LARRY YOUNG

Real Name: Lawrence Young

Identity/Class: Human cyborg

Occupation: Unemployed;
   former S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent

Group Membership: Formerly S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate), S.H.I.E.L.D. Air Cavalry (Blake, Jackson, Kelso, Seagrum)

Affiliations: Formerly Nick Fury

Enemies: Cable (Nathan Summers), Deathlok (Jack Truman), Nick Fury

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: LOK (Logarythmic Organic Kinetics)

Base of Operations: An unidentified scrapyard
   formerly (while with Air Cav) S.H.I.E.L.D. Bureau, Langley, Virginia

First Appearance: (Young) Cable I#60 (November 1998); (as Deathlok) Deathlok III#11 (2000)

Powers/Abilities: Even before becoming a cyborg, Young was a highly skilled pilot and trained S.H.I.E.L.D. field agent, presumably with at least the minimum requisite combat skills to achieve that role. As the commander of the Air Cavalry he had access to a variety of heavily-armed flying vehicles, most notably their flying turbo Mercedes equipped with radar, cold lasers, concussion torpedoes and Vibranium SX-9 "Shakedown" missiles.

   Once in the cyborg Deathlok form he became heavily armored, superhumanly strong (Class 50), and armed with a variety of inbuilt weapons, including blasters in mouth and palms, incendiary and gas devices in his mouth, and missile launchers in his forearms. He was equipped with short-range radar, and telescopic and infrared sight; he could shut down any of his senses at will. Though not seen to do so, he could presumably use spray-on skin to pass for human the same way Truman did, and he had internal jammers to ensure x-rays and scanners read him as normal. He did not need to eat and could interface with and override other machines through probes in his fingers. 

Height: (human) 6'2"; (cyborg) 6'4"
Weight: (human) 170 lbs.; (cyborg) 630 lbs.
Eyes: (human) blue; (cyborg) variable
Hair: (human) black; (cyborg) none

History:
(Cable I#60 (fb) - BTS) - Larry Young was an independently minded S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who rose in ranks to become the commander of their Air Cavalry. He knew the S.H.I.E.L.D. Manhunter Jack Truman, and they didn't always get along, with Truman viewing Air Cavalry tactics to be unnecessarily heavy handed - "burn the field to kill the rabbit" (a somewhat hypocritical stance on Truman's part, given his own methods).

   Sent to capture the mutant Cable, Truman elected to draw him out by unleashing the alien Zzzax on Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen, then confronted his quarry after he had stopped the monster's rampage. However Truman's dangerous and destructive methods prompted his superiors to send in the Air Cavalry to take over the hunt.

(Cable I#60) - Finding Truman and Cable facing off against one another amidst the rubble of a demolished building, Young instructed Truman over loudspeaker to stand down and let the Air Cavalry take over. Over Truman's private com channel Truman angrily informed Young that he would split the man's head open for intervening, but Young calmly stated that each of them had their orders and told Truman to get over it. The momentary distraction allowed Cable to snatch up a dropped blaster and he opened fire on the Air Cavalry. Young yelled to his subordinates to take evasive maneuvers and open fire with their concussion torpedoes. As the missiles exploded Cable took evasive action, but Young kept track of him via radar and ordered his men to pursue. One of the Air Cav, Jackson, spotted Cable in a dead-end alleyway, and Young ordered him to open fire; as Jackson yelled in glee at the firestorm his missiles triggered, Young instructed him to get a visual I.D. before confirming the kill, and then noted from the lack of a body that their target had evaded them. Switching on his bio-scanners Young got an infrared lock in a condemned building's sub-basement, but another of his men, Blake, noted that there was a second infrared reading, signifying that someone else was in there too. Disregarding this, Young ordered his team to open fire, justifying this by stating that the building was condemned and practically abandoned; when an incredulous Blake queried the "practically" Young angrily chastised him for questioning orders and fired a Vibranium-cored Shakedown missile to collapse the entire building, despite knowing that armament was intended for use only in depopulated areas in third world operations. Though his men were confident that Cable must have been slain in the resultant destruction, the missile's energy discharge interfered with their vehicles' sensors, so Young hollered at them to pipe down and get a visual confirmation of a corpse. However they spotted nothing (as Cable had escaped into the sewers, carrying the civilian he had encountered to safety). As the Air Cav's sensors came back online their scans detected no body buried in the debris, and Young suddenly realized he had lost track of Truman's whereabouts and yelled at his men to locate the rival agent. They found him a few minutes later, but by then he had already overpowered and captured Cable.

(Deathlok III#1 (fb) - BTS) - After the fiasco in Hell's Kitchen Young (and perhaps the entire team) was put on probation.

(Deathlok III#2 (fb) - BTS) - If he hadn't before, Young began to develop a drinking problem.

(Deathlok III#1 (fb) - BTS) - When satellites picked up frequent and abnormal heat plumes in Las Vegas, S.H.I.E.L.D. commander Nick Fury ordered the Air Cavalry to perform a recon mission to confirm the cause, but because of their recent performance they were also ordered not to only observe, not engage any foe, and their weapons had computer locks placed on them to limit what could be used.

(Deathlok III#1) - As two of Young's team, Kelso and Seagrum, suited up they chatted about their favorite childhood TV shows. Hearing them, Young told them to pipe down. Seagrum jokingly suggested Young wasn't a fan of the arts, and Young retorted "maybe Sun Tzu's", then reminded them to stay sharp because their superiors would be watching them like hawks. Once the team was airborne Young reluctantly took a call from Fury, who reminded him that they were only to observe and keep their distance, not to engage any targets. However, upon reaching the Vegas strip they witnessed what appeared to be a robot (actually the then-mindless Deathlok cyborg) running amok; immediately Young ignored the instruction he had been given to maintain his distance and flew in for a closer look, so close in fact that he almost made contact as he flew by. Reading this as an attack the cyborg reacted by firing its laser eyes at his car, doing some minor damage. Young seized on this as an excuse to override Fury's orders and the lock on his own weapon systems, and he called for his men to open fire, insisting that regulations permitted them the right to defend themselves in a combat situation. The cyborg responded by downing at least one of the Air Cavalry before vanishing off their scanners.

  Young reported to Fury that they had lost their quarry, and an angry Fury reminded the pilot that they shouldn't have engaged the cyborg to begin with. When Young demanded to know what they were dealing with Fury reluctantly admitted that their opponent was a prototype S.H.I.E.L.D. cyborg constructed using a recently injured manhunter agent, this last being enough for Young to realize Truman had been the human component. Alerted by Jackson that the cyborg had been sighted, Young broke off the conversation, informing his protesting superior that he was about to deliver "a little death from above." However the cyborg instead dodged their attacks and commandeered Kelso's car. Young re-opened his channel to Fury to inform him that the Air Cavalry would be switching to their heavier weaponry, but Fury told him to belay that, telling Young that his hand had been forced and he would be bringing in the experts.

(Deathlok III#2) - Young repeated his instruction for someone to help Kelso, and Seagrum responded, skillfully flying close enough to the hijacked vehicle for Kelso to leap across. However the cyborg had now had enough time to hack the weapons systems of the stolen car, and opened fire on the Air Cavalry with their own missiles. As he evaded them Young got a call from Fury; before his superior officer could talk, Young demanded again that Fury lift their weapons restrictions, insisting he needed his car's cold lasers to bring down the cyborg. Instead Fury informed Young that he was sending in the specialist Zero Company, and ordered Young to stand down and maintain a perimeter, adding that if he continued to engage in defiance of orders then he would be brought up on charges. As Fury ended the message an enraged Young proclaimed that he would take down their target himself and rammed its vehicle with his own, causing it to crash.

   Having lost the cyborg's location, Young decided he needed to take some time out to re-evaluate things, telling himself his men could manage on their own for a bit. Landing next to a liquor store he purchased himself some liquid confidence, even paying for the booze with his S.H.I.E.L.D. credit card, deciding he could claim it as a work-related expense. Even before the cashier could charge the card, Young had already cracked the bottle open and began to drink.

(Deathlok III#3 (fb) - BTS) - Young rigged the car's systems to override all the safety features and weapons locks.

(Deathlok III#3) - Returning to the battlefield drunk, Young opened fire wildly, actively targeting and shooting at the recently arrived Zero Company. He proceeded to gun several of them down, and electrocuted one who jumped onto the hood of his car, but one finally shot his engines. Young crashed, but crawled out unharmed still holding his bottle of booze, dazed more from alcohol than the crash.

(Deathlok III#8 (fb) - BTS) - Young was suspended from active duty for his actions, and then spent some time in a psych ward (presumably to be treated for alcoholism and/or depression)

(Deathlok III#11 (fb) - BTS) - ...before being discharged both from there and S.H.I.E.L.D.

(Deathlok III#11) - While drowning his sorrows in a Nasty Joe's, a Los Angeles bar frequented by ex-agents Young was visited by Truman. Young insulted the cyborg, blaming Truman for his woes, an unfair refusal to accept responsibility for his own mistakes that Truman rightly dismissed out of hand. Tired of being trapped in his mechanical body, Truman then used a Tibetan mental technique he had mastered to swap bodies with Young, and swiftly left in Young's stolen form. Young's mind, now trapped within the Deathlok cyborg, was so caught off guard by the experience that by the time he had processed what had happened Truman had already gone, leaving Young to rage impotently at the departed body thief.

(Civil War: Battle Damage Report) - S.H.I.E.L.D. learned of the body swap, and despite Young's prior dismissal from their ranks considered the now cyborg Young as a potential recruit for the Fifty States Initiative.

(Vengeance#4 (fb)) - State of the art cybernetics didn't mix well with Young's drinking problem (see comments), and without ExTechOps staff to provide his body with proper maintenance Young's new body soon malfunctioned, leaving him broken and unable to move in a junkyard.

Comments: Created by Joe Casey, Jose Ladronn and Juan Vlasco.

   The main image in this profile is strictly speaking not Larry Young, but rather Jack Truman in Larry's stolen body, a few moments after Truman stole it. However, it is also literally the only decent shot of Young that shows more than just his face, and it is an accurate portrayal of how Young looked, given he'd been in that body mere seconds earlier. Similarly the full body image of the Deathlok cyborg is also Truman in that form, since Young has no full body shots in that form, but again since it's the same body no matter which mind is in it, it's still valid to show how he looked. The close-ups and his inactive cyborg shot however ARE of Young in that form.

   In Vengeance#4 Truman claims Young's cyborg body couldn't cope with being mixed with alcohol. It's unclear how this worked, as that body didn't need to eat or drink to function, so he shouldn't have been imbibing to begin with. It's also unclear whether Truman meant that Young literally tried to ingest alcohol and it physically messed up his circuitry; I'd have hoped a state of the art cyborg body would be better designed than to be taken out by having its internal circuits soaked after foolishly pouring liquid down its throat. Since drinking problems are as much psychological as physiological it's possible he tried to drink despite not having any physical cravings, or it might just be that his alcoholic's mind couldn't cope with being rendered abruptly and forcibly unable to drink. 

Profile by Loki.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Larry Young, Deathlok, has no known connections to:

• Deathlok the Demolisher (Luther Manning) - whose tech and design he was copied from--Astonishing Tales I#25
• any one of the innumerable other Deathloks
• or any other "Larry" or "Young" characters

Blake

Blake was a member of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Air Cavalry, serving under Larry Young. When Young instructed the team to take down an entire building that Cable had taken refuge in, Blake pointed out that his bio-scanners detected two infrared heat signatures inside, meaning there was a civilian in the building with their target, clearly uncomfortable with the order. Young retorted that the building was condemned and practically abandoned, but Blake queried the "practically" aspect, prompting Young to angrily demand Blake not question his order and then fire a missile into the building.

Comments: Blake's voice was heard but we never saw him, so there's no picture available for this sub-profile. It's more than feasible that Blake was present unseen and unnamed within one of the Air Cavalry vehicles in Deathlok III#1-3, since it seems the entire team was put on probation with Young. However, he might have escaped this fate, as he was the only one to at least question Young's reckless orders during that mission.

--Cable I#60

Jackson

(Cable I#60) - Jackson was a member of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Air Cavalry, serving under Larry Young. He took part in the hunt for Cable in Hell's Kitchen, and spotting their quarry in a dead-end alleyway he was instructed to fire at will. Jackson obeyed with glee, enjoying the destructive firestorm he unleashed, but Young cautioned him to get a visual confirmation that their target was dead; sure enough, Cable had evaded the attack.

(Deathlok III#1 (fb) - BTS) - After a fiasco of a mission in Hell's Kitchen the team leader Larry Young (and perhaps the entire team) was put on probation. When satellites picked up frequent and abnormal heat plumes in Las Vegas, S.H.I.E.L.D. commander Nick Fury ordered the Air Cavalry to perform a recon mission to confirm the cause, but because of their recent performance they were also ordered not to only observe, not engage any foe.

(Deathlok III#1) - Reaching the Vegas strip they witnessed what appeared to be a robot (actually the then-mindless Deathlok cyborg) running amok, and in direct contravention of his orders Young instructed his squad to open fire. However the cyborg returned fire, downing at least one Air Cavalry vehicle, and then evaded them. However, soon after Jackson reacquired their target and informed Young of this over comms. 

Comments: Frank Tieri has confirmed that his S.H.I.E.L.D. (and Weapon X) agent Brent Jackson is not the same person as this Agent Jackson.

   It's possible, possibly even likely, that Jackson was also present but just unseen during the events of Deathlok III#2 and 3, given the Air Cavalry was there. However, since one unidentified member of the team was stated to have been taken down by the rampaging cyborg in #1, and this casualty could have been Jackson, his presence in the two subsequent issues is not guaranteed.

   In Deathlok III#1 another member of the team spotted that Kelso's vehicle had been tagged and informed Young of this; however, we only see half of said pilot's face and even that is partially obscured by their flight helmet, so it's impossible to tell if this was Jackson, Seagrum or another, unidentified pilot.

--Cable I#60  (Deathlok III#1

Seagrum

(Deathlok III#1) - Seagrum was a member of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Air Cavalry, serving under Larry Young.

(Deathlok III#1 (fb) - BTS) - Seagrum was friends with fellow Air Cavalry pilot Kelso,

(Deathlok III#2 (fb) - BTS) - and knew Kelso's partner (possibly wife) Jeannie and young daughter.

(Deathlok III#1 (fb) - BTS) - After a fiasco of a mission in Hell's Kitchen the team leader Larry Young (and perhaps the entire team) was put on probation. When satellites picked up frequent and abnormal heat plumes in Las Vegas, S.H.I.E.L.D. commander Nick Fury ordered the Air Cavalry to perform a recon mission to confirm the cause, but because of their recent performance they were also ordered not to only observe, not engage any foe.

(Deathlok III#1) - As Kelso and Seagrum donned their flight suits they chatted about old TV shows they liked until Young told them to pipe down, reminding them that they needed to stay sharp as they would be under scrutiny from their superiors.

   Reaching the Vegas strip they witnessed what appeared to be a robot (actually the then-mindless Deathlok cyborg) running amok, and in direct contravention of his orders Young instructed his squad to open fire. However the cyborg returned fire, downing at least one Air Cavalry vehicle, and then evaded them. The cyborg then leapt onto Kelso's car and commandeered it, throwing Kelso out the cockpit. He hung on to his partially broken seat-belt as the vehicle spun through the sky; spotting this, Young issued an order for someone to close in and rescue him.

(Deathlok III#2) - As Kelso hung on for dear life while the cyborg flew the stolen vehicle wildly around the sky Seagrum skillfully maneuvered his own car underneath his friend and Kelso daringly let go to drop safely onto his hood.

   Once safely in the cockpit with Seagrum, Kelso surveyed the devastation their ongoing battle was causing, and noted that Young's career was going to be destroyed by Fury for this. Seagrum concurred, adding that so would theirs unless they nailed the cyborg first, and queried where Young had disappeared to. The pair scanned for their opponent, noting that he appeared to be radar-invisible. The pair continued their hunt to no avail until they were interrupted by the arrival of the elite S.H.I.E.L.D. hunter unit Zero Company, who ordered them to stand down. Though Seagrum was annoyed by this, feeling the Air Cavalry was more than up to the job of stopping the cyborg, Kelso reminded him that it was procedure and the pair landed and watched as Zero Company disembarked from their transport.

(Deathlok III#3) - Kelso and Seagrum returned to the air to help maintain a perimeter while Zero Company engaged the cyborg. They heard Fury calling for the AWOL Young, but decided it was wiser not to get involved by answering. Seconds later they had to violently swerve out of the way of a newly arrived flying car, whose pilot then radioed them to tell them to give him some room; to their surprise, the new arrival sounded like a child. This was actually Jack Truman, the agent whose body had been used in the cyborg's construction but whose mind had transferred itself into the body the six year old Billy Bailey. Sure that the interloping vehicle shouldn't be there, Seagrum and Kelso shot its engines to force it to land, but Bailey/Truman leapt from his crashing vehicle across to theirs in mid-air, yanked Seagrum out of the pilot's chair and dropped him to the nearby ground. Kelso followed moments later.

Comments: It's more than feasible that Seagrum was present unseen and unnamed within one of the Air Cavalry vehicles in Cable III#60, since it seems the entire team was put on probation with Young.

   I'm seeing some online sites claim his full name is Constance Seagrum, but I've yet to see any evidence corroborating that first name. On p1 of Deathlok III#1 we see Seagrum and Kelso chatting; we learn their names when Young calls out to both of them, but don't find out which is which. On p14 of the same issue, Kelso responds off panel of panel 4 to say he's spotted the cyborg, and panel 5 shows a scar-faced pilot note that the cyborg has to be there somewhere, just before it boards Kelso's car; this gives the impression that Kelso is the scar-faced one of the pairing. However Deathlok III#3 clearly establishes that it is Seagrum who has the prominent facial scar.

   In Deathlok III#1 another member of the team spotted that Kelso's vehicle had been tagged and informed Young of this; however, we only see half of said pilot's face and even that is partially obscured by their flight helmet, so it's impossible to tell if this was Jackson, Seagrum or another, unidentified pilot.

--Deathlok III#1  (2, 3

images: (without ads)
Deathlok III#11, p24, pan1 (main image)
Deathlok III#1, p3, pan5 (headshot)
Cable I#60, p5, pan2 (Young in flying turbo Mercedes)
Deathlok III#11, p23, pan4-6 (trapped in Deathlok form)
Vengeance#4, p9, pan4 (broken in junkyard)
Cable I#60, p9, pan5 (Jackson)
Deathlok III#1, p1, pan2 (Kelso)
Deathlok III#1, p18-19, pan1 (Kelso hanging on to his car in mid-air)
Deathlok III#1, p1, pan1 (Seagrum)

Appearances:
Cable I#60 (November 1998) - Joe Casey (writer), Jose Ladronn (pencils), Juan Vlasco (inks), Mark Powers (editor)
Deathlok III#1-3 (September-November 1999) - Joe Casey (writer), Leonardo Manco (art), Ruben Diaz (editor)
Deathlok III#11 (June 2000) - Joe Casey (writer), Leonardo Manco (pencils, inks), Bill Sienkiewicz (inks), Bobbie Chase (editor)
Vengeance#4 (December 2011) - Joe Casey (writer), Nick Dragotta (art), Tom Brennan (editor)

First Posted: 08/31/2024
Last updated: 08/31/2024

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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