Issue(s): Marvel Comics Presents #71 (Warlock story only)
Cover Date: 1991
Title: "Warlock and the Fleshtones!"
Credits:
Scott Lobdell - Writer
Scott McDaniel - Penciler
Harry Candelario - Inker
Kelly Corvese - Assistant Editor
Terry Kavanagh - Editor

Review/plot:
Warlock rescues an FBI agent whose car fell into a tarpit while pursuing renegade scientists that have injected themselves with an experimental bio-toxin.

Warlock has always been funny because of who he is and how he talks. He didn't need bad puns.

The renegade scientists are said to have powers similar to Warlock's shape changing ability, except in flesh tones. So they call themselves the Flesh Tones.

Warlock defeats them by leading them back to the tar pits, where they get stuck.

There was potential here in giving Warlock opponents with similar powers, and who were as crazy as he is strange...

...but Scott Lobdell can't help make it all as corny as possible. I've always liked Warlock, but my fear about a Warlock solo series is that it would be exactly like this story. It didn't really matter at this point, since he was already dead at the time this story was published.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Obviously needs to take place before Warlock dies during X-Tinction Agenda.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

The Fleshtones appear in another Marvel Comics Presents story, so they should be listed as Characters Appearing.

This reads like an Impossible Man story.

They should have moved this story up the schedule in Marvel Comics Presents. Warlock had been dead for, what, over a year when this issue came out?

Only about 4 months- but yeah, that's a recurring problem with Marvel Comics Presents. Look at the Selene/Hulk story, which featured a grey Hulk but came out when the Hulk was green.

Added the Fleshtones as characters. Thanks.

"I've always liked Warlock, but my fear about a Warlock solo series is that it would be exactly like this story."

You do know that Warlock actually had a solo series, right?

Warlock has always been funny because of who he is and how he talks. He didn't need bad puns.

You know, even if the credits weren't listed in this entry, that would already clue us in that this was a Lobdell "masterpiece."

If you mean the M-Tech series from 1999, i did read it in realtime. That was really Douglock though, right? And at least Louise Simonson didn't play it as a comedy (as far as a recall).

Fnord, the Warlock series from 1999 was pretty funny and wacky, but it was not a comedy. It was a lot like Power Pack, in that there were certainly comedic elements, but the plots and characterization were quite serious. I really did enjoy that Warlock series, and I wish it had lasted at least a bit longer.

In any case, in that series Louise Simonson pretty much established that Douglock was actually a resurrected Warlock, more or less. Which was fine by me, since I had been unhappy that Warlock had been killed in "The X-Tinction Agenda." I've always suspected that Rob Liefeld pushed for it to happen because the character did not fit in with his plans to turn the New Mutants into the "serious" X-Force with their bulging muscles, big guns and gritted teeth.

Anyway, regarding this MCP story, I like it. Yeah, it's ridiculous, but I found it funny, and it was nice to briefly see Warlock again, since I missed him.

By the way, the fact that this was published AFTER the character died is lampshaded with some dark humor on the cover, as the corner box features Warlock in the shape of a tombstone, with "RIP" scrawled on him...

http://www.comics.org/issue/49372/cover/4/