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Cover: Rich Buckler

Astonishing Tales #26

Name: Astonishing Tales #26
Brand: Marvel
Availability: InStock

Oct 1974 · Marvel · 0.25 USD

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“The Enemy: Us!”

★ 1st appearance — Mike Travers

About this Issue

Astonishing Tales #26 is the second appearance of Deathlok (Luther Manning), the Bronze Age cyborg anti-hero whose influence on the genre — from RoboCop to DC's Cyborg — is hard to overstate. More than a simple follow-up, it introduces two characters who immediately deepen the mythology: Mike Travers, Deathlok's last human tie to his pre-cyborg life, and War-Wolf, Simon Ryker's newest atrocity — a mind surgically transplanted into a bestial cyborg body, a dark-mirror reflection of what happened to Luther Manning himself. The issue's deliberately fragmented, non-linear storytelling, in which flashback timelines interweave with the present, was formally adventurous for a mainstream Marvel book in 1974 and drew notice from readers even at the time.

In "The Enemy: Us!", Deathlok races to save his old army buddy Mike Travers from the clutches of Major Simon Ryker, only to see him recaptured. When Deathlok returns, he’s confronted by War-Wolf—claimed by Ryker to be Mike’s mind trapped in a cyborg body—leaving the line between ally and enemy dangerously blurred. Written by Rich Buckler and Doug Moench, with art by Buckler and inks by Pablo Marcos, this 1974 Marvel classic features a cover by Rich Buckler.

writer, artist Rich Buckler · writer Doug Moench · inker Pablo Marcos · colorist L. Lessmann · letterer A. Kawecki · cover Rich Buckler

ComicBooks.com Value

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Raw (Fine) $11

CGC 9.8 · 31 in census $255

CGC 9.6 · 59 in census $107

CGC 9.4 · 39 in census $62

CGC 9.2 · 29 in census $58

CGC 9.0 · 17 in census $58

CGC 8.5 · 25 in census $34

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CGC 8.0 · 14 in census $29

CGC 7.5 · 15 in census $28

CGC 7.0 · 9 in census $28

CGC 6.5 · 5 in census $20*

CGC 6.0 · 4 in census $20*

CGC 5.5 · 3 in census $20*

CGC 5.0 none in existence

CGC 4.5 · 2 in census $20*

CGC 4.0 · 2 in census $20*

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astonishing tales deathlok #26 1974 marvel comics $7.99 1974 Bronze Marvel Astonishing Tales Featuring Deathlok Comic Book #26 2nd App $17.14 ASTONISHING TALES (1974) #26 ~2ND DEATHLOK!~ 1ST WAR-WOLF! $19.99

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History

The Deathlok feature was conceived by Rich Buckler as an intentional inversion of the then-popular Six Million Dollar Man television series: where that show's hero was handsome and at ease with his cybernetics, Buckler's creation would be grotesque and at war with his own body. After Marvel failed to acquire the comic rights to the TV show, Buckler refined his concept and pitched it to editor Roy Thomas; writer Doug Moench came aboard to script and co-plot, and it was Moench who suggested the final name 'Deathlok the Demolisher.' By issue #26, the creative rhythm of Buckler plotting and Moench scripting was firmly in place, with Len Wein serving as editor-in-chief and the story edited under Roy Thomas.

Trivia · 8 facts

Second appearance of Deathlok (Luther Manning), whose debut was in Astonishing Tales #25 (August 1974).
First appearance of War-Wolf, Simon Ryker's cyborg creation — presented as Mike Travers's mind transplanted into a monstrous body — created by Rich Buckler, Doug Moench, and Pablo Marcos.
First appearance of Mike Travers, Luther Manning's former army buddy and the human stakes at the center of this issue's rescue plot.
Written and plotted by Rich Buckler and Doug Moench (Buckler on plot and pencils, Moench on script); cover art also by Rich Buckler; cover dated October 1974, on sale July 1974.
The story employs a non-linear structure with interwoven flashback timelines, a distinctive narrative choice noted by readers both contemporary and modern.
The issue contains Marvel Value Stamp #66 (General Thunderbolt Ross), a cut-out collectible insert embedded between pages 11 and 12; the letters page also reproduces a partial panel of Fin Fang Foom from Astonishing Tales #24 in a bullpen message.
The story has been reprinted at least twice in collected editions: in Marvel's 2014 'Deathlok the Demolisher: The Complete Collection' and in Salvat's Brazilian 'A Coleção Oficial de Graphic Novels Marvel: Clássicos' #31 (2017).
Deathlok's original Astonishing Tales run (issues #25–28 and #30–36) is set on Earth-7484, a dystopian alternate future nominally dated to 1990; issue #26 unfolds in the ruins of New York City, with the Statue of Liberty serving as Ryker's base of operations.