Astonishing Tales #31 - Marvel Comics

ASTONISHING TALES No.31, August 1975

Despite this edition featuring a fantastically-sketched cover of Deathlok by Ed Hannigan and Bernie Wrightson – something which apparently “really steamed” the character’s creator Rich Buckler when he found out about it, Issue Thirty One of “Astonishing Tales” most likely proved a dissatisfying read to many of its buyers. Sure, Doug Moench’s script certainly delves deep into the previously dead soldier’s resurrected psyche, and provides plenty of adrenaline-fuelled action as the cyborg battles a rooftop full of gun-toting killers. But it is also absolutely crammed full of unconvincing coincidences and startlingly concludes after just ten pages; “Of all the stinkin’ slimy, lousy, dirty rotten --”

In addition, having previously spent some considerable sheet space showing Mike Travers escaping the insane clutches of Simon Ryker and one of the madman's computer-controlled cells, the American author conveniently pens him walking straight into the titular half-human mechanism. This meeting, smack in the middle of a post-apocalyptic Manhattan seems highly unlikely, though nowhere near as implausible as Luther Manning’s subsequent encounter with a hoodlum who knows the specific location of “the surgeon who worked on that Deathlok Goon” on a random apartment’s rooftop.

Much more compelling than this comic’s penmanship though, is Buckler and Keith Pollard’s artwork – which is quite wonderfully inked by Klaus Janson. The previously mentioned battle between the Demolisher and some pistol-carrying criminals is extremely well-drawn, and must have left this publication’s audience wondering what other dynamic sequences might have occurred if Rich hadn’t allegedly prioritised pencilling “a few one-off stories for DC Comics” during this time period, as well as supposedly creating “a whole new feature” for Atlas/Seaboard Comics.

Perhaps this book’s best hook can therefore be found with Stan Lee’s back-up tale “Why Won’t They Believe Me?” Illustrated by the “genial Gene Colan”, this reprint from an old “Silver Surfer” periodical proves a much more succinct reading experience, and by its conclusion rather neatly answers a number of initially alarming questions as to just how a human can understand the scribblings inside an alien spacecraft's log book. Indeed, it’s arguably easy to see just why the notion of an amnesiac extra-terrestrial would later be reused by Roger Stern and John Byrne for a future instalment of “Marvel: The Lost Generation” some twenty-five years later.

Writer: Doug Moench, amd Artists: Rich Butler & Keith Pollard