Captain America #286
One Man in Search of Himself
The Future
In the ruins of New York, a man cooks some meat at a camp fire when he is murdered by a hungry teenage gang. This sort of savagery and violence is the way of the world now.[1]
Meanwhile, in a secret bunker, a clone of Luther Manning is about to be sent back in time by uneasy ally, Godwulf. Manning is a clone of the cyborg warrior known as Deathlok.[2] Godwulf is sending Manning back in time so that he can find Deathlok to bring him back to their time and save their world.[3]
The Present
The Manning clone materializes in the middle of a busy New York City subway and his sudden appearance causes the people to panic. Manning himself also panics due to the sheer volume of people and flees up to the streets.
Meanwhile, at Avengers Mansion, Captain America and his new partner Nomad are training with each other. Nomad shows off but his execution of combat routines are sloppy. In order to force Nomad to focus, Cap insults him and his past association with the Captain America of the 50s.[4][5] Jack gets upset, but realizes what Cap is doing as the training session ends. Although it was a good work out, Steve is anxious to get going because he has an important date to keep.
Elsewhere in the city, the Luther Manning has ducked into an alcove to pull out his tracking device to find Deathlok. As he ponders why his progenitor was brought to this era he is confronted by some police officers who were investigating the scene in the subway station. It turns into a gun fight and as Manning defends himself, it triggers the memories he shares with the original Luther Manning, how he became Deathlok and the his own creation as a clone of Manning’s original body. After blowing up the police officer’s squad car, Manning is able to make his escape and continue his search.
Meanwhile, Steve Rogers is taking the train out to Long Island. He is nervous because he is going to be meeting the parents of Bernie Rosenthal, his current girlfriend.[6] The car ride if awkward and takes a strange turn as they are passing the recently shut down headquarters of the Brand Corporation.[7] Bernie nearly runs over the Luther Manning clone who has been drawn to the Brand building by his tracking device. Seeing the strangely garbed man lunging over the fence muttering about Deathlok, Steve insists that he has to investigate as Captain America because Deathlok is dangerous. Upset that Steve is bailing out on dinner with her family, she reluctantly agrees to make an excuse and goes on without him so he can investigate.
Changing into Captain America, Steve confronts the Manning clone who is in awe of seeing the legendary hero. The clone quickly explains his mission and Captain America agrees to help him find Deathlok. When they enter the Brand building they discover that it is still very operational. Fighting through the guards they break into the genetics division where an experiment is underway. However, before they can find out what’s going on, the Luther Manning clone is shot through the chest by a laser blast. When Captain America turns to see who shot Luther, he comes face-to-face with Deathlok the Demolisher.
Recurring Characters
Captain America, Deathlok, Nomad, Bernie Rosenthal, Brand Corporation, Luther Manning clone, Godwulf, Wasp
Continuity Notes
Deathlok’s future was once considered the future of Earth-616, the Prime Marvel Universe. However, following the events of Captain America #289, the two realities have diverged from one another. Per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005, Deathlok’s timeline is now designated to Reality-7484.
Deathlok was once Luther Manning until he was killed in War Game exercises and had his brain implanted into a cybernetic body, as seen in Astonishing Tales #25. Later, a clone of Manning’s original body was made in the hopes of transferring Luther’s mind into it. However, the clone turned out to only be a copy with all of Manning’s memories. See Astonishing Tales #33.
How Deathlok ended up on present day Earth-616 is somewhat complex. It all started with an encounter with a time-lost Spider-Man in Marvel Team-Up #46. When Spider-Man returned to his own time his mind was read by the telepath Mentallo. Later, he and his ally the Fixer plucked Deathlok out of time to use him in a plot to assassinate the President of the United States. See Marvel Two-In-One #27. Deathlok has been trapped in this era ever since.
It is stated here that Jack Monroe was the Bucky of the 1950s who worked with the Captain America of that era. After the super-soldier serum they used to get their powers drove them mad, they were put in suspended animation by the government. Bucky had since been released in more recent times and has been trying to find his place in the world. See Captain America #155 and 281 for all the details.
Nomad mentions his recent battle with Porcupine. That happened last issue.
The narration here mentions how Steve Rogers is a man-out-of-time after spending years in suspended animation. The whole affair was detailed in Avengers #4.
The Brand Corporation was shut down due to their criminal activities, as seen in Amazing Spider-Man #234-236.
Topical References
Deathlok’s future is stated as taking place in the year 1991 in this story, while the present day takes place in the year 1983. Both of these dates should be considered topical references due to the fact that the Modern Age of the Marvel Universe exists on a Sliding Timescale that pushes it forward in time so that it is not fixed to a specific date. See below for a more detailed explanation on how this index chooses to interpret this.
Bernie Rosenthal is depicted driving an 80’s model Volkswagen Beetle. This should be considered topical.
Explaining Deathlok’s Timeline
When he first appeared, the original Deathlok’s future was supposed to be the future of the mainstream Marvel Universe (Earth-616) as evidence when Spider-Man ended up in that future in Marvel Team-Up #46. Deathlok’s future has always been depicted as happening in the “future” year of the early 1990s in all of the original texts, where it is stated that the Modern Age of heroes came to an end in 1983. Subsequent Marvel Handbooks, even up to Luther Manning’s most current profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #3 continue to repeat this original narrative.
However, in the texts, Deathlok’s future has always been stated as being a possible future to the Earth-616 Universe and that the realities diverged when Captain America prevents Nth Command from wiping out Earth’s heroes in the present day in Captain America #289.
There is a divide between individuals who believe that Deathlok’s future is locked to key dates and that others that believe it exists on a Sliding Timescale. This is a debated issue even over at the The Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe, with regular contributors being unable to come to a census on the matter. I suspect that Marvel’s Official Handbooks continue to use static dates is because the Luther Manning profiles were taken directly from the Appendix since the contributors there had a hand in writing the current run of Official Handbooks. The author who wrote that piece used fixed dates and that why it is presented so in the handbooks.
To understand things, let me first go into the arguments about Deathlok’s timeline:
The Arguments For Fixed Dates
The example used to argue that Deathlok’s timeline is set in fixed dates is the MC2 Universe (aka Earth-982). This universe chronicles the “next generation” of Marvel heroes, particularly Spider-Girl — aka Mayday Paker — the daughter of Spider-Man (Peter Parker) and Mary Jane Watson. In the beginning of this line of stories, May is about 15 years old, placing the “present day” of the Marvel Universe has happening 15-20 years in the past. However, the way the Handbooks interpret this reality is that Earth-982 is set in the “present day” that runs on a Sliding Timescale. We aren’t seeing the “future” per-se, but a “present day” when the Age of Heroes happened and came to an end around a decade or two prior.
The arguments for Deathlok’s future being set to fixed dates is that Deathlok must come from a similar timeline, where Deathlok’s “past” is a version of the Earth-616 Modern Age that happened and ended about a decade earlier and that Luther Manning’s “present day” is what adheres to a Sliding Timescale.
The Argument Against
The main argument against this idea is that for a number of years, Deathlok has been involved in time travel incidents where he interacts with Earth-616 characters and even (prior to this Captain America story) spent a prolonged period of time in the present day of Earth-616.
All of these stories frame Deathlok as coming from the future and any time a present-day Earth-616 is told what year Deathlok comes from they are all shocked to learn what happens in the future. Case in point, in this Captain America story arc, Deathlok tells Cap the year in which his future begins is the year 1983, Captain America exclaims “It is the year 1983!”. If Deathlok’s explanations of the future were of a year that had already passed in the Modern Age, then Captain America wouldn’t have reacted that way. More over, Captain America’s actions in Captain America #289 causes the divergence that separates Earth-616’s timeline from a future where Deathlok’s dystopia exists.
This idea puts it more in line with other time travel storylines like Days of Future Past (Earth-811) which was given static dates in the original story, where the “present day” took place in 1980 and the Days of Future Past events beginning in the year 1984 and the future Kitty Pryde coming from sometime in the early 21st Century. Marvel no longer considers these affixed dates, rather that the DOFP timeline runs on a Sliding Timescale as well as this nightmare future regularly pops up as a possible threat but changes as the possible future is influenced by the actions taken in the present day.
The commonality between Days of Future Past and Deathlok’s timeline are time travel interactions with the “present day” of the Prime Marvel Universe with the intent of changing the future and preventing certain events from occurring.
The Unofficial Index Position
That all said, it is my opinion that the idea of Deathlok’s future being affixed to a static date does not make sense. The narrative of the stories always state that Deathlok comes from a/the future that is years ahead of the present day Marvel Universe. Due to the Sliding Timescale, the concept of Captain America traveling to Deathlok’s time which is in the future but — thanks to the Sliding Timescale — is now (as of this writing) 30 years in the past and no longer in reasonable synch with the Modern Age.
Deathlok’s future was connected to the Marvel Universe until the divergence point in Captain America #289. As such, it too must exist on the Sliding Timescale. It is the position of this index that at this juncture in the fiction Deathlok’s future can no longer exist in a fixed date but in a Post-Modern Age Sliding Timescale which pushes forward in time much as the Modern Age itself.
How This Index Interprets Deathlok’s Timeline:
Trying to figure out a reasonable timeline on this Sliding Timescale model is not quite as straight forward.
Per the fiction, the end of the Heroic or Modern Age of the Marvel Universe happened in 1983. The first Deathlok story was published in Astonishing Tales #25, published in 1974. The idea was that from the perspective of publication dates, the “present day” of the Marvel Universe as in 1974 and Deathlok’s future began 9 years in the future and that Deathlok’s “future” of 1990 was 16 years in the future from the present day in the publications.
Looking at the Sliding Timescale, the 1974 publication year falls under “Year 4” of the Modern Age. Thus, by this logic, Deathlock’s future was to happen start in “Year 14” with Dethlok being created in “Year 20”.
However, Captain America #289 is the story where Deathlok’s future diverges from the Prime Marvel Universe, the inciting incident being the Nth Command wiping out Earth’s heroes. Captain America #289 was published in 1983 which is “Year 6” of the Modern Age. “8 years” earlier than if you measured time based entirely on the original publication dates.
That said, it appears that the timeline was mapped out before the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616 was firmly established. Earth-616’s timescale operates on a 4:1 ratio, meaning for ever 4 years of publications, 1 year of time passes in the fiction. If you apply this logic to Deathlok’s timeline, by condensing the dates giving by 4, things start fitting better.
The 4:1 ratio for the “14 year” period between Astonishing Tales #25 and Captain America #289 you get 3.5 years. Adding that to “year 4” you get “year 7.5” which is a lot closer to the length of time between the in-universe passage of time between the 1974 and 1983 years of publications. “Year 20” now reduces down to “Year 16”, making everything fit a lot better. They aren’t perfect but all measurements of the Sliding Timescale should always be taken as approximations rather than exact dates since there will always be inconsistencies when trying to account for all the continuity.
That all said, it is the view of this index that Deathlok’s timeline begins around “Year 6”, the “year” of the divergence point and that Deathlok’s creation happened in “Year 16”. From the perspective of Captain America #286, modern readers should interpret Deathlok’s future has happening 10 years in the future from that point, which matches issue #288, which titles the story “Revolution: 1993!”, 10 years after 1983, the story’s publication date. Thus, my Sliding Timescale theory surrounding Deathlok’s future works.
Based on my interpretation, modern readers should infer that Deathlok’s future takes place roughly 10 years from the time of this story, per the Sliding Timescale.