench, penciled by Rich Buckler, inked by Klaus Janson. Luther Manning wakes up in the ruins of a near-future America with no memory of how he got there and a machine where half his body used to be. The computer integrated into his frame — Puter — has its own agenda, and Manning's struggle to assert his humanity against a system designed to override it is the engine that drives the entire issue. Moench plants the full origin here: the military experiment, the death and reanimation, the grotesque gap between the soldier Manning was and the weapon he's become. Buckler's layouts are dense and kinetic, full of distorted perspectives and hard shadow — exactly the right visual register for a story set in a bombed-out dystopia where nothing is clean or certain.
Janson's inks tighten Buckler's pencils into something with real weight — this is early Janson, still finding his voice, but the textures he brings to Manning's cyborg components are already doing serious work. The combination gives Deathlok a grim physicality that separates him from the spandex-and-optimism end of the Marvel Bronze Age roster.
Astonishing Tales had been running Ka-Zar as its lead feature since #1. Issue #25 dropped all of that and handed the book to a brand-new character with no preamble — first appearance, first issue, full origin in one shot. Deathlok went on to influence decades of cyborg and post-apocalyptic storytelling at Marvel and well beyond. This is where it starts.
Condition VF 8.0 — .
We use what the scientists are calling artificial intelligence to research and write our descriptions — it gives us more time to add books to our website and provide you with a wider array of inventory. We think Klaatu would approve. Details are verified but the robot does slip up. We're not infallible. Every book is graded by a human collector who has actually held it. If anything ever looks off, reach on out at robopictocomics@gmail.com.
Marvel Comics Group · Astonishing Tales #25 · August 1974 · 20¢ · 36 pages
Grade: VF 8.0
Cover by Rich Buckler and Klaus Janson.
“Deathlok the Demolisher!” — written by Doug Moench, penciled by Rich Buckler, inked by Klaus Janson. Luther Manning wakes up in the ruins of a near-future America with no memory of how he got there and a machine where half his body used to be. The computer integrated into his frame — Puter — has its own agenda, and Manning's struggle to assert his humanity against a system designed to override it is the engine that drives the entire issue. Moench plants the full origin here: the military experiment, the death and reanimation, the grotesque gap between the soldier Manning was and the weapon he's become. Buckler's layouts are dense and kinetic, full of distorted perspectives and hard shadow — exactly the right visual register for a story set in a bombed-out dystopia where nothing is clean or certain.
Janson's inks tighten Buckler's pencils into something with real weight — this is early Janson, still finding his voice, but the textures he brings to Manning's cyborg components are already doing serious work. The combination gives Deathlok a grim physicality that separates him from the spandex-and-optimism end of the Marvel Bronze Age roster.
Astonishing Tales had been running Ka-Zar as its lead feature since #1. Issue #25 dropped all of that and handed the book to a brand-new character with no preamble — first appearance, first issue, full origin in one shot. Deathlok went on to influence decades of cyborg and post-apocalyptic storytelling at Marvel and well beyond. This is where it starts.
Condition VF 8.0 — .
We use what the scientists are calling artificial intelligence to research and write our descriptions — it gives us more time to add books to our website and provide you with a wider array of inventory. We think Klaatu would approve. Details are verified but the robot does slip up. We're not infallible. Every book is graded by a human collector who has actually held it. If anything ever looks off, reach on out at robopictocomics@gmail.com.
