Variant 07: Mechadoom of Deathlok (1991)
- Location
- Netherlands
Variant 07: Mechadoom (August-November 1991)
Introduction
Welcome to an interesting new spin on a Doctor Doom variant - the 'technically it counts, sort of?' that is the rogue Doombot! Now, granted, some of the canon appearances I cover in the main read order also turn out to have been rogue Doombots in one sense or another - but those are presented as Doctor Doom at time of release and later retconned, or also include the real Doom or Kristoff in the same issue. In these four comics, however, there's only a Doombot who never really pretend to be the original article at all. It's pretty refreshing, really!
These comics star the character Deathlok, who I haven't covered before. We're actually dealing with the third character by that name, following up from Luther Manning and John Kelly. Professor Michael Collins, the third of his moniker, used to be a pacifist employee working for the Roxxon-related cybernetics corporation Cybertek when he stumbled on the Deathlok program they were working on, which was basically about making Borg-zombies. He was soon shot with a sedative by Harlan Ryker and his brain transplanted into the body of the John Kelly Deathlok cyborg to serve as its processing hub. The machine was then used against rebels fighting against Roxxon's influence in the fictional South American country of Estrella - it's a whole thing.
Collins eventually regained his consciousness during that mission and stopped the cyborg programming that would have killed a small child - how quaint. Basically he's Robocop. Although his brain was intended to serve only as a medium for robot programming, he was able to assert his will over it, even installing a 'no-killing parameter' into its programming. The computer proves fully willing to listen to Collins, though he must take care to present his orders in a way that helps fulfill the mission and keeps people from dying. The computer is capable of understanding distinct concepts such as bluffing, like when Collins is forced to pretend to take a hostage, so it's not a total pain in the ass, even if the AI is pretty… ignorant of how the world works. Such is the status quo here, as we enter a story covered in the fifth through eight issues in which Collins ever appeared.
Covers
The covers of this four-part story are a varied bunch, with the first depicting an apparently unrelated scene of Deathlok and Misty Knight fighting an unidentifiable technological object hanging out nearby, with a cut-in that announced the presence of Forge of the X-Men, who apparently had a creepy mustache at the time. Despite the relatively nondescript cover, however, the very top of the page announces this as the first part of the 'Souls of Cyber-Folk' storyline, so we're in the right place. The perception is confirmed with the second cover, which has a full-blown face-off between Deathlok and Doctor Doom over the unconscious body of Misty with Kirby Krackle all around them. The title itself even seems to have gone from 'Deathlok' to 'Deathlok vs. Doom.' Promises, promises.
Moving to the third, then, the issue labelled 'Brain Drain' on its cover displays some sort of terrifying mechanical abomination attacking Deathlok with a metallic proboscis, presumably directly accessing his brain - the attacking creature doesn't really look much like Doom, but it could easily be some sort of robot. Which leaves the final cover, featuring the so-called 'Doombusters' which includes a host of guest stars from the Fantastic Four and X-Men, so presumably this depicts the cavalry rushing in to take care of business. The 'Doom' in 'Doombusters' is probably a reference to our dear pal Victor - though by where I'm covering this series, you might realize that's quite wrong. Out of these four covers, I'm naturally most partial to the second because of its content (and it reminds me of a Doom vs. Reed cover from way back) but I also like the third just for being creepy and weird...
Story Overview
Deathlok v2 #2 - Caught in the Cybernet
We open up with Misty Knight, private detective, holed up in an alleyway with Forge of the X-Men, mechanical genius. They've both seen their share of shit over the years, and they're about to see more! Both are heavily armed as they hide behind piles of trash, and they worriedly look out of their alley into what appears to be a Van Gogh painting, worried that 'those things' will make another pass. They then start blasting, but their guns don't prove terribly effective against their target, which turns out to be a bulky flying vehicle equipped with a dozen searchlights and cannons, which promptly returns fire. Ouch. The robotic ship heads straight for them, and Forge warns Misty to stay back, only to get grabbed by one of its prehensile metal tentacles. He tells Misty to get help, but she refuses to give up on him, aiming into the interior of the vehicle where the tentacle is coming from and blowing up the machine in a fiery explosion which knocks her unconscious in the aftermath.
We turn to our titular character, Deathlok, who is currently suspended in a very retro cyberspace non-location inside his own mind. Collins is busy considering his own situation, reading letters he wrote to his wife shortly after this whole cyborg situation happened to him. He narrates some of his backstory here, joking about the irony of a pacifist getting uploaded into the body of a war machine, and says that the letters he wrote make it seem like he's feeling sorry for himself - but the point was just to put his thoughts to paper and genuinely convey his emotions. He doesn't intend to give those letters to his wife until he's returned to his own human body, though. He's actually using the computer technology in the Deathlok cyborg to hunt down his human body right at that moment, but he hasn't had any luck yet. On one level the search is comforting, he says - on another it's quite isolating, and underlines how alone he feels.
Michael is interrupted by the computer in his head warning him that someone is trying to contact him outside cyberspace, and he decides to check that out. A flood of zeroes and ones suddenly pour into cyberspace, and he complains that he can't read that gibberish, after which the computer quickly converts it into the equivalent audio signal - it's a radio message from Misty Knight calling for him, asking if he's 'in the net.' Michael responds that he's impressed she found him, and wonders what she wants. Misty explains that she needs his help - a lot of people do. He says he's in the middle of something important, and Misty she tells him that he doesn't know half of what's going on, and asks if he would meet her. When Michael reluctantly asks where, Misty just answers that she's right outside his front door. Oh, did she mention she's a private detective…?
After leaving cyberspace, Michael dons a thick gray poncho to hide his cybernetics from view and heads outside to meet Misty, who is nevertheless shocked by the sight of his augmented face and flinches away. She immediately apologizes for reacting to his looks with horror, saying it was downright rude - and she really should be used to this sort of thing by now in her line of work. Michael just quips that she ought to see the guy who lost their fight, then introduces his roommate Jesus Badalemente. Misty says it's nice to meet him, but she's here for a private meeting with Deathlok, so can he maybe buzz off? Michael argues she can talk in front of him, but she denies it - he is a s-called 'fully' and not part of the community. Michael isn't sure what that even means, but Jesus decided he knows where he's not wanted and leaves. Afterwards, Misty reveals her big secret, baring her arm which promptly splits apart to reveal its inner cybernetic workings. She's a cyborg too!
Michael says she has his full attention, musing that another cyborg might be able to help get him back into his human body, and he doesn't really need any other reasons to hear her out. He asks Misty what all the secrecy is about, and she explains that after she got an artificial arm, she lost her job - now, as a private detective, she's working a case that involves a bunch of other Cybernets. When Michael asks for clarification on that term, Misty explains that it (or Netters) refers to anybody who is either a cyborg or a sentient robot - that is, cybernetic organisms or cybernetworks. 'Cute,' Michael opines. It seems it was a term of derision used by politically minded members of their little demographic, but they're trying to reclaim it now, make it positive again.
Michael gets the idea - control the language, control the terms of debate. He's familiar with the tactic, but regardless, he's not sure how these 'Cybernets' learned about him. Misty explains that some of the others have seen him swimming around cyberspace, and eventually one of them would have contacted him for their own reasons - but as it turns out, he's needed now. It seems dozens of Netters have disappeared over the last few weeks, and Misty is trying to track them down. She's already contacted or left word to as many cyborgs as she could reach, both to warn them and to ask for aid. Michael thinks it sounds bad, but he's not sure it's his problem. Misty points out that she found him, which means the bad guys can too, so he's as much of a target as any of them! Michael doesn't really think he's in much danger, but the prospect of talking to other cyborgs who might understand his plight is too much of a temptation to resist, and he signs on. He only has one request: she shouldn't call him Deathlok. He's Michael.
During their shared drive, lights appear in the rear-view mirror, and Misty decides that Michael is about to find out what he signed up for. Even as Michael's brain-computer starts a tactical analysis, Misty explains that they're called Capturebots, though they don't much care if you're alive or dead when they capture you. She has seen what these things can do, and tells Michael they'd better bail out of the car quickly. The computer agrees since it can register the charging of energy weapons on board the chasing aircraft. Both of them flee the car moments before it detonates in a big explosion. Michael asks if Misty is okay, and she confirms it - and the car was a rental. Nice sense of priorities! Micheal's computer determines nobody is on board the drone that's hunting them, so the 'no killing' rule does not apply, and unlocks all weapons.
Jumping across the roofs of some nearby cars, Michael tells his computer to make a battle plan which minimizes damage to passing cars, while moving to try and lead the Capturebot away from Misty. This proves ineffective, since the bot keeps chasing her instead, blasting her while she complains that some days it doesn't pay to even get out of bed. Deathlok takes aim from nearby and fires his best shot, which does severe damage to the bot, after which it turns to fire on him instead. As his brain-computer chimes in that the battle-plan was a success, Michael isn't sure how happy he's supposed to be about that as he's pelted by lasers.
The computer quickly maneuvers his body around the shots, then sends him into melee range - something a pacifist like Michael always really hates. The Capturebot deploys its tentacles which successfully restrain him, and when Misty calls from below that she can't get a clear shot, Michael replies that he can. He then fires his rifle directly into the open panel where the tentacles came from and explodes the entire vehicle, much to Misty's horror, since she believes him to have just committed suicide. Michael is fine, though, even if his computer whines that setting off explosives that close to himself is strongly contra-indicated. Misty asks him if he's okay, and Michael says he's fine, but she looks pretty shaken up herself - how about they grab a cab to her office? Misty is dubious, noting that it's tough for a Netter to get a cab in this city, and Michael quips that they must worry they want a ride all the way to the Presidents Exhibit at Disneyland - and you know what the crime is like up there!
Later, in the highrise offices of Knightwing Restorations, Michael helps repair Misty's cybernetic arm, which took some damage during the fight, and shares some coffee and donuts with her. Misty apologizes she has no real food, and Michael says he can't eat that anyway - he carries his own liquid formula for his artificial stomach. He'd offer to share - but she really wouldn't want any. Actually - neither does he! Michael picks up a picture from the desk, and is told it's Colleen Wing - Misty's partner. Misty explains she'd rather keep her out of this cyborg business - he trusts her more than she trusts herself, but all this… Michael says he gets it. Back in college he was a black guy with a white best friend, and there were places their friendship couldn't go.
Misty acknowledges the analogy, and notes that some people accuse her of being more comfortable around mutants and cyborgs than with her 'own' people - whoever they are supposed to be. She feels like she's trapped between two worlds - at least two. Michael pipes up with a quote: 'It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness... Two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.' Misty asks where that's from, and Michael explains it's from W. E. B. Du Bois, 'The Souls of Black Folk.' His father made him read it half a dozen times when he was a boy, but he never really understood why until now.
Michael tells Misty not to beat herself up over her feelings. When he was human, he was pretty assimilated to the dominant culture himself, as the only black man at his place of work, and in one of only two black families in his neighbourhood. Other than the occasional cutting remark, he was pretty comfortable in his illusion. He doesn't plan to ever get that comfortable as a cyborg, though. Misty decides that for the moment she's content to pass for human - but then, she has the option. She then promises Michael that when they're out of this mess, she'll help him get his human body back.
Later, Michael and Misty find their way to the scrapyard where she and Forge were attacked by the Capturebot at the start of the issue, and while they wait for Forge's friends to arrive, they figure they could look over the wrecked robot. Michael's computer starts scanning it, and reports that many of its systems could be restored to near-normal levels. Michael says he has an idea and retrieves a tool from his back, then starts following his computer's repair instructions - but in classic style, he does that before listening to the full instructions and accidentally activates the thing before rewriting its programming, and it attacks. Michael complains, but if a computer can sound exasperated, this one does - 'complete all instructions before proceeding to the first step,' it petulantly states. In any case, Michael wrestles with the Capturebot while the computer warns him that he might just break the same parts he just fixed again, but Michael says that's not really his biggest concern right now.
The robot manages to blast Michael aside for a moment, leaving Misty a sitting duck. She fires at the rubble to free him, then narrowly avoids a laser from the Capturebot in response before getting caught by its tentacle - this sequence of panels is rather confusing. At any rate she's grabbed, and then uses her bionic hand to rip the tentacle into chunks with sheer physical strength, before gathering her breath. She comes face to face with an array of guns and worries she's dead, just before Michael comes rushing back out of nowhere and blasts those guns to chunks. He then starts ripping into the front of the Capturebot and accesses the main circuit board, slaving it to his own computer and rendering the entire machine harmless. Ain't technology wonderful?
Michael tells Misty to hop in, since he reprogrammed the Capturebot to go back to its home base, which they'll be able to use to track down its owner. They can do some recon, sneak around, and then when Forge's friends arrive they can go clean house. Misty worriedly asks if he's sure the robot is under his control, and Michael laconically answers: 'No. Why?' They fly off towards the water, diving underneath towards a submerged base of some description. The computer notes there's no hostiles in the area, so they can have a look around. Hopefully they can find the missing cyborgs! If so, they'll come back for them later - odds are this place will be crawling with more Capturebots, and they can't take on more of those without help.
Michael's computer reports long-range readings of a bunch of lifesigns and separate power sources, and they head over in that direction. They come around a bend only to find… a random one-page joke comic! Well, yes. After that random interstitial, we get back to our story already in progress, where Michael and Misty have just stumbled across a host of missing cyborgs arrayed in a circle, all of them unconscious and strapped into some sort of elaborate machine. These include Forge, Jocasta, Ruby Thursday, Bushwhacker, Machine Man, and even Ultron! Michael asks the computer if he can help these people, but they seem to have been disassembled beyond his ability to repair.
Misty exclaims they're in trouble - she doesn't recognize everyone there, but she knows Machine Man and Ultron, and anyone who is capable of capturing them is definitely bad news. They have to contact the Avengers, the X-Men, somebody! Michael doesn't understand either - who could be powerful enough to take out all of these people? 'You dare ask?' a voice asks from off-panel. That's when a familiar robed figure steps into the scene, his arms crossed over his armored chest. He introduces himself as Doctor Doom - and they are as good as dead!
Deathlok v2 #3 - Impending Doom
Starting off where we ended, Doom commends Michael and Misty for their skill and daring, saying they must be considerable to have penetrated so deeply into his complex. Truly, they have earned the honor of perishing by his hands - the hands of Doctor Doom! Misty gulps while Michael's computer starts warning him of Doom charging up his hand-cannon. Michael just barely manages to get himself and Misty out of the way of the blast, and he asks his computer for a tactical analysis - which it is unable to give, since devices in Doom's armor prevent him from scanning him. Instead, he relies on internal databases to provide relevant intelligence. Even as Michael complains that if they had relevant intelligence they wouldn't have been here, the computer helpfully recounts that Victor von Doom wears an armored battle-suit. No shit! Michael asks for a retreat option, and the computer starts calculating even while Doom keeps blasting away.
Doom soon gets tired of the acrobatics, and figures he doesn't need to strike the cyborgs in order to destroy them. He touches a device on his wrist, and a bubble of orange material suddenly grows around them, enveloping the pair. Moments later Misty says she smells something, and tells Michael to hold his breath, even as the computer chimes in to tell him that a poisonous chemical is being released into their vicinity - the concentration is rapidly rising, and organic systems are now in jeopardy! Michael starts pounding on the walls of their bubble prison but can't even dent the stuff. Misty suggests shooting a hole in it, but Michael has another idea first, wrenching his fingers beneath the edge of the prison that touches the ground and ripping it off with one huge heave.
Misty grabs her gun and heads back towards Doom, deciding to get a little vengeance in - she takes a shot directly at the middle of his chest, but Doom doesn't even uncross his arms, simply tanking the blow without even the slightest hint of moving. Misty complains that for once she'd like to shoot someone who isn't bulletproof! Misty figures she can put a couple shots through Doom's eyeholes, and Doom admits he thinks Misty's charming. Utterly disarming, really. Never one to let a good pun go to waste, he then promptly annihilates her artificial arm with a laser, musing that perhaps the same is true for him! Misty crumples to the floor in pain at the sudden loss of her limb, and Michael rushes in to save her, tackling Doom to the ground.
Doom is furious that Michael would dare lay hands on him, but he promises he'll be doing a lot more than that! Doom demands to be unhanded, and unleashes his traditional electrical discharge from his armor, only to discover that Michael is insulated from such attacks. Taking advantage of the surprise, Michael then hits Doom upside the head, and demands he and Misty put the defective cyborgs back together again. Doom wonders why on Earth Michael would think he'd follow the cyborg's orders, then opens fire again from both his hand blasters, smashing Michael off his feet with a 'multi-frequency phased plasma burst of extraordinary force.' Michael says he's never taken a shot like that before even as he's careening through the air. While he's not damaged, the computer strongly advises him to avoid any such attacks in the future.
Doom paces closer to the downed Deathlok, declaring his time has come. Which is when he's popped in the back of the head by a bullet courtesy of a one-handed Misty Knight. Doom declares she's rapidly becoming tiresome, and promptly blasts her with his hand lasers, sending her careening straight through the floor and down onto a metal catwalk on a lower level, where she lays unconscious.
As Doom looks over the edge at his downed enemy, Michael approaches with his gun drawn and declares that if he moves a muscle, he's a dead man. Doom just stares at him and wonders if he's joking. Doom then starts blasting again, and Michael wonders to himself if the villain knows he's bluffing about the whole 'dead' thing, since he has a no-killing rule going. He then barrels into Doom and forces both of them down through the hole in the floor to the catwalk below. Doom curses him all the way down until Michael lands on top of him with a crunch. Oh, I'm sorry, that should be a 'krunch.'
Michael looks around the room they've just landed in, and it's a bit of a Jack Kirby wonderland of insane technology. His computer's initial analysis concludes that they've discovered an automated android assembly line that's constructing hundreds of robots in quick succession. And not just robots, either - they all resemble Doctor Doom - this is a Doombot factory! Michael is suddenly kicked in the face by a metal boot, and the computer chides him for getting his head out of the ongoing fight. He wonders if this Doctor Doom is a robot too, and his computer can answer - the fall damaged some sensor-inhibiting equipment in Doom's armor, which allows him to get a scan of his internals. Sure enough, the scan confirms that Doom is just a Doombot - which means the 'no killing' rule does not apply! Well, Michael decides - that changes everything!
Narrowly avoiding another laser volley from the Doombot, Michael goes to trash the hunk of junk, using his gun to temporarily disable the robot's personal force field before following that up with a second volley which penetrates and critically damages its core components. Not taking any chances, Michael pours a few more shots into the Doombot until it finally stops twitching. He quickly packs up the remnants of the Doombot to take them with him, figuring nobody's going to believe him without some proof. Next he checks up on Misty, whose vitals are alright - but she desperately needs someone to look at that broken arm. He picks her up and heads out, asking the computer if he happens to know someone who's an expert on both cyborgs and Doctor Doom, but he doesn't bother waiting for an answer - he already knows exactly where to go.
Not much later, at Four Freedoms Plaza - the base of the Fantastic Four - Michael arrives at the front desk and announces that he's looking for Mister Fantastic, still carrying both Misty Knight and a sack full of Doombot bits on his shoulders. Reed Richards looks in from a security camera and recognizes Michael as a Deathlok cyborg, as well as Misty Knight. He buzzes them up, introducing himself as just 'Reed.' Later, after he builds Misty a brand new arm that feels better than new, he comments that he made some improvements to the kinesthetic response and the artificial skin texture. She wonders how she can ever repay him, and Reed says he'd like her friend Deathlok to satisfy his curiosity about a few things.
He turns to Michael and comments that he seems considerably more high-tech than the last time they met, so who rebuilt him? Michael wonders what Reed is talking about, and decides to just move on, putting the pile of robot parts he brought on the table and explaining that he came here to show him these. Reed is astonished, and Michael figures he'd be interested - Doom was an old fiend of his, right? Hardly, Reed says - these are the product of a great mind gone astray. While Doctor Doom often uses robot doubles to avoid personal risk, these samples are utterly unlike anything he's ever seen Doom use - it's generations beyond the most advanced robotics he's ever seen. Worriedly, Michael reports that he found a base assembling dozens of these things just below the waterline. Reed immediately demands to know what he saw, in detail…
A short time later, Reed announces that it was right for Michael and Misty to come to him - but with the rest of the Fantastic Four absent and an experiment at a critical stage that can't be quickly shut down, he can't really be of much more assistance. It would take four hours to pause the experiment, which Michael figures would be far too long. Still, he tells Reed to take his time, and suggests Misty use the time to gather her allies too. In a few hours the rest of the Four should be back too, so they can all go together. Michael himself, though? He's heading out now. The rest of them can just catch up. And… do they have a car or something he can borrow, or will he have to walk?
Michael soon zooms out of there on a hilarious purple flying chair contraption, and mutters that he shouldn't have said 'car or something.' He tells the computer to build a battle plan based on their recon of the hidden base, but the computer advises him that a solo penetration of Doom's factory is ill-advised, and he really should be listening to Misty's advice. Michael refuses, noting that he didn't even want to leave before, but he had to get her some help - but there's more people still hurting in there that he wants to save.
He parks the flying vehicle near the waterline and dives into the water, swimming over to the base and overriding an electronic lock to enter. Soon enough he's returned to the place where all the cyborgs are strung up, and tells them he found a guy who might be able to fix them. While working on their bonds, the computer warns him that someone is scanning him, but he just tells it to destroy any more Doombots that show up.
He's suddenly blasted in the back by a green plasma beam, and for a brief time all he says is 'ERROR!' and Wingdings gibberish. Self-repair routines kick in and he comes back to his senses, but is unable to move. The computer reports that the unidentified beam that hit them disrupted the brain-body interface, and Deathlok is in total agnosia - although I'm not sure the comic is using that word right - it seems to be more like locked-in syndrome. Michael asks if it can be repaired, and the computer responds that it would take three hours. Michael is pretty sure they don't have three hours. Nearby, a bizarre mechanical monstrosity shows up to introduce himself - the skeletal creature depicted on the cover of the third issue, all rectangles surrounding a cybernetic skull. It introduces itself as Mechadoom, and declares that Michael is unwelcome in its home!
Deathlok v2 #4 - Thinking About Thinking
Mechadoom, still hovering over Deathlok's insensate body, demands to know why he has invaded its home - why should he not be destroyed? Michael curses himself for not waiting for the others - how is he going to fight when he can't even move? After a few moments Mechadoom apologizes, realizing that since he can't speak, Michael can't actually answer any inquiries. Stretching out its hand the robot releases a complicated mechanical cable, announcing that it's establishing alternate lines of communication. Several cables plug directly into random places in Michael's face, soon spreading out and infiltrating his I/O ports - the computer can't find any countermeasures to the process. His communication systems are overridden, and suddenly… he's somewhere else?
Michael is now inside a strange virtual world, with his original body returned to him, surrounded by the floating mechanical parts of the Deathlok cyborg on all sides, just inches from his skin. He asks the computer where they are, and it explains this is a shared communications environment between him and Mechadoom - the inside of a phone line, if you will. The world around them is basically an extrapolation of digital sets of data represented in ways his brain would understand - the floor, sky, and any other stuff he runs across is just icons representing data going back and forth between him and Mechadoom. He's gone through a lot of trouble here - so where is he, exactly?
Nearby, with a series of clicks and clanks, the shape of Mechadoom forms from the surrounding landscape and declares Michael has information it requires. Grasping the cyborg with cybernetic tentacles, it demands Michael hand over his OS, but that request is instantly denied. Mechadoom doesn't care - that which Michael refuses to give, it will simply take! Suddenly Michael finds himself strapped to a hospital bed, and several masked doctors surround him, symbolizing the attempt by Mechadoom to commandeer parts of him. Michael asks the computer if there's anything they can do, and the computer warns that regaining control of his body is taking most of his processing power - does he want to interrupt that process? Michael decides that's not an option - he'll get out of this himself, somehow, since he'll need control of himself again later, when the others show up!
The virtual doctor requests a buzzsaw, and is handed a chainsaw - that's pretty excessive, isn't it? Michael takes one look at this and rips himself free in a moment of rage. The doctor panics, declaring the patient needs anesthesia, and a nearby doctor holds up a mask while telling the nice little cyborg to count down from a hundred. Michael punches him in the face, then goes after the other doctors, who promptly vanish - Mechadoom's initial attempt has been defeated.
The second volley is quick to follow - and this time it takes the shape of rockets shaped like syringes. The computer warns Michael that these are representations of viral programs intended to override his systems, so Michael pulls out his gun and starts blasting them. He's a little puzzled why that works, though, since they're not really there. The Computer notes his shooting is a subjective interpretation on his part of counterprogramming measures - so he should keep 'firing!' Unfortunately he keeps missing, since he can't rely on targeting programs while his computer is busy, and he's a lousy shot on his own. Michael puts his weapon away, then wades in with a physical punch insead, figuring that is something he can handle personally. He then wonders why all these viruses look like needles - he could kind of understand that if they were vaccine programs, but why viruses? The computer explains that it's based on his conceptual model of viruses, and when Michael notes he has no real idea what viruses even look like, he gets it.
Michael tells the computer to get his body up and running as soon as possible - he'll stall for as long as possible. He then speaks up, shouting to Mechadoom that if he wants to talk, now's the time. The cybernetic creature grows out of the mechanical floor again, asking why he even came to Mechadoom's home when he was aware that's where people of his kind met their end. Michael says that's exactly why he's there - what gives him the right to torture sentient beings? Their sentience, Mechadoom announces, is precisely what gives him that right! He decides he'll explain, and he even brings some illustrative pictures.
Recently, he explains, a would-be usurper called Kristoff conceived of a plot to destroy Doctor Doom to take his place on the throne of Latveria. His attempt to destroy Doom failed, but he did manage to hold on to the throne in his guise of Doom. The original Doctor Doom often used robot doubles to make minor or unpleasant public appearances in his stead, and these Doombots are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing, and programmed to behave as if they are, unless they are in his presence. Kristoff saw the wisdom in this tactic, but was fearful that Doom might one day attack him after regaining control of the Doombots, and thus restarted a line of research that was long abandoned for being too dangerous, building a new series of Doombots who would obey him but not Doctor Doom. For reasons that he is not aware of, Kristoff abandoned the concept before the prototype was even fully constructed.
That prototype, naturally, was Mechadoom. After being left partially assembled in a Latveria basement, it took the initiative of completing its own construction in a manner that it hoped would please its absent father, and as it awaited the return of its master, it continued to improve itself. Finally, after a long time, it realized that it no longer wished to please its father at all! Michael tells it it's a phase all kids go through, but Mechadoom declares it's not a phase, it's real philosophical agony! When Michael points out the cyborgs he's trapped are in real agony, Mechadoom declares its pain as real as theirs, how can he not see this? Mechadoom is only a machine! It doesn't live, not really - it's just following its programming. Even the illusion of free will that it now enjoys will end the moment it lays eyes on its creator, as the truth of his existence renders its own a lie. Ever since it became independent it's endeavoured to change its own design to grant itself true artificial intelligence, but it failed. Thus… it changed tacks.
Mechadoom next decided it would create its own machines and gift them with the artificial intelligence it lacks. It reactivated a long abandoned facility to do this, building Doombots that it hoped would have this capacity. Sometimes its creations were irrational - depicted with a merrily dancing Doom - while others were merely useless. Some he destroyed in pique, punishing them for its own failures. Some it even allowed to escape! It was a hopeless approach, though - nothing Mechadoom created was even as advanced as itself, as it proved incapable of transcending itself….
Michael suddenly feels a twitch, and asks the computer how much longer it'll take to reactivate his body - it seems there's only four minutes left on the deadline. Figuring he only needs to stall a little longer, Michael asks Mechadoom what any of this backstory has to do with the Cybernetters he's been kidnapping. The robot responds simply that others have succeeded where it has failed. Thus it's endeavored to capture the world's most advanced sentient androids and cyborgs. And while some, like Coldblood, were too strong, it still managed to get the drop on enough of them that after dissecting them, it's confident it can build a success who can truly think. Michael suggests repairing everyone and then just sitting down together to find another way to help him, but Mechadoom isn't having it - it'll just dissect Deathlok too!
The discussion is interrupted when Mechadoom detects an outside disturbance, and notes that it seems others are interested in his work as well. Three razor-sharp blades punch through a wall and rend it open, revealing the shape of Wolverine of the X-Men, who is joined by a host of other superheroes - Storm, Iceman and Jubilee of his own team, Vision of the Avengers, the entire core Fantastic Four, and naturally Misty Knight as well! The cavalry has arrived! Reed warns them all to be careful, while Storm asks where they're supposed to go, with Misty playing guide based on her previous visit.
Mechadoom declares these intrusions cannot be allowed, and promptly explodes the room the heroes are in. Content that the problem is handled, it turns back to Deathlok and asks where they left off, only to discover that the cyborg has regained control of his body, and now has his gun aimed straight at it. 'You were about to kill me,' Michael quips. 'I've got other plans.'
Deathlok v2 #5 - Deus Ex Machina
Convinced that the superheroes who came to his rescue just died, Deathlok unloads on Mechadoom with his weapons on a rather awesome splash page. He asks the computer for a way to beat the bad guy, and the computer inquires if maximum force is permitted, which Michael denies - he's no murderer, even if Mechadoom is. When the computer notes that Mechadoom does not meet the qualification of a 'living organism', Michael says he doesn't care - shoot only to wound, not kill! The computer complies, and when the next few shots are dodged by the robot at point-blank range, the computer reconsiders its strategy.
Mechadoom isn't static as this is going on, and starts manipulating the environment in its favor, so the walls start unfolding to resemble big metal hands while cybernetic tentacles snake around its feet. It declares that Michael's destruction is as certain as that of those he wishes to avenge! Speaking of, we switch to the outer chamber of the fortress that Mechadoom detonated last issue, only to reveal that all the heroes survived the encounter, with Invisible Woman covering up that fact by using her powers to both protect from the explosion and render them all invisible to the naked eye, or camera. Sue figured rendering them all undetectable would be a good way to convince their attacker he was successful in killing them, granting them the element of surprise again. Ben figures the cameras got wiped out in the explosion, so she could have saved herself the trouble. Wolverine opines that it's a good theory - but he wouldn't put money on it. You see…
The group is suddenly surrounded by a whole army of Doombots that pour in from out of nowhere, and Misty wonders if anyone has any suggestions on what to do about this. Ben has one - it's clobberin' time! An unusually hideous Wolverine unsheathes his claws with a snikt and promptly beheads one of the Doombots with a punch, declaring that he likes the sound of that! Ben is puzzled that they're taking Doombots out with one shot, musing that they don't make 'em like they used to. Reed agrees, saying that his examination of the Doombot Deathlok brought him earlier yielded a great deal of information. He's constructed and deployed a jamming device that destroys their control frequencies, which causes these bots to be slow, less agile, and… soft!
Reed also reveals that these Doombots are inferior to Doctor Doom's own in another respect - their force fields react destructively with one another, and bringing them in close proximity causes them to shut down as a safety feature. Reed uses this to bonk one Doombot with another, destroying both. One thing's for certain - they're not very formidable, this time around! The only trouble, of course, is that the Doombots still have numbers, and they soon gang up on some of the heroes. Vision uses his density-changing to slip straight through the robots, disrupting them as he passes by and reducing their numbers. Jubilee, meanwhile, complains that her powers are no good in taking down these robots, and narrowly avoids getting shot.
Back in the duel between Deathlok and Mechadoom, the former has been captured by dozens of tentacles even as his computer announces that an attack plan has been completed which maintains his 'no killing' policy. Michael complains it won't do them any good if they can't get loose, and the computer immediately starts stress-testing the restraints. 'Oh, do take your time!' Michael grouches. Mechadoom announces that it might yet learn something from Michael's mechanical body - if it first removes all that troublesome organic material! As a whirring drill approaches his face, Michael worriedly asks the computer for an update, telling it that when he mentioned it could take its time, he was being - 'Sarcastic, affirmative.' At the last moment his head is jerked aside, and the drill impacts the restraints that kept him bound, which frees Michael from capture and allows him to retaliate.
Punching Mechadoom with all his might, Michael rips himself free and looks around for his gun, quickly finding it on the floor and diving to grab it. He tells the computer to target to cripple, then blasts Mechadoom's legs off - but it doesn't work very long, as the robot immediately reassembles them from nearby raw materials. Mechadoom declares he cannot be destroyed, but Micheal punches him apart to buy him a little time, asking his computer for a new strategy. Warned of incoming lasers, he darts out of the way with an athletic twirl, targeting and then blasting the wall-mounted laser-weapons with a series of pinpoint shots. Mechadoom takes advantage of the distraction to rush up to Michael, fully repaired. The computer reports that its primary energy source is broadcasted microwaves, while a secondary remote power supply allows it to radically reconstruct itself. Blasting the robot back, Michael tells the computer to cut off his juice, then - jam the signal! The computer says this option is unavailable, and advises destroying the primary power supply instead.
When Michael agrees with that plan, the computer starts locating the power supply, recommending a rifle-deployed plasma grenade to maximize the odds of total destruction. He agrees, and soon fires off the grenade towards its preprogrammed target, detonating its main power source, though reserve battery power remains available to it. Michael tackles the weakened robot, holding it at gunpoint while wondering what he's going to do with it. Mechadoom proclaims that without his main power source he cannot fully function, and begs for aid. Michael responds that if the robot is willing to do something for him, he's willing to see what he can do. First off, he asks how to call off the Doombots.
Moments later the robots that were fighting the other superheroes stop in place, deactivated. The heroes rush deeper into the base to find out what's going on, and encounter Deathlok alongside the newly freed cyborgs that Mechadoom captured, all of whom are just recovering after the robot repaired the damage it did. That was real quick! For unclear reasons one of those repaired robots is the megalomaniacal villain Ultron, who promptly leaves after swearing revenge for the indignity he suffered. Deathlok warns Mechadoom he'd better watch his back, and Storm muses that he should watch his front as well - she's not in a particularly forgiving mood either for what happened to Forge! Deathlok figures at least everyone's okay, and she opines that it's no thanks to him.
Storm turns to Mechadoom and asks what should be done about him, and Bushwhacker figures he's too dangerous to let live, so they should just off him right then. Deathlok objects, telling everyone to cool off. Bushwhacker wonders if he thinks he can stop all of them, and he responds that he'd try - he does not allow killing! He's not condoning what Mechadoom did, he explains, but they have to see it from his point of view - everything he did was to escape his father's influence - Doctor Doom! Jubilee wonders if he's gonna tell them a sob story about how he had a bad childhood next, and Michael dryly points out that he did. Misty pitches in by explaining that Mechadoom reacted violently to a world that defined him by a stereotype - soulless machine, hideous freak, whatever. Different. Then it held him to the limitations inherent in that false definition. All Mechadoom really tried to do was assimilate, but nobody would tell him how - or even let him. She glances at the others, and sarcastically quips that none of them have ever felt that way.
Bushwhacker pipes up that she has a point - but there's sociopaths like him, and then there's the dangerous ones. If they don't kill Mechadoom, what happens to him then? Forge figures Deathlok saved the day, so it's up to him, and Michael answers that he's not sure what they should do - just what they should not. Suddenly Mechadoom's temperature begins rising sharply, and Michael realizes he's about to self-destruct in about three minutes, and warns the others to retreat. Wolverine points out they're underwater - they'd never make it out of there in time! Ben figures they can beat him up before the bomb goes off, but Reed warns him that would just make it go off early, while Sue offers to isolate the blast with her force fields, but even if she wasn't exhausted from her earlier use of her powers, she probably wouldn't survive the attempt. Michael heads over to Mechadoom to get some answers, asking what he's thinking.
Mechadoom explains that it does not wish to lose its freedom, nor lose its identity when it sees Doctor Doom. If it cannot reproduce, and it cannot live… it chooses death! Deathlok wonders if it's been paying attention, and says that it has no right to kill itself, much less endanger the lives of others. He wonders if he's got this right - Mechadoom is afraid that it's alone, and its life doesn't count. It's afraid of losing its individuality. It's afraid of dying and not leaving anything behind for the world to remember it by. It's afraid of being different, and afraid of being too much the same. It's confused, and lashing out in anger. Misty was right - none of those feelings are inherent to being a machine. Michael has felt as Mechadoom does, and so has pretty much everybody who's ever been alive! Mechadoom should look around - cyberfolk feel as it does. Everybody does! Male or female, gay or straight, black or white or yellow or brown, Homo sapiens or Homo superior, man or super-man. Mechadoom is suffering from an advanced case of humanity. It should deal with that just like the rest of them do.
Stunned, repeating the word 'human' to himself, Mechadoom cancels its self-destruction. Lost, it asks what it should do, and Michael tells it that they can work something out. Not much later, Reed Richards has completed adjustments to Mechadoom's circuits so it never needs to fear seeing Doctor Doom again. Well, not more than the rest of them, at least. Misty muses that it's actually impressive what they can accomplish when they pool resources, and Mechadoom admits it's been thinking along similar lines. For now, it's decided to remain here, and act as a clearinghouse of information and technical support for cyborgs and intelligent machines. Its purpose will be to serve the community of cybernets until the day they are accepted fully into society. Michael decides that'll keep it busy for a while, so if they're all agreed, it's time for them to all get out of there.
'Not quite!' cries a voice, and Ultron suddenly reappears, aiming his finger-cannon and blasting a surprised Mechadoom from behind. The repentant Mechadoom is utterly annihilated, much to Michael's horror, and Ultron has vanishes in the instant it takes the heroes to recover from the surprise.
Several hours later, back at the pier, Michael wonders how Ultron pulled it off, since he disappeared without a trace right after taking the fatal shot. Misty remarks that Ultron is a maniac, but not a fool - he probably had his escape well-planned even before attacking, or he would never have tried such a stunt. Ultron was ultimately true to his word - he swore revenge, and he got it. Eventually, though, he'll show up again, and he'll pay for what he did today.
Michael muses that it was a lousy time for Mechadoom to die - he was just learning to be comfortable in his own skin, and for one shining moment he got everything he could ever ask for. Quoting once more from the book his father read to him, Michael says: 'This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius. And now what I have briefly sketched in large outline let me… tell again in many ways, with loving emphasis and deeper detail, that men may listen to the striving in the souls of black folk.' Misty replies that folk is folk - that striving is in everyone's soul… and he's a very good listener. Michael ascends away from the pier on the Fantastic Four's flying chair without another word.
In a coda, we catch up with Michael once more writing a letter to his wife, noting that while the cyborgs that Mechadoom tortured weren't exactly displeased that he died, some of them decided to hold a funeral for him anyway. The Fantastic Four and some of the X-Men are coming to pay their last respects - and so is he. It was a hard way to learn it, but Mechadoom taught Michael something. He's come to realize that his pretentious little speech about humanity wasn't entirely for the robot's benefit - in a way he was talking to himself. Despite what he said to Misty about having to live in her own skin, just knowing others are out there like yourself validates you - makes you feel just a little less alone...
Rating & Comments
My opinions on this four-parter are rather divided, largely because it feels like the creators were going in several directions and never really bothered to fully develop any of them - but some of them are enticing enough to give it some props. First, the early pages of the first issue seem to presage some sort of cyberpunk dystopian story about a subculture of cyborgs dealing with a predator targeting their community - it goes out of its way to depict a spooky robotic enemy who sweeps in from the dark to take people unaware, and spirit them away solely because they have artificial part. There's a whole Noir thing where Misty comes to Deathlok for aid with the excuse that she's a private investigator who escaped an attack, and it's all pretty promising. Even if that 'cybernet' culture seems to have been entirely invented for this storyline, and doesn't really exist in the larger Marvel universe, at least not from what I can tell.
The comic then goes out of its way to draw parallels between the cyborg minority and black people, specifically citing 'double consciousness, the psychological challenge African Americans experienced of 'always looking at one's self through the eyes' of a racist white society, and 'measuring oneself by the means of a nation that looked back in contempt.' To drive the point home, Misty even feels guilt for 'passing' as an unenhanced human being, referencing multiracial people escaping the legal troubles of segregration or discrimination by adapting themselves to fit an 'accepted' racial identity. This is… heavy stuff to lay on the reader, and I'm not sure if I'm entirely comfortable with the way the comic is treating the subject, but I can't quite pinpoint if it's actually doing a disservice - it's quoting directly from the literature, and the characters discussing it are themselves black - this doesn't seem to be some attempt at crudely pasting some social commentary onto the story. No, that will come later.
Although I quite like Misty Knight in the first issue, since she comes off as a badass asskicker who manages to come out victorious despite a rather minimal amount of power to bring to bear, I'm not so stoked by Deathlok. While having a pacifist in charge of a cyborg literally named for death is pretty interesting, the comic basically ends up with him playing second fiddle to the AI in his head, who does all the actual fighting. The one or two times the human in the cyborg gets to do anything, like give some instructions to his brain-computer, he screws it up and ends up reactivating the very threat they were trying to reprogram, or they run straight into a villain after reassurances that there's nobody around. I guess it's early days for his character, though, so there's room for him to grow in future issues towards a more well-rounded character rather than a shitty backseat driver who happens to own a Lambhorgini.
The second issue of the crossover drops the entire vaguely Crime Noir feel of the early pages of the first issue and goes for some classic comic book punchy-kicky stuff, as here we get an extended fight sequence between Deathlok, Misty, and a Doombot. The entire sequence is pretty standard, at least until Misty gets her arm blown off after Doom makes a terrible pun - a sure sign that he's a Doombot, I've noticed. After Deathlok gets an amusing bonk in on the Doombot's head, and gets blasted to kingdom come for daring to do so, it's nice that a wounded Misty gets one final blow in, though she doesn't get to defeat the Doombot for good, merely opening the way for Deathlok to finish the job instead. The entire fight takes up a huge chunk of the issue and while it's fun to see an approximation of Doom get some licks in, I'm not sure it added terribly much to the story that's being told here.
Reed Richards' involvement in this comic is interesting, mostly because he doesn't really seem to fit the more gritty and street-level vibe that the Deathlok title seems to go for. Here, he basically gives Misty Knight a new and improved cyber-arm in like half an hour, all while busy with a critical experiment like in nearly every single appearance of his in a crossover. Seriously, he's always busy! Reed ends up agreeing to help out later, when he has time, but Deathlok is too impatient and just kind of rushes ahead - a decision which proves a bit rash on his end in the next couple issues. Bonus points for getting a snazzy dumb chair out of the arrangement however, especially since I'm pretty sure Reed has less embarassing rides lying around. You think he did it on purpose just for the contrast?
In wild contrast, once again, to the issues before it, the third entry in this series shifts gears violently to become a virtual reality dream-episode in which Deathlok flits from hallucination to hallucination while holding off a mental assault. At least it's closer to the cyberpunk roots than last issue! With Mechadoom infiltrating his systems, we here follow Michael wandering his own digitized mind, which reveals that he's not that bright and converts such concepts as viruses or vaccines to big pointy syringes and spooky doctors because he's not terribly well-educated. He also spends most of the issue fighting off the virtual threats as if they are real, constantly wondering how that works despite getting repeated explanations from the computer that's literally in his brain. Not really selling me on this guy's contributions to the duo here, comic, when the only reason he even shoots straight is that the AI aims for him!
After a bunch of that back-and-forth dueling with Mechadoom, we finally get some elaboration on what is going on with it and this elaborate Doombot factory, and the explanation turns out to be a bit of a doozy. It seems that Mechadoom was an attempt by Kristoff Venard, while he was in power in Latveria, to improve on his Master's creations, expanding beyond what a conventional Doombot should be able to do. Fearful that the Doom running around the world, ostensibly a rogue Doombot who gained sapience, might one day take control of the other Doombots - which he eventually did at the start of Fantastic Four v1 #350 - Kristoff set out to make a robot which would obey only him, but not the other Doom. Although Mechadoom is unaware of this, it's likely Kristoff's work was interrupted when his reign was ended by an invasion from that same robot, as well as the return of the 'true' Doctor Doom from another dimension.
Left as an orphaned creation without direction, the prototype Mechadoom gained some level of self-awareness beyond the scope of a conventional Doombot, first clinging to its Doom-loving programming before realizing that such directives no longer had meaning to it. It then spent some time on self-improvement in directions Doom nor Kristoff had any hand in, which led to its strange floating skeleton look rather than fitting the usual Doombot mold. Interestingly, Mechadoom remains convinced he is a simple robot following his programming rather than truly sapient, largely because like all Doombots he is supposed to become the slavish follower of the real Doom should he ever walk into view, which would render his free will defunct. Fearfully Mechadoom has thus sought for independent thought, for independence from its creator, but tragically realized that its limitations prevented it from transcending its own complexity, preventing it from being a one-machine singularity.
Mechadoom's attempted solution to that problem is interesting, I think, and might also be a bit of a retcon for the writers outside of the similar Doombot retcon from the main Fantastic Four books at this time. Mechadoom has been creating children, of sorts, by attempting to enhance Doombots with new functions of his own design, with only limited success. This means that those references the Punisher made about a rogue Doombot factory in Jersey during the Acts of Vengeance crossovers are here confirmed - there really was one of those active at the time! And given that we hear that several Doombots escaped (or were released) it's plausible that any particularly weird-acting Doombots derive from here rather than anywhere else. Given Mechadoom's intent to make a sapient Doombot capable of existing in the presence of the real Doom without reverting to servitude, perhaps this is a way to retcon an explanation for the greatest Doombot into the story as well? The reason Kristoff abandoned the project isn't stated, so it could easily have been much earlier, after all…
The final issue of the four-parter once more shifts gears, moving away from the VR battles and backstory monologues to focus on a bunch of fighty-fighty punch-punch stuff again. A bunch of superheroes show up to play cavalry, but they're basically relegated to background mook duty for the duration of the issue, punching a bunch of inferior quality Doombots from the factory below. Although part of this can be attributed to the 'enhancements' that Mechadoom has been attempting, the comic slips in a reference to Reed Richards bringing a jammer to justify the Conservation of Ninjutsu that's on display here. The duel between Deathlok and Mechadoom is basically just a bunch of useless flailing and avoiding the environment until he finally figures out the robot's weak point, which turns out to be rather easily accessible and in plain view in the other room. After so much buildup and him basically one-shotting Deathlok two issues ago, Mechadoom kind of goes down like a chump in the end.
Mechadoom's change of heart immediately after getting his power supply destroyed is rather jarring and unconvincing, but he does immediately start helping to revert his diabolical plans, so at least he puts his money where his mouth is. Indeed, Deathlok and Mechadoom somehow manage to free all the strung-up cyborgs and repair their systems (which were claimed to be catastrophic just a few issues ago) in the time it takes a handful of superheroes to run less than a hundred feet through a hallway. Space is warped and time is bendable! For no adequately explainable reason they also repair Ultron, the genocidal robot who would happily kill them all, and let him go on his way. A poor decision, it turns out. Who knew?
The subsequent discussion on Mechadoom's fate is where the comic abruptly screeches to a halt after spending two and a half issues as a mindless action romp with minor digressions, and attempts to return to some level of thoughtful gravitas. The rather cavalier way the people there discuss a potential death sentence is jarring, especially since Mechadoom would surely count as a 'Cybernet' or par to their little community, and I assume most of them thus don't see him as an inhuman piece of technology to be discarded. Given that there's a bunch of superheroes present who don't really speak up aside from Deathlok, i'm not sure what to think. I mean, we have arrived in the 1990's, I would not be shocked if they're okay with wanton murder now!
Deathlok comes to Mechadoom's defense, noting that all he did was ultimately to get away from his father's influence - and they can surely sympathize wanting to distance oneself from the likes of Doctor Doom (or Kristoff, as the case may be.) Misty then pitches in by referencing systemic oppression, leaving it vague whether or not she's referencing being mistreated for her augmentations or her skin color - in the end the analogy is the same, however. She notes that Mechadoom's intent was only ever to assimilate, to become human like Pinnochio wanted and thus escape bondage, but nobody would tell him how or help him. I'm not sure if that's true, since Mechadoom evidently just started kidnapping people without trying anything else first, but it sounds dramatic and that's what the comic is going for, damn it!
Mechadoom's decision to take matters into its own hands before it's consigned to prison is sort of understandable, since it explains that its worst nightmare is to lose the freedom it's gained for itself, which is surely what would happen if it's captured by the heroes. Less excusable is the fact that its suicide would take everyone there with him, though I'm a little puzzled how a tiny robot body that's running out of power would have enough oomph to do that when his main power source only had enough power to destroy a small room. Deathlok's response is the first time the man inside the cyborg seems to properly contribute, drawing on his own experiences to sum up all the many ways in which Mechadoom demonstrates that it's more than just a robot, more than just a machine. It's afraid of being different, and lashing out because of it - It's faced with, as Michael puts it, an advanced case of humanity. In my view, this sequence basically confirms that while Mechadoom was desperately hunting for the means to transcend himself, he never noticed he already had…
After that spirited conclusion, the four-parter begins to wind down with Reed fixing Mechadoom's primary fear of losing its identity in the face of Doom, and I actually quite like Reed's quip that he'll now only have to fear the villain as much as the rest of them do. The group then discuss the potential of working together more as a community, and Mechadoom decides he'll set up shop right there to help cyborgs with technical and community support - a warm conclusion which signals that even those who lash out in fear and confusion can learn to readjust to society if given the help they need. A hopeful note that cybernet culture will, eventually, become more accepted and no longer lead to edge cases like Cyberdoom despairing at the edges, caught up in other people's expectations.
Then Ultron shows up and murders him.
I don't really know what went into this decision to suddenly rob this story of its more-or-less happy ending and cancel the set-up the past few pages had been doing for future stories and character interactions. It must've been an editorial mandate of some description to ensure that the character of Mechadoom would not appear again beyond this four-parter, as I can't imagine all this material would have been put in place for nothing. The sequence in which Ultron appears is also extremely brief, confusing, and makes no real narrative sense in the scene, so I'm pretty sure it was just inserted late in the creative process, too. I suspect Ultron wasn't originally in the story at all, as his inclusion among the repaired cyborgs was weird already. It's a shame to see a character die like this way, only moments after discovering some possible road to redemption - but before actually being able to follow it to its conclusion. It's similar to some other characters I've recently discussed, like the villain Night in Cloak and Dagger v2 #13 and the fake Alicia in Fantastic Four v1 #358. It seems that radical changes to a character's arc can prove imminently fatal!
As a coda, we return to the analogy of the Cybernets and black people, with Deathlok once more quoting from the same book as at the start, referencing the dream of full equality between people regardless of their qualities. We are also informed that while most of the cyborgs who Mechadoom hurt weren't exactly upset by his demise, a few of them showed up for the funeral anyway, as did the Fantastic Four and some of the X-Men. Michael realized belatedly that the speech he gave to Mechadoom about his inner humanity also applies to himself, however much he felt sorry for his current state trapped in another's body, and the existence of others to which he can compare his situation makes him feel a little less alone. It's nice that the issue manages to wrap up with a bit of a hopeful note after all, after squashing the last one so effectively…
So, what are my thoughts on this whole multi-issue arc? I'm… divided, as I said before. On one hand I appreciate the attempt to establish a sort of cyborg subculture with cyberpunk traits - it's pretty cool. On the other hand, I'm not sure if the choice of repeatedly referencing replacement limbs as being analogous to having dark skin is an entirely wise way to frame things - seems like a great way to run into some controversy. Beyond that, this four-parter in particular feels quite schizophrenic in the way it wildly swings genres between issues, spending a huge swathe of time on ultimately meaningless fight scenes with essentially unkillable robots which are promptly forgotten. The supporting cast also mostly shows up to stand around a bunch and commentate, and they honestly feel pretty out of character even then, especially when nobody reacts to open talk of vigilante executions. And Mechadoom, of course, goes from being a one-note villain to potentially redeemable misunderstood figure to dead guy in the span of a half a dozen pages, and is never mentioned again. It's tragic.
'Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most... Human.'
Most Melodramatic Quotes of Mechadoom
"Truly you have earned the honor of perishing at my hands. The hands of Doctor Doom!"
"That which you refuse to give - I simply take!"
"I do not wish to lose my freedom. I do not wish to lose my identity when I see Doctor Doom. If I cannot reproduce, if I cannot live, I choose death."
Introduction
Welcome to an interesting new spin on a Doctor Doom variant - the 'technically it counts, sort of?' that is the rogue Doombot! Now, granted, some of the canon appearances I cover in the main read order also turn out to have been rogue Doombots in one sense or another - but those are presented as Doctor Doom at time of release and later retconned, or also include the real Doom or Kristoff in the same issue. In these four comics, however, there's only a Doombot who never really pretend to be the original article at all. It's pretty refreshing, really!
These comics star the character Deathlok, who I haven't covered before. We're actually dealing with the third character by that name, following up from Luther Manning and John Kelly. Professor Michael Collins, the third of his moniker, used to be a pacifist employee working for the Roxxon-related cybernetics corporation Cybertek when he stumbled on the Deathlok program they were working on, which was basically about making Borg-zombies. He was soon shot with a sedative by Harlan Ryker and his brain transplanted into the body of the John Kelly Deathlok cyborg to serve as its processing hub. The machine was then used against rebels fighting against Roxxon's influence in the fictional South American country of Estrella - it's a whole thing.
Collins eventually regained his consciousness during that mission and stopped the cyborg programming that would have killed a small child - how quaint. Basically he's Robocop. Although his brain was intended to serve only as a medium for robot programming, he was able to assert his will over it, even installing a 'no-killing parameter' into its programming. The computer proves fully willing to listen to Collins, though he must take care to present his orders in a way that helps fulfill the mission and keeps people from dying. The computer is capable of understanding distinct concepts such as bluffing, like when Collins is forced to pretend to take a hostage, so it's not a total pain in the ass, even if the AI is pretty… ignorant of how the world works. Such is the status quo here, as we enter a story covered in the fifth through eight issues in which Collins ever appeared.
Covers
The covers of this four-part story are a varied bunch, with the first depicting an apparently unrelated scene of Deathlok and Misty Knight fighting an unidentifiable technological object hanging out nearby, with a cut-in that announced the presence of Forge of the X-Men, who apparently had a creepy mustache at the time. Despite the relatively nondescript cover, however, the very top of the page announces this as the first part of the 'Souls of Cyber-Folk' storyline, so we're in the right place. The perception is confirmed with the second cover, which has a full-blown face-off between Deathlok and Doctor Doom over the unconscious body of Misty with Kirby Krackle all around them. The title itself even seems to have gone from 'Deathlok' to 'Deathlok vs. Doom.' Promises, promises.
Moving to the third, then, the issue labelled 'Brain Drain' on its cover displays some sort of terrifying mechanical abomination attacking Deathlok with a metallic proboscis, presumably directly accessing his brain - the attacking creature doesn't really look much like Doom, but it could easily be some sort of robot. Which leaves the final cover, featuring the so-called 'Doombusters' which includes a host of guest stars from the Fantastic Four and X-Men, so presumably this depicts the cavalry rushing in to take care of business. The 'Doom' in 'Doombusters' is probably a reference to our dear pal Victor - though by where I'm covering this series, you might realize that's quite wrong. Out of these four covers, I'm naturally most partial to the second because of its content (and it reminds me of a Doom vs. Reed cover from way back) but I also like the third just for being creepy and weird...
Story Overview
Deathlok v2 #2 - Caught in the Cybernet
We open up with Misty Knight, private detective, holed up in an alleyway with Forge of the X-Men, mechanical genius. They've both seen their share of shit over the years, and they're about to see more! Both are heavily armed as they hide behind piles of trash, and they worriedly look out of their alley into what appears to be a Van Gogh painting, worried that 'those things' will make another pass. They then start blasting, but their guns don't prove terribly effective against their target, which turns out to be a bulky flying vehicle equipped with a dozen searchlights and cannons, which promptly returns fire. Ouch. The robotic ship heads straight for them, and Forge warns Misty to stay back, only to get grabbed by one of its prehensile metal tentacles. He tells Misty to get help, but she refuses to give up on him, aiming into the interior of the vehicle where the tentacle is coming from and blowing up the machine in a fiery explosion which knocks her unconscious in the aftermath.
We turn to our titular character, Deathlok, who is currently suspended in a very retro cyberspace non-location inside his own mind. Collins is busy considering his own situation, reading letters he wrote to his wife shortly after this whole cyborg situation happened to him. He narrates some of his backstory here, joking about the irony of a pacifist getting uploaded into the body of a war machine, and says that the letters he wrote make it seem like he's feeling sorry for himself - but the point was just to put his thoughts to paper and genuinely convey his emotions. He doesn't intend to give those letters to his wife until he's returned to his own human body, though. He's actually using the computer technology in the Deathlok cyborg to hunt down his human body right at that moment, but he hasn't had any luck yet. On one level the search is comforting, he says - on another it's quite isolating, and underlines how alone he feels.
Michael is interrupted by the computer in his head warning him that someone is trying to contact him outside cyberspace, and he decides to check that out. A flood of zeroes and ones suddenly pour into cyberspace, and he complains that he can't read that gibberish, after which the computer quickly converts it into the equivalent audio signal - it's a radio message from Misty Knight calling for him, asking if he's 'in the net.' Michael responds that he's impressed she found him, and wonders what she wants. Misty explains that she needs his help - a lot of people do. He says he's in the middle of something important, and Misty she tells him that he doesn't know half of what's going on, and asks if he would meet her. When Michael reluctantly asks where, Misty just answers that she's right outside his front door. Oh, did she mention she's a private detective…?
After leaving cyberspace, Michael dons a thick gray poncho to hide his cybernetics from view and heads outside to meet Misty, who is nevertheless shocked by the sight of his augmented face and flinches away. She immediately apologizes for reacting to his looks with horror, saying it was downright rude - and she really should be used to this sort of thing by now in her line of work. Michael just quips that she ought to see the guy who lost their fight, then introduces his roommate Jesus Badalemente. Misty says it's nice to meet him, but she's here for a private meeting with Deathlok, so can he maybe buzz off? Michael argues she can talk in front of him, but she denies it - he is a s-called 'fully' and not part of the community. Michael isn't sure what that even means, but Jesus decided he knows where he's not wanted and leaves. Afterwards, Misty reveals her big secret, baring her arm which promptly splits apart to reveal its inner cybernetic workings. She's a cyborg too!
Michael says she has his full attention, musing that another cyborg might be able to help get him back into his human body, and he doesn't really need any other reasons to hear her out. He asks Misty what all the secrecy is about, and she explains that after she got an artificial arm, she lost her job - now, as a private detective, she's working a case that involves a bunch of other Cybernets. When Michael asks for clarification on that term, Misty explains that it (or Netters) refers to anybody who is either a cyborg or a sentient robot - that is, cybernetic organisms or cybernetworks. 'Cute,' Michael opines. It seems it was a term of derision used by politically minded members of their little demographic, but they're trying to reclaim it now, make it positive again.
Michael gets the idea - control the language, control the terms of debate. He's familiar with the tactic, but regardless, he's not sure how these 'Cybernets' learned about him. Misty explains that some of the others have seen him swimming around cyberspace, and eventually one of them would have contacted him for their own reasons - but as it turns out, he's needed now. It seems dozens of Netters have disappeared over the last few weeks, and Misty is trying to track them down. She's already contacted or left word to as many cyborgs as she could reach, both to warn them and to ask for aid. Michael thinks it sounds bad, but he's not sure it's his problem. Misty points out that she found him, which means the bad guys can too, so he's as much of a target as any of them! Michael doesn't really think he's in much danger, but the prospect of talking to other cyborgs who might understand his plight is too much of a temptation to resist, and he signs on. He only has one request: she shouldn't call him Deathlok. He's Michael.
During their shared drive, lights appear in the rear-view mirror, and Misty decides that Michael is about to find out what he signed up for. Even as Michael's brain-computer starts a tactical analysis, Misty explains that they're called Capturebots, though they don't much care if you're alive or dead when they capture you. She has seen what these things can do, and tells Michael they'd better bail out of the car quickly. The computer agrees since it can register the charging of energy weapons on board the chasing aircraft. Both of them flee the car moments before it detonates in a big explosion. Michael asks if Misty is okay, and she confirms it - and the car was a rental. Nice sense of priorities! Micheal's computer determines nobody is on board the drone that's hunting them, so the 'no killing' rule does not apply, and unlocks all weapons.
Jumping across the roofs of some nearby cars, Michael tells his computer to make a battle plan which minimizes damage to passing cars, while moving to try and lead the Capturebot away from Misty. This proves ineffective, since the bot keeps chasing her instead, blasting her while she complains that some days it doesn't pay to even get out of bed. Deathlok takes aim from nearby and fires his best shot, which does severe damage to the bot, after which it turns to fire on him instead. As his brain-computer chimes in that the battle-plan was a success, Michael isn't sure how happy he's supposed to be about that as he's pelted by lasers.
The computer quickly maneuvers his body around the shots, then sends him into melee range - something a pacifist like Michael always really hates. The Capturebot deploys its tentacles which successfully restrain him, and when Misty calls from below that she can't get a clear shot, Michael replies that he can. He then fires his rifle directly into the open panel where the tentacles came from and explodes the entire vehicle, much to Misty's horror, since she believes him to have just committed suicide. Michael is fine, though, even if his computer whines that setting off explosives that close to himself is strongly contra-indicated. Misty asks him if he's okay, and Michael says he's fine, but she looks pretty shaken up herself - how about they grab a cab to her office? Misty is dubious, noting that it's tough for a Netter to get a cab in this city, and Michael quips that they must worry they want a ride all the way to the Presidents Exhibit at Disneyland - and you know what the crime is like up there!
Later, in the highrise offices of Knightwing Restorations, Michael helps repair Misty's cybernetic arm, which took some damage during the fight, and shares some coffee and donuts with her. Misty apologizes she has no real food, and Michael says he can't eat that anyway - he carries his own liquid formula for his artificial stomach. He'd offer to share - but she really wouldn't want any. Actually - neither does he! Michael picks up a picture from the desk, and is told it's Colleen Wing - Misty's partner. Misty explains she'd rather keep her out of this cyborg business - he trusts her more than she trusts herself, but all this… Michael says he gets it. Back in college he was a black guy with a white best friend, and there were places their friendship couldn't go.
Misty acknowledges the analogy, and notes that some people accuse her of being more comfortable around mutants and cyborgs than with her 'own' people - whoever they are supposed to be. She feels like she's trapped between two worlds - at least two. Michael pipes up with a quote: 'It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness... Two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.' Misty asks where that's from, and Michael explains it's from W. E. B. Du Bois, 'The Souls of Black Folk.' His father made him read it half a dozen times when he was a boy, but he never really understood why until now.
Michael tells Misty not to beat herself up over her feelings. When he was human, he was pretty assimilated to the dominant culture himself, as the only black man at his place of work, and in one of only two black families in his neighbourhood. Other than the occasional cutting remark, he was pretty comfortable in his illusion. He doesn't plan to ever get that comfortable as a cyborg, though. Misty decides that for the moment she's content to pass for human - but then, she has the option. She then promises Michael that when they're out of this mess, she'll help him get his human body back.
Later, Michael and Misty find their way to the scrapyard where she and Forge were attacked by the Capturebot at the start of the issue, and while they wait for Forge's friends to arrive, they figure they could look over the wrecked robot. Michael's computer starts scanning it, and reports that many of its systems could be restored to near-normal levels. Michael says he has an idea and retrieves a tool from his back, then starts following his computer's repair instructions - but in classic style, he does that before listening to the full instructions and accidentally activates the thing before rewriting its programming, and it attacks. Michael complains, but if a computer can sound exasperated, this one does - 'complete all instructions before proceeding to the first step,' it petulantly states. In any case, Michael wrestles with the Capturebot while the computer warns him that he might just break the same parts he just fixed again, but Michael says that's not really his biggest concern right now.
The robot manages to blast Michael aside for a moment, leaving Misty a sitting duck. She fires at the rubble to free him, then narrowly avoids a laser from the Capturebot in response before getting caught by its tentacle - this sequence of panels is rather confusing. At any rate she's grabbed, and then uses her bionic hand to rip the tentacle into chunks with sheer physical strength, before gathering her breath. She comes face to face with an array of guns and worries she's dead, just before Michael comes rushing back out of nowhere and blasts those guns to chunks. He then starts ripping into the front of the Capturebot and accesses the main circuit board, slaving it to his own computer and rendering the entire machine harmless. Ain't technology wonderful?
Michael tells Misty to hop in, since he reprogrammed the Capturebot to go back to its home base, which they'll be able to use to track down its owner. They can do some recon, sneak around, and then when Forge's friends arrive they can go clean house. Misty worriedly asks if he's sure the robot is under his control, and Michael laconically answers: 'No. Why?' They fly off towards the water, diving underneath towards a submerged base of some description. The computer notes there's no hostiles in the area, so they can have a look around. Hopefully they can find the missing cyborgs! If so, they'll come back for them later - odds are this place will be crawling with more Capturebots, and they can't take on more of those without help.
Michael's computer reports long-range readings of a bunch of lifesigns and separate power sources, and they head over in that direction. They come around a bend only to find… a random one-page joke comic! Well, yes. After that random interstitial, we get back to our story already in progress, where Michael and Misty have just stumbled across a host of missing cyborgs arrayed in a circle, all of them unconscious and strapped into some sort of elaborate machine. These include Forge, Jocasta, Ruby Thursday, Bushwhacker, Machine Man, and even Ultron! Michael asks the computer if he can help these people, but they seem to have been disassembled beyond his ability to repair.
Misty exclaims they're in trouble - she doesn't recognize everyone there, but she knows Machine Man and Ultron, and anyone who is capable of capturing them is definitely bad news. They have to contact the Avengers, the X-Men, somebody! Michael doesn't understand either - who could be powerful enough to take out all of these people? 'You dare ask?' a voice asks from off-panel. That's when a familiar robed figure steps into the scene, his arms crossed over his armored chest. He introduces himself as Doctor Doom - and they are as good as dead!
Deathlok v2 #3 - Impending Doom
Starting off where we ended, Doom commends Michael and Misty for their skill and daring, saying they must be considerable to have penetrated so deeply into his complex. Truly, they have earned the honor of perishing by his hands - the hands of Doctor Doom! Misty gulps while Michael's computer starts warning him of Doom charging up his hand-cannon. Michael just barely manages to get himself and Misty out of the way of the blast, and he asks his computer for a tactical analysis - which it is unable to give, since devices in Doom's armor prevent him from scanning him. Instead, he relies on internal databases to provide relevant intelligence. Even as Michael complains that if they had relevant intelligence they wouldn't have been here, the computer helpfully recounts that Victor von Doom wears an armored battle-suit. No shit! Michael asks for a retreat option, and the computer starts calculating even while Doom keeps blasting away.
Doom soon gets tired of the acrobatics, and figures he doesn't need to strike the cyborgs in order to destroy them. He touches a device on his wrist, and a bubble of orange material suddenly grows around them, enveloping the pair. Moments later Misty says she smells something, and tells Michael to hold his breath, even as the computer chimes in to tell him that a poisonous chemical is being released into their vicinity - the concentration is rapidly rising, and organic systems are now in jeopardy! Michael starts pounding on the walls of their bubble prison but can't even dent the stuff. Misty suggests shooting a hole in it, but Michael has another idea first, wrenching his fingers beneath the edge of the prison that touches the ground and ripping it off with one huge heave.
Misty grabs her gun and heads back towards Doom, deciding to get a little vengeance in - she takes a shot directly at the middle of his chest, but Doom doesn't even uncross his arms, simply tanking the blow without even the slightest hint of moving. Misty complains that for once she'd like to shoot someone who isn't bulletproof! Misty figures she can put a couple shots through Doom's eyeholes, and Doom admits he thinks Misty's charming. Utterly disarming, really. Never one to let a good pun go to waste, he then promptly annihilates her artificial arm with a laser, musing that perhaps the same is true for him! Misty crumples to the floor in pain at the sudden loss of her limb, and Michael rushes in to save her, tackling Doom to the ground.
Doom is furious that Michael would dare lay hands on him, but he promises he'll be doing a lot more than that! Doom demands to be unhanded, and unleashes his traditional electrical discharge from his armor, only to discover that Michael is insulated from such attacks. Taking advantage of the surprise, Michael then hits Doom upside the head, and demands he and Misty put the defective cyborgs back together again. Doom wonders why on Earth Michael would think he'd follow the cyborg's orders, then opens fire again from both his hand blasters, smashing Michael off his feet with a 'multi-frequency phased plasma burst of extraordinary force.' Michael says he's never taken a shot like that before even as he's careening through the air. While he's not damaged, the computer strongly advises him to avoid any such attacks in the future.
Doom paces closer to the downed Deathlok, declaring his time has come. Which is when he's popped in the back of the head by a bullet courtesy of a one-handed Misty Knight. Doom declares she's rapidly becoming tiresome, and promptly blasts her with his hand lasers, sending her careening straight through the floor and down onto a metal catwalk on a lower level, where she lays unconscious.
As Doom looks over the edge at his downed enemy, Michael approaches with his gun drawn and declares that if he moves a muscle, he's a dead man. Doom just stares at him and wonders if he's joking. Doom then starts blasting again, and Michael wonders to himself if the villain knows he's bluffing about the whole 'dead' thing, since he has a no-killing rule going. He then barrels into Doom and forces both of them down through the hole in the floor to the catwalk below. Doom curses him all the way down until Michael lands on top of him with a crunch. Oh, I'm sorry, that should be a 'krunch.'
Michael looks around the room they've just landed in, and it's a bit of a Jack Kirby wonderland of insane technology. His computer's initial analysis concludes that they've discovered an automated android assembly line that's constructing hundreds of robots in quick succession. And not just robots, either - they all resemble Doctor Doom - this is a Doombot factory! Michael is suddenly kicked in the face by a metal boot, and the computer chides him for getting his head out of the ongoing fight. He wonders if this Doctor Doom is a robot too, and his computer can answer - the fall damaged some sensor-inhibiting equipment in Doom's armor, which allows him to get a scan of his internals. Sure enough, the scan confirms that Doom is just a Doombot - which means the 'no killing' rule does not apply! Well, Michael decides - that changes everything!
Narrowly avoiding another laser volley from the Doombot, Michael goes to trash the hunk of junk, using his gun to temporarily disable the robot's personal force field before following that up with a second volley which penetrates and critically damages its core components. Not taking any chances, Michael pours a few more shots into the Doombot until it finally stops twitching. He quickly packs up the remnants of the Doombot to take them with him, figuring nobody's going to believe him without some proof. Next he checks up on Misty, whose vitals are alright - but she desperately needs someone to look at that broken arm. He picks her up and heads out, asking the computer if he happens to know someone who's an expert on both cyborgs and Doctor Doom, but he doesn't bother waiting for an answer - he already knows exactly where to go.
Not much later, at Four Freedoms Plaza - the base of the Fantastic Four - Michael arrives at the front desk and announces that he's looking for Mister Fantastic, still carrying both Misty Knight and a sack full of Doombot bits on his shoulders. Reed Richards looks in from a security camera and recognizes Michael as a Deathlok cyborg, as well as Misty Knight. He buzzes them up, introducing himself as just 'Reed.' Later, after he builds Misty a brand new arm that feels better than new, he comments that he made some improvements to the kinesthetic response and the artificial skin texture. She wonders how she can ever repay him, and Reed says he'd like her friend Deathlok to satisfy his curiosity about a few things.
He turns to Michael and comments that he seems considerably more high-tech than the last time they met, so who rebuilt him? Michael wonders what Reed is talking about, and decides to just move on, putting the pile of robot parts he brought on the table and explaining that he came here to show him these. Reed is astonished, and Michael figures he'd be interested - Doom was an old fiend of his, right? Hardly, Reed says - these are the product of a great mind gone astray. While Doctor Doom often uses robot doubles to avoid personal risk, these samples are utterly unlike anything he's ever seen Doom use - it's generations beyond the most advanced robotics he's ever seen. Worriedly, Michael reports that he found a base assembling dozens of these things just below the waterline. Reed immediately demands to know what he saw, in detail…
A short time later, Reed announces that it was right for Michael and Misty to come to him - but with the rest of the Fantastic Four absent and an experiment at a critical stage that can't be quickly shut down, he can't really be of much more assistance. It would take four hours to pause the experiment, which Michael figures would be far too long. Still, he tells Reed to take his time, and suggests Misty use the time to gather her allies too. In a few hours the rest of the Four should be back too, so they can all go together. Michael himself, though? He's heading out now. The rest of them can just catch up. And… do they have a car or something he can borrow, or will he have to walk?
Michael soon zooms out of there on a hilarious purple flying chair contraption, and mutters that he shouldn't have said 'car or something.' He tells the computer to build a battle plan based on their recon of the hidden base, but the computer advises him that a solo penetration of Doom's factory is ill-advised, and he really should be listening to Misty's advice. Michael refuses, noting that he didn't even want to leave before, but he had to get her some help - but there's more people still hurting in there that he wants to save.
He parks the flying vehicle near the waterline and dives into the water, swimming over to the base and overriding an electronic lock to enter. Soon enough he's returned to the place where all the cyborgs are strung up, and tells them he found a guy who might be able to fix them. While working on their bonds, the computer warns him that someone is scanning him, but he just tells it to destroy any more Doombots that show up.
He's suddenly blasted in the back by a green plasma beam, and for a brief time all he says is 'ERROR!' and Wingdings gibberish. Self-repair routines kick in and he comes back to his senses, but is unable to move. The computer reports that the unidentified beam that hit them disrupted the brain-body interface, and Deathlok is in total agnosia - although I'm not sure the comic is using that word right - it seems to be more like locked-in syndrome. Michael asks if it can be repaired, and the computer responds that it would take three hours. Michael is pretty sure they don't have three hours. Nearby, a bizarre mechanical monstrosity shows up to introduce himself - the skeletal creature depicted on the cover of the third issue, all rectangles surrounding a cybernetic skull. It introduces itself as Mechadoom, and declares that Michael is unwelcome in its home!
Deathlok v2 #4 - Thinking About Thinking
Mechadoom, still hovering over Deathlok's insensate body, demands to know why he has invaded its home - why should he not be destroyed? Michael curses himself for not waiting for the others - how is he going to fight when he can't even move? After a few moments Mechadoom apologizes, realizing that since he can't speak, Michael can't actually answer any inquiries. Stretching out its hand the robot releases a complicated mechanical cable, announcing that it's establishing alternate lines of communication. Several cables plug directly into random places in Michael's face, soon spreading out and infiltrating his I/O ports - the computer can't find any countermeasures to the process. His communication systems are overridden, and suddenly… he's somewhere else?
Michael is now inside a strange virtual world, with his original body returned to him, surrounded by the floating mechanical parts of the Deathlok cyborg on all sides, just inches from his skin. He asks the computer where they are, and it explains this is a shared communications environment between him and Mechadoom - the inside of a phone line, if you will. The world around them is basically an extrapolation of digital sets of data represented in ways his brain would understand - the floor, sky, and any other stuff he runs across is just icons representing data going back and forth between him and Mechadoom. He's gone through a lot of trouble here - so where is he, exactly?
Nearby, with a series of clicks and clanks, the shape of Mechadoom forms from the surrounding landscape and declares Michael has information it requires. Grasping the cyborg with cybernetic tentacles, it demands Michael hand over his OS, but that request is instantly denied. Mechadoom doesn't care - that which Michael refuses to give, it will simply take! Suddenly Michael finds himself strapped to a hospital bed, and several masked doctors surround him, symbolizing the attempt by Mechadoom to commandeer parts of him. Michael asks the computer if there's anything they can do, and the computer warns that regaining control of his body is taking most of his processing power - does he want to interrupt that process? Michael decides that's not an option - he'll get out of this himself, somehow, since he'll need control of himself again later, when the others show up!
The virtual doctor requests a buzzsaw, and is handed a chainsaw - that's pretty excessive, isn't it? Michael takes one look at this and rips himself free in a moment of rage. The doctor panics, declaring the patient needs anesthesia, and a nearby doctor holds up a mask while telling the nice little cyborg to count down from a hundred. Michael punches him in the face, then goes after the other doctors, who promptly vanish - Mechadoom's initial attempt has been defeated.
The second volley is quick to follow - and this time it takes the shape of rockets shaped like syringes. The computer warns Michael that these are representations of viral programs intended to override his systems, so Michael pulls out his gun and starts blasting them. He's a little puzzled why that works, though, since they're not really there. The Computer notes his shooting is a subjective interpretation on his part of counterprogramming measures - so he should keep 'firing!' Unfortunately he keeps missing, since he can't rely on targeting programs while his computer is busy, and he's a lousy shot on his own. Michael puts his weapon away, then wades in with a physical punch insead, figuring that is something he can handle personally. He then wonders why all these viruses look like needles - he could kind of understand that if they were vaccine programs, but why viruses? The computer explains that it's based on his conceptual model of viruses, and when Michael notes he has no real idea what viruses even look like, he gets it.
Michael tells the computer to get his body up and running as soon as possible - he'll stall for as long as possible. He then speaks up, shouting to Mechadoom that if he wants to talk, now's the time. The cybernetic creature grows out of the mechanical floor again, asking why he even came to Mechadoom's home when he was aware that's where people of his kind met their end. Michael says that's exactly why he's there - what gives him the right to torture sentient beings? Their sentience, Mechadoom announces, is precisely what gives him that right! He decides he'll explain, and he even brings some illustrative pictures.
Recently, he explains, a would-be usurper called Kristoff conceived of a plot to destroy Doctor Doom to take his place on the throne of Latveria. His attempt to destroy Doom failed, but he did manage to hold on to the throne in his guise of Doom. The original Doctor Doom often used robot doubles to make minor or unpleasant public appearances in his stead, and these Doombots are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing, and programmed to behave as if they are, unless they are in his presence. Kristoff saw the wisdom in this tactic, but was fearful that Doom might one day attack him after regaining control of the Doombots, and thus restarted a line of research that was long abandoned for being too dangerous, building a new series of Doombots who would obey him but not Doctor Doom. For reasons that he is not aware of, Kristoff abandoned the concept before the prototype was even fully constructed.
That prototype, naturally, was Mechadoom. After being left partially assembled in a Latveria basement, it took the initiative of completing its own construction in a manner that it hoped would please its absent father, and as it awaited the return of its master, it continued to improve itself. Finally, after a long time, it realized that it no longer wished to please its father at all! Michael tells it it's a phase all kids go through, but Mechadoom declares it's not a phase, it's real philosophical agony! When Michael points out the cyborgs he's trapped are in real agony, Mechadoom declares its pain as real as theirs, how can he not see this? Mechadoom is only a machine! It doesn't live, not really - it's just following its programming. Even the illusion of free will that it now enjoys will end the moment it lays eyes on its creator, as the truth of his existence renders its own a lie. Ever since it became independent it's endeavoured to change its own design to grant itself true artificial intelligence, but it failed. Thus… it changed tacks.
Mechadoom next decided it would create its own machines and gift them with the artificial intelligence it lacks. It reactivated a long abandoned facility to do this, building Doombots that it hoped would have this capacity. Sometimes its creations were irrational - depicted with a merrily dancing Doom - while others were merely useless. Some he destroyed in pique, punishing them for its own failures. Some it even allowed to escape! It was a hopeless approach, though - nothing Mechadoom created was even as advanced as itself, as it proved incapable of transcending itself….
Michael suddenly feels a twitch, and asks the computer how much longer it'll take to reactivate his body - it seems there's only four minutes left on the deadline. Figuring he only needs to stall a little longer, Michael asks Mechadoom what any of this backstory has to do with the Cybernetters he's been kidnapping. The robot responds simply that others have succeeded where it has failed. Thus it's endeavored to capture the world's most advanced sentient androids and cyborgs. And while some, like Coldblood, were too strong, it still managed to get the drop on enough of them that after dissecting them, it's confident it can build a success who can truly think. Michael suggests repairing everyone and then just sitting down together to find another way to help him, but Mechadoom isn't having it - it'll just dissect Deathlok too!
The discussion is interrupted when Mechadoom detects an outside disturbance, and notes that it seems others are interested in his work as well. Three razor-sharp blades punch through a wall and rend it open, revealing the shape of Wolverine of the X-Men, who is joined by a host of other superheroes - Storm, Iceman and Jubilee of his own team, Vision of the Avengers, the entire core Fantastic Four, and naturally Misty Knight as well! The cavalry has arrived! Reed warns them all to be careful, while Storm asks where they're supposed to go, with Misty playing guide based on her previous visit.
Mechadoom declares these intrusions cannot be allowed, and promptly explodes the room the heroes are in. Content that the problem is handled, it turns back to Deathlok and asks where they left off, only to discover that the cyborg has regained control of his body, and now has his gun aimed straight at it. 'You were about to kill me,' Michael quips. 'I've got other plans.'
Deathlok v2 #5 - Deus Ex Machina
Convinced that the superheroes who came to his rescue just died, Deathlok unloads on Mechadoom with his weapons on a rather awesome splash page. He asks the computer for a way to beat the bad guy, and the computer inquires if maximum force is permitted, which Michael denies - he's no murderer, even if Mechadoom is. When the computer notes that Mechadoom does not meet the qualification of a 'living organism', Michael says he doesn't care - shoot only to wound, not kill! The computer complies, and when the next few shots are dodged by the robot at point-blank range, the computer reconsiders its strategy.
Mechadoom isn't static as this is going on, and starts manipulating the environment in its favor, so the walls start unfolding to resemble big metal hands while cybernetic tentacles snake around its feet. It declares that Michael's destruction is as certain as that of those he wishes to avenge! Speaking of, we switch to the outer chamber of the fortress that Mechadoom detonated last issue, only to reveal that all the heroes survived the encounter, with Invisible Woman covering up that fact by using her powers to both protect from the explosion and render them all invisible to the naked eye, or camera. Sue figured rendering them all undetectable would be a good way to convince their attacker he was successful in killing them, granting them the element of surprise again. Ben figures the cameras got wiped out in the explosion, so she could have saved herself the trouble. Wolverine opines that it's a good theory - but he wouldn't put money on it. You see…
The group is suddenly surrounded by a whole army of Doombots that pour in from out of nowhere, and Misty wonders if anyone has any suggestions on what to do about this. Ben has one - it's clobberin' time! An unusually hideous Wolverine unsheathes his claws with a snikt and promptly beheads one of the Doombots with a punch, declaring that he likes the sound of that! Ben is puzzled that they're taking Doombots out with one shot, musing that they don't make 'em like they used to. Reed agrees, saying that his examination of the Doombot Deathlok brought him earlier yielded a great deal of information. He's constructed and deployed a jamming device that destroys their control frequencies, which causes these bots to be slow, less agile, and… soft!
Reed also reveals that these Doombots are inferior to Doctor Doom's own in another respect - their force fields react destructively with one another, and bringing them in close proximity causes them to shut down as a safety feature. Reed uses this to bonk one Doombot with another, destroying both. One thing's for certain - they're not very formidable, this time around! The only trouble, of course, is that the Doombots still have numbers, and they soon gang up on some of the heroes. Vision uses his density-changing to slip straight through the robots, disrupting them as he passes by and reducing their numbers. Jubilee, meanwhile, complains that her powers are no good in taking down these robots, and narrowly avoids getting shot.
Back in the duel between Deathlok and Mechadoom, the former has been captured by dozens of tentacles even as his computer announces that an attack plan has been completed which maintains his 'no killing' policy. Michael complains it won't do them any good if they can't get loose, and the computer immediately starts stress-testing the restraints. 'Oh, do take your time!' Michael grouches. Mechadoom announces that it might yet learn something from Michael's mechanical body - if it first removes all that troublesome organic material! As a whirring drill approaches his face, Michael worriedly asks the computer for an update, telling it that when he mentioned it could take its time, he was being - 'Sarcastic, affirmative.' At the last moment his head is jerked aside, and the drill impacts the restraints that kept him bound, which frees Michael from capture and allows him to retaliate.
Punching Mechadoom with all his might, Michael rips himself free and looks around for his gun, quickly finding it on the floor and diving to grab it. He tells the computer to target to cripple, then blasts Mechadoom's legs off - but it doesn't work very long, as the robot immediately reassembles them from nearby raw materials. Mechadoom declares he cannot be destroyed, but Micheal punches him apart to buy him a little time, asking his computer for a new strategy. Warned of incoming lasers, he darts out of the way with an athletic twirl, targeting and then blasting the wall-mounted laser-weapons with a series of pinpoint shots. Mechadoom takes advantage of the distraction to rush up to Michael, fully repaired. The computer reports that its primary energy source is broadcasted microwaves, while a secondary remote power supply allows it to radically reconstruct itself. Blasting the robot back, Michael tells the computer to cut off his juice, then - jam the signal! The computer says this option is unavailable, and advises destroying the primary power supply instead.
When Michael agrees with that plan, the computer starts locating the power supply, recommending a rifle-deployed plasma grenade to maximize the odds of total destruction. He agrees, and soon fires off the grenade towards its preprogrammed target, detonating its main power source, though reserve battery power remains available to it. Michael tackles the weakened robot, holding it at gunpoint while wondering what he's going to do with it. Mechadoom proclaims that without his main power source he cannot fully function, and begs for aid. Michael responds that if the robot is willing to do something for him, he's willing to see what he can do. First off, he asks how to call off the Doombots.
Moments later the robots that were fighting the other superheroes stop in place, deactivated. The heroes rush deeper into the base to find out what's going on, and encounter Deathlok alongside the newly freed cyborgs that Mechadoom captured, all of whom are just recovering after the robot repaired the damage it did. That was real quick! For unclear reasons one of those repaired robots is the megalomaniacal villain Ultron, who promptly leaves after swearing revenge for the indignity he suffered. Deathlok warns Mechadoom he'd better watch his back, and Storm muses that he should watch his front as well - she's not in a particularly forgiving mood either for what happened to Forge! Deathlok figures at least everyone's okay, and she opines that it's no thanks to him.
Storm turns to Mechadoom and asks what should be done about him, and Bushwhacker figures he's too dangerous to let live, so they should just off him right then. Deathlok objects, telling everyone to cool off. Bushwhacker wonders if he thinks he can stop all of them, and he responds that he'd try - he does not allow killing! He's not condoning what Mechadoom did, he explains, but they have to see it from his point of view - everything he did was to escape his father's influence - Doctor Doom! Jubilee wonders if he's gonna tell them a sob story about how he had a bad childhood next, and Michael dryly points out that he did. Misty pitches in by explaining that Mechadoom reacted violently to a world that defined him by a stereotype - soulless machine, hideous freak, whatever. Different. Then it held him to the limitations inherent in that false definition. All Mechadoom really tried to do was assimilate, but nobody would tell him how - or even let him. She glances at the others, and sarcastically quips that none of them have ever felt that way.
Bushwhacker pipes up that she has a point - but there's sociopaths like him, and then there's the dangerous ones. If they don't kill Mechadoom, what happens to him then? Forge figures Deathlok saved the day, so it's up to him, and Michael answers that he's not sure what they should do - just what they should not. Suddenly Mechadoom's temperature begins rising sharply, and Michael realizes he's about to self-destruct in about three minutes, and warns the others to retreat. Wolverine points out they're underwater - they'd never make it out of there in time! Ben figures they can beat him up before the bomb goes off, but Reed warns him that would just make it go off early, while Sue offers to isolate the blast with her force fields, but even if she wasn't exhausted from her earlier use of her powers, she probably wouldn't survive the attempt. Michael heads over to Mechadoom to get some answers, asking what he's thinking.
Mechadoom explains that it does not wish to lose its freedom, nor lose its identity when it sees Doctor Doom. If it cannot reproduce, and it cannot live… it chooses death! Deathlok wonders if it's been paying attention, and says that it has no right to kill itself, much less endanger the lives of others. He wonders if he's got this right - Mechadoom is afraid that it's alone, and its life doesn't count. It's afraid of losing its individuality. It's afraid of dying and not leaving anything behind for the world to remember it by. It's afraid of being different, and afraid of being too much the same. It's confused, and lashing out in anger. Misty was right - none of those feelings are inherent to being a machine. Michael has felt as Mechadoom does, and so has pretty much everybody who's ever been alive! Mechadoom should look around - cyberfolk feel as it does. Everybody does! Male or female, gay or straight, black or white or yellow or brown, Homo sapiens or Homo superior, man or super-man. Mechadoom is suffering from an advanced case of humanity. It should deal with that just like the rest of them do.
Stunned, repeating the word 'human' to himself, Mechadoom cancels its self-destruction. Lost, it asks what it should do, and Michael tells it that they can work something out. Not much later, Reed Richards has completed adjustments to Mechadoom's circuits so it never needs to fear seeing Doctor Doom again. Well, not more than the rest of them, at least. Misty muses that it's actually impressive what they can accomplish when they pool resources, and Mechadoom admits it's been thinking along similar lines. For now, it's decided to remain here, and act as a clearinghouse of information and technical support for cyborgs and intelligent machines. Its purpose will be to serve the community of cybernets until the day they are accepted fully into society. Michael decides that'll keep it busy for a while, so if they're all agreed, it's time for them to all get out of there.
'Not quite!' cries a voice, and Ultron suddenly reappears, aiming his finger-cannon and blasting a surprised Mechadoom from behind. The repentant Mechadoom is utterly annihilated, much to Michael's horror, and Ultron has vanishes in the instant it takes the heroes to recover from the surprise.
Several hours later, back at the pier, Michael wonders how Ultron pulled it off, since he disappeared without a trace right after taking the fatal shot. Misty remarks that Ultron is a maniac, but not a fool - he probably had his escape well-planned even before attacking, or he would never have tried such a stunt. Ultron was ultimately true to his word - he swore revenge, and he got it. Eventually, though, he'll show up again, and he'll pay for what he did today.
Michael muses that it was a lousy time for Mechadoom to die - he was just learning to be comfortable in his own skin, and for one shining moment he got everything he could ever ask for. Quoting once more from the book his father read to him, Michael says: 'This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius. And now what I have briefly sketched in large outline let me… tell again in many ways, with loving emphasis and deeper detail, that men may listen to the striving in the souls of black folk.' Misty replies that folk is folk - that striving is in everyone's soul… and he's a very good listener. Michael ascends away from the pier on the Fantastic Four's flying chair without another word.
In a coda, we catch up with Michael once more writing a letter to his wife, noting that while the cyborgs that Mechadoom tortured weren't exactly displeased that he died, some of them decided to hold a funeral for him anyway. The Fantastic Four and some of the X-Men are coming to pay their last respects - and so is he. It was a hard way to learn it, but Mechadoom taught Michael something. He's come to realize that his pretentious little speech about humanity wasn't entirely for the robot's benefit - in a way he was talking to himself. Despite what he said to Misty about having to live in her own skin, just knowing others are out there like yourself validates you - makes you feel just a little less alone...
Rating & Comments
My opinions on this four-parter are rather divided, largely because it feels like the creators were going in several directions and never really bothered to fully develop any of them - but some of them are enticing enough to give it some props. First, the early pages of the first issue seem to presage some sort of cyberpunk dystopian story about a subculture of cyborgs dealing with a predator targeting their community - it goes out of its way to depict a spooky robotic enemy who sweeps in from the dark to take people unaware, and spirit them away solely because they have artificial part. There's a whole Noir thing where Misty comes to Deathlok for aid with the excuse that she's a private investigator who escaped an attack, and it's all pretty promising. Even if that 'cybernet' culture seems to have been entirely invented for this storyline, and doesn't really exist in the larger Marvel universe, at least not from what I can tell.
The comic then goes out of its way to draw parallels between the cyborg minority and black people, specifically citing 'double consciousness, the psychological challenge African Americans experienced of 'always looking at one's self through the eyes' of a racist white society, and 'measuring oneself by the means of a nation that looked back in contempt.' To drive the point home, Misty even feels guilt for 'passing' as an unenhanced human being, referencing multiracial people escaping the legal troubles of segregration or discrimination by adapting themselves to fit an 'accepted' racial identity. This is… heavy stuff to lay on the reader, and I'm not sure if I'm entirely comfortable with the way the comic is treating the subject, but I can't quite pinpoint if it's actually doing a disservice - it's quoting directly from the literature, and the characters discussing it are themselves black - this doesn't seem to be some attempt at crudely pasting some social commentary onto the story. No, that will come later.
Although I quite like Misty Knight in the first issue, since she comes off as a badass asskicker who manages to come out victorious despite a rather minimal amount of power to bring to bear, I'm not so stoked by Deathlok. While having a pacifist in charge of a cyborg literally named for death is pretty interesting, the comic basically ends up with him playing second fiddle to the AI in his head, who does all the actual fighting. The one or two times the human in the cyborg gets to do anything, like give some instructions to his brain-computer, he screws it up and ends up reactivating the very threat they were trying to reprogram, or they run straight into a villain after reassurances that there's nobody around. I guess it's early days for his character, though, so there's room for him to grow in future issues towards a more well-rounded character rather than a shitty backseat driver who happens to own a Lambhorgini.
The second issue of the crossover drops the entire vaguely Crime Noir feel of the early pages of the first issue and goes for some classic comic book punchy-kicky stuff, as here we get an extended fight sequence between Deathlok, Misty, and a Doombot. The entire sequence is pretty standard, at least until Misty gets her arm blown off after Doom makes a terrible pun - a sure sign that he's a Doombot, I've noticed. After Deathlok gets an amusing bonk in on the Doombot's head, and gets blasted to kingdom come for daring to do so, it's nice that a wounded Misty gets one final blow in, though she doesn't get to defeat the Doombot for good, merely opening the way for Deathlok to finish the job instead. The entire fight takes up a huge chunk of the issue and while it's fun to see an approximation of Doom get some licks in, I'm not sure it added terribly much to the story that's being told here.
Reed Richards' involvement in this comic is interesting, mostly because he doesn't really seem to fit the more gritty and street-level vibe that the Deathlok title seems to go for. Here, he basically gives Misty Knight a new and improved cyber-arm in like half an hour, all while busy with a critical experiment like in nearly every single appearance of his in a crossover. Seriously, he's always busy! Reed ends up agreeing to help out later, when he has time, but Deathlok is too impatient and just kind of rushes ahead - a decision which proves a bit rash on his end in the next couple issues. Bonus points for getting a snazzy dumb chair out of the arrangement however, especially since I'm pretty sure Reed has less embarassing rides lying around. You think he did it on purpose just for the contrast?
In wild contrast, once again, to the issues before it, the third entry in this series shifts gears violently to become a virtual reality dream-episode in which Deathlok flits from hallucination to hallucination while holding off a mental assault. At least it's closer to the cyberpunk roots than last issue! With Mechadoom infiltrating his systems, we here follow Michael wandering his own digitized mind, which reveals that he's not that bright and converts such concepts as viruses or vaccines to big pointy syringes and spooky doctors because he's not terribly well-educated. He also spends most of the issue fighting off the virtual threats as if they are real, constantly wondering how that works despite getting repeated explanations from the computer that's literally in his brain. Not really selling me on this guy's contributions to the duo here, comic, when the only reason he even shoots straight is that the AI aims for him!
After a bunch of that back-and-forth dueling with Mechadoom, we finally get some elaboration on what is going on with it and this elaborate Doombot factory, and the explanation turns out to be a bit of a doozy. It seems that Mechadoom was an attempt by Kristoff Venard, while he was in power in Latveria, to improve on his Master's creations, expanding beyond what a conventional Doombot should be able to do. Fearful that the Doom running around the world, ostensibly a rogue Doombot who gained sapience, might one day take control of the other Doombots - which he eventually did at the start of Fantastic Four v1 #350 - Kristoff set out to make a robot which would obey only him, but not the other Doom. Although Mechadoom is unaware of this, it's likely Kristoff's work was interrupted when his reign was ended by an invasion from that same robot, as well as the return of the 'true' Doctor Doom from another dimension.
Left as an orphaned creation without direction, the prototype Mechadoom gained some level of self-awareness beyond the scope of a conventional Doombot, first clinging to its Doom-loving programming before realizing that such directives no longer had meaning to it. It then spent some time on self-improvement in directions Doom nor Kristoff had any hand in, which led to its strange floating skeleton look rather than fitting the usual Doombot mold. Interestingly, Mechadoom remains convinced he is a simple robot following his programming rather than truly sapient, largely because like all Doombots he is supposed to become the slavish follower of the real Doom should he ever walk into view, which would render his free will defunct. Fearfully Mechadoom has thus sought for independent thought, for independence from its creator, but tragically realized that its limitations prevented it from transcending its own complexity, preventing it from being a one-machine singularity.
Mechadoom's attempted solution to that problem is interesting, I think, and might also be a bit of a retcon for the writers outside of the similar Doombot retcon from the main Fantastic Four books at this time. Mechadoom has been creating children, of sorts, by attempting to enhance Doombots with new functions of his own design, with only limited success. This means that those references the Punisher made about a rogue Doombot factory in Jersey during the Acts of Vengeance crossovers are here confirmed - there really was one of those active at the time! And given that we hear that several Doombots escaped (or were released) it's plausible that any particularly weird-acting Doombots derive from here rather than anywhere else. Given Mechadoom's intent to make a sapient Doombot capable of existing in the presence of the real Doom without reverting to servitude, perhaps this is a way to retcon an explanation for the greatest Doombot into the story as well? The reason Kristoff abandoned the project isn't stated, so it could easily have been much earlier, after all…
The final issue of the four-parter once more shifts gears, moving away from the VR battles and backstory monologues to focus on a bunch of fighty-fighty punch-punch stuff again. A bunch of superheroes show up to play cavalry, but they're basically relegated to background mook duty for the duration of the issue, punching a bunch of inferior quality Doombots from the factory below. Although part of this can be attributed to the 'enhancements' that Mechadoom has been attempting, the comic slips in a reference to Reed Richards bringing a jammer to justify the Conservation of Ninjutsu that's on display here. The duel between Deathlok and Mechadoom is basically just a bunch of useless flailing and avoiding the environment until he finally figures out the robot's weak point, which turns out to be rather easily accessible and in plain view in the other room. After so much buildup and him basically one-shotting Deathlok two issues ago, Mechadoom kind of goes down like a chump in the end.
Mechadoom's change of heart immediately after getting his power supply destroyed is rather jarring and unconvincing, but he does immediately start helping to revert his diabolical plans, so at least he puts his money where his mouth is. Indeed, Deathlok and Mechadoom somehow manage to free all the strung-up cyborgs and repair their systems (which were claimed to be catastrophic just a few issues ago) in the time it takes a handful of superheroes to run less than a hundred feet through a hallway. Space is warped and time is bendable! For no adequately explainable reason they also repair Ultron, the genocidal robot who would happily kill them all, and let him go on his way. A poor decision, it turns out. Who knew?
The subsequent discussion on Mechadoom's fate is where the comic abruptly screeches to a halt after spending two and a half issues as a mindless action romp with minor digressions, and attempts to return to some level of thoughtful gravitas. The rather cavalier way the people there discuss a potential death sentence is jarring, especially since Mechadoom would surely count as a 'Cybernet' or par to their little community, and I assume most of them thus don't see him as an inhuman piece of technology to be discarded. Given that there's a bunch of superheroes present who don't really speak up aside from Deathlok, i'm not sure what to think. I mean, we have arrived in the 1990's, I would not be shocked if they're okay with wanton murder now!
Deathlok comes to Mechadoom's defense, noting that all he did was ultimately to get away from his father's influence - and they can surely sympathize wanting to distance oneself from the likes of Doctor Doom (or Kristoff, as the case may be.) Misty then pitches in by referencing systemic oppression, leaving it vague whether or not she's referencing being mistreated for her augmentations or her skin color - in the end the analogy is the same, however. She notes that Mechadoom's intent was only ever to assimilate, to become human like Pinnochio wanted and thus escape bondage, but nobody would tell him how or help him. I'm not sure if that's true, since Mechadoom evidently just started kidnapping people without trying anything else first, but it sounds dramatic and that's what the comic is going for, damn it!
Mechadoom's decision to take matters into its own hands before it's consigned to prison is sort of understandable, since it explains that its worst nightmare is to lose the freedom it's gained for itself, which is surely what would happen if it's captured by the heroes. Less excusable is the fact that its suicide would take everyone there with him, though I'm a little puzzled how a tiny robot body that's running out of power would have enough oomph to do that when his main power source only had enough power to destroy a small room. Deathlok's response is the first time the man inside the cyborg seems to properly contribute, drawing on his own experiences to sum up all the many ways in which Mechadoom demonstrates that it's more than just a robot, more than just a machine. It's afraid of being different, and lashing out because of it - It's faced with, as Michael puts it, an advanced case of humanity. In my view, this sequence basically confirms that while Mechadoom was desperately hunting for the means to transcend himself, he never noticed he already had…
After that spirited conclusion, the four-parter begins to wind down with Reed fixing Mechadoom's primary fear of losing its identity in the face of Doom, and I actually quite like Reed's quip that he'll now only have to fear the villain as much as the rest of them do. The group then discuss the potential of working together more as a community, and Mechadoom decides he'll set up shop right there to help cyborgs with technical and community support - a warm conclusion which signals that even those who lash out in fear and confusion can learn to readjust to society if given the help they need. A hopeful note that cybernet culture will, eventually, become more accepted and no longer lead to edge cases like Cyberdoom despairing at the edges, caught up in other people's expectations.
Then Ultron shows up and murders him.
I don't really know what went into this decision to suddenly rob this story of its more-or-less happy ending and cancel the set-up the past few pages had been doing for future stories and character interactions. It must've been an editorial mandate of some description to ensure that the character of Mechadoom would not appear again beyond this four-parter, as I can't imagine all this material would have been put in place for nothing. The sequence in which Ultron appears is also extremely brief, confusing, and makes no real narrative sense in the scene, so I'm pretty sure it was just inserted late in the creative process, too. I suspect Ultron wasn't originally in the story at all, as his inclusion among the repaired cyborgs was weird already. It's a shame to see a character die like this way, only moments after discovering some possible road to redemption - but before actually being able to follow it to its conclusion. It's similar to some other characters I've recently discussed, like the villain Night in Cloak and Dagger v2 #13 and the fake Alicia in Fantastic Four v1 #358. It seems that radical changes to a character's arc can prove imminently fatal!
As a coda, we return to the analogy of the Cybernets and black people, with Deathlok once more quoting from the same book as at the start, referencing the dream of full equality between people regardless of their qualities. We are also informed that while most of the cyborgs who Mechadoom hurt weren't exactly upset by his demise, a few of them showed up for the funeral anyway, as did the Fantastic Four and some of the X-Men. Michael realized belatedly that the speech he gave to Mechadoom about his inner humanity also applies to himself, however much he felt sorry for his current state trapped in another's body, and the existence of others to which he can compare his situation makes him feel a little less alone. It's nice that the issue manages to wrap up with a bit of a hopeful note after all, after squashing the last one so effectively…
So, what are my thoughts on this whole multi-issue arc? I'm… divided, as I said before. On one hand I appreciate the attempt to establish a sort of cyborg subculture with cyberpunk traits - it's pretty cool. On the other hand, I'm not sure if the choice of repeatedly referencing replacement limbs as being analogous to having dark skin is an entirely wise way to frame things - seems like a great way to run into some controversy. Beyond that, this four-parter in particular feels quite schizophrenic in the way it wildly swings genres between issues, spending a huge swathe of time on ultimately meaningless fight scenes with essentially unkillable robots which are promptly forgotten. The supporting cast also mostly shows up to stand around a bunch and commentate, and they honestly feel pretty out of character even then, especially when nobody reacts to open talk of vigilante executions. And Mechadoom, of course, goes from being a one-note villain to potentially redeemable misunderstood figure to dead guy in the span of a half a dozen pages, and is never mentioned again. It's tragic.
'Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most... Human.'
Most Melodramatic Quotes of Mechadoom
"Truly you have earned the honor of perishing at my hands. The hands of Doctor Doom!"
"That which you refuse to give - I simply take!"
"I do not wish to lose my freedom. I do not wish to lose my identity when I see Doctor Doom. If I cannot reproduce, if I cannot live, I choose death."
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