Deathlok the Demolisher #1 (1of a seven issue limited series)

Apparently this book is reviving the Marvel Knights imprint (which has seemingly been dead for quite a while,)although from the writing here with it's glorious use of violence and long string of obnoxiously edited curse words they might as well put it out in the Max imprint. of course one even wonders why Marvel and DC are always trying to revive long dormant characters but I guess they should be rewarded for at least trying even if most of the time the results are null and void, which is pretty much what we seem to be getting here.

Granted I know next to nothing about Deathlok except he was a african american half cyborg and possible soldier of some sorts and his book was considered edgy for it's time and that's just going from memory..

Anyways all those idea's have been apparently thrown out the window for some reason at least for the time being what we get is a mix and match of sci fi tropes all thrown into together in something that doesn't seem anything at all original so basically what we have here is Starship troopers meets Rollerball meets Running Man which basically amounts to a parody of extreme sports commentators over a a bunch of hard ass military goons pretending to be jocks.

The first big mistake is the pacing which doesn't even get to the action until page 15 where the book is already half-way over and the second is the extremely obnoxious extreme sports commentators who don't offer any real insight into the players or what's going on in the book at all just check out this exact quote from one of the commentators “that can only mean one thing the house of pain is open for business” “ amateurs need not apply” “we got the big dogs in the ring tonight and one of them ain't going home with a bone” And then they insult one of the former players turned commentators who was handicapped from a field explosion .
Apparently all this is supposed to be some sort of dark comedy but the dialogue is way too in your face to ever be funny so i'm not sure who exactly this book is supposed to be marketed towards.

Lan Medina's art is really lovely in the beginning and has lots of nice detail and a level of almost painterly realism, but then when the action starts the action seems stiff and the blood red colors blur a lot of the energy and detail out of the pencils. Sadly Deathlok himself doesn't even appear in this issue at all so maybe the next issue will pick up on the action and leave the commentators behind.