Issue(s): Sleepwalker #8
Cover Date: Jan 92
Title: "Night of the living Deathlok"
Credits:
Bob Budiansky - Writer
Bret Blevins - Penciler
Mike Manley - Inker
Kevin Kobasic - Assistant Editor
Don Daley - Editor

Review/plot:
Rick's ex-girlfriend Alyssa approaches him with the idea of seeking out Sleepwalker to warn him that while she knows he's doing good work, most people are afraid of him and might react badly to seeing him.

Alyssa continues to be used as eye candy by Bret Blevins, with that lead-in panel with her butt.

Rick, of course, shares a brain with Sleepwalker so he doesn't agree to go with her. Which nixes his chance at getting back together with her, so she goes looking for Sleepwalker with another boy, Whitney Cooper, instead. Whitney is a bit of a creeper.

The Coney Island amusement park where Alyssa thinks Sleepwalker might be is actually where Deathlok lives. Rick sends Sleepwalker to keep tabs on Alyssa, and Sleepwalker runs into Deathlok, and the two monstrous heroes get into a Misunderstanding Fight.

The real bad guy of the piece is a new special effects artist who is providing statues to the amusement park's haunted house (putting a dent in Deathlok's roomate Jesus Badalamente's business). And it turns out that his statues are really people that he's captured and mutated into monsters. Alyssa and Whitney are captured while Deathlok and Sleepwalker are fighting. And when Sleepwalker uses his ability to warp objects on Deathlok's arm, it weakens Deathlok to the point where he can't fight back against the monsters, so he's captured too. Sleepwalker disappears because the noise from all the fighting wakes Rick up, and Rick goes in himself to try to help out. He's captured too, but the special effects artist's devices wind up connecting the minds of Rick and Deathlok. So Deathlok and Sleepwalker meet again in cyberspace. At this point Sleepwalker knows that Deathlok isn't a bad guy, but he's not able to convince Deathlok to stop fighting. So he tricks Deathlok into knocking out Rick, which, since Rick is asleep, causes Sleepwalker to appear in the real world instead of the cyberspace dream world.

Then he proves that he's a good guy by freeing Deathlok, and they fight the monsters, although it's complicated by the fact that the monsters are actually innocent people.

They do manage to stop the monsters. However, the special effects guy gets away. This seems to be the only appearance of "Mr. Fx", so whatever his story is, we won't learn any more about it.

Rick doesn't want Alyssa to see him, and Deathlok knows that people don't react well to him either, so they leave and Whitney takes the credit for rescuing her.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Alyssa saw Sleepwalker in both Sleepwalker #1 and Sleepwalker #4.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

It seems like the writers replaced Ghost Rider guest appearances with Deathlok guest appearances. Now you see Deathlok getting major coverage.

Rick seems awfully calm about suddenly waking up in a strange place next to a six and a half feet tall half robot/ half monstrosity killing machine.

In fact he seems moar comfortable around Deathcok than he does around Alyssa...

Dude, this is the first I'm even HEARING about these comics (granted I was pretty busy touring with my band in 1992!!!!) but this is, this is some trippy stuff! I don't know if this is another attempt at super-hero-horror from Marvel but I will say Bret Blevins has a real cool, exaggerated style and I wonder why he wasn't a bigger deal, looks really Art Adams-like