The Falcon & The Winter Soldier has finally debuted after being delayed a couple months as production had been pushed due to the pandemic. The series head writer and executive producer Malcolm Spellman has been doing interviews and recently talked-up another Marvel Comics superhero he’d like to get his hands on next if the studio allowed it.
While speaking with Heroic Hollywood, Spellman reveals he’d love to get his hands on Deathlok and clarifying he would want to reboot him for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, not continuing the Michael Peterson version seen in the ABC series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. played by J. August Richards.
SPELLMAN: “My favorite character, the character I would most love to do next, would be Deathlok. But it would have to be right.”
When they mention the A.O.S. version Malcolm responded by stating he’d want to do another version of the character, a reboot. Potentially, referring to the other versions such as Col. Luther Manning, Michael Collins, Jack Truman, and Henry Hayes.
SPELLMAN: “Yeah. Yeah. Not that Deathlok. A different Deathlok.”
Interestingly enough, there was a Deadline article from 2019 that Marvel Studios was keen on rebooting the cyborg character and the MCU has already introduced time-travel in Avengers: Endgame along with human characters with cybernetic enhancements. Sam jokingly refers to Bucky as a “cyborg” in the trailers/promos for the series, his robotic arm would indeed place him into the cyborg category.
Deathlok was a oft-discussed project back in the 1990s when Marvel characters were still a tough sell in Hollywood and a script by Randall Frakes (Terminator 2: Judgment Day) stirred fan hopes but it never materialized. A version of the character has appeared on the ABC series Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (portrayed by J. August Richards) and there’s been rumors that Marvel Studios may use the character soon.
In his original incarnation he was Col. Luther Manning, a Detroit native killed in battle whose corpse is reanimated in post-apocalyptic future for battlefield domination. He rebels against his makers and goes his own way, including a time-travel trip to the present day.
We’ll have to wait and see if Spellman will get his wish concerning Deathlok. If we start to see Marvel Studios rebooting Marvel Television characters from the Loeb era it might signal that others might end up getting rebooted too.
SOURCE: HEROIC HOLLYWOOD
THE RONIN 