Richard Manning (Earth-7484; son of Deathlok/Luther Manning)

RICHARD MANNING

Real Name: Richard Manning

Identity/Class: Alternate Reality (Earth-7484) human

Occupation: Student

Group Membership: None known

Affiliations: Unrevealed

Enemies: Unrevealed

Known Relatives: Luther Manning (Deathlok; former husband, presumably legally dead), Janice Travers (mother);
Mike Travers (step-father)

Aliases: "My baby" (from Janice)

Base of Operations: At least formerly a house just outside Fort Dix, New Jersey

First Appearance: Astonishing Tales I#27 (December, 1974)

Powers/Abilities: Richard did not demonstrate any particular skills in his limited appearance(s).

Height: Unrevealed (the average height of a 6 year old male is 3'9"; his adult form has not been shown (see comments))
Weight:Unrevealed (the average weight of a 6 year old male is 45 lbs.; his adult form has not been shown (see comments))
Eyes: Unrevealed (likely brown as his father's eyes were brown and his mother was African-American, although her iris color was not clearly shown)
Hair: Dark brown

History:
(Astonishing Tales I#27 - BTS) - Janice was pregnant with her son, Richard, when Luther Manning was seemingly killed (his body/brain was preserved and used to reconstruct his form as the cyborg Deathlok).

(Astonishing Tales I#36 (fb)) - The infant Richard was fed a baby's bottle by Janice.

(Astonishing Tales I#36 (fb)) - The toddler Richard played with a ball.

(Astonishing Tales I#31 (fb) - BTS) <Six months before Manning's revival as Deathlok> - With Luther having been dead for five years, Mike Travers and Janice Manning got together romantically.

(Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Master Edition#35: Deathlok entry / Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005: Deathlok entry) - Mike and Janice were married.

(Astonishing Tales I#27 - BTS) - Escaping from Ryker, an exhausted Deathlok punched in coordinates in his helicopter and instructed his computer to plot a course to get away from pursuers; only upon reviving did he realize he had targeted Janice's house.

(Astonishing Tales I#27 - BTS / Astonishing Tales I#28 - BTS) - Knowing Ryker's Terminal Eyes were monitoring everything, Deathlok nonetheless decided he wanted to go see Janice and explain his situation.

(Astonishing Tales I#27) - As the terrified Janice -- unaware of his true nature -- struck at Deathlok, Richard cried out for mommy.

While Deathlok was drawn to his son's voice, Janice begged the monstrous Deathlok to spare her child. Deathlok started to walk into the room, but ultimately decided he couldn't bear his son's rejection, too.

(Astonishing Tales I#27 - BTS) - Deathlok smashed out through the door and departed. Overcome by the horror of his own existence, Deathlok tried to shoot himself in the throat, only to find that the laser could not be used to harm him.

Comments: Created by Rich Buckler, Doug Moench, and Pablo Marcos.

Richard's name was revealed in the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe I#3 (1982)

The images in Astonishing Tales I#36 are a bit suspect as they are shown as if they are Luther's memories, when we know he wasn't around to see his son as an infant or a toddler. Nonetheless, it's not much of a stretch of the imagination that the infant Richard was fed a bottle by his mother, nor that as a toddler he played with a ball.

His skin tone looks lighter in the infant picture, and darker in the toddler picture, which he has a light, Caucasian/"white"/whatever pigment when shown in his only real appearance. Obviously, with his mother having a darker/African-American/"black"/whatever-doesn't-offend-you skin tone, he could be darker, but he's pretty light in #27.

Earth-7484's lacks the sliding timescale of Reality-616, and so we can confirm a few things in terms of the timeline.

1985 - Janice was pregnant with Richard when Luther was caught in the explosion that left him apparently dead.
1990 - Luther had been in stasis for 5 years before they started working on Deathlok, which is around the same time Janice and Mike got together.
1993 - Deathlok, aided by Earth-616's Captain America, slew Hellinger
2011 - Deathlok was active as the Demolisher
We don't know how far along Janice was in her pregnancy when Luther seemingly died.

So, somewhere between days to about 9 months, which would obviously mean that Richard was born anywhere from days to closer to 9 months after Luther's death.

We don't know how long it took for Deathlok to be built or how long he was active prior to his rebellion, but it was obviously after 1990 but well before 1993.
Based on that, I would speculate that it was likely 1991-1992 when Deathlok traveled to Janice and Richard's home, which would make Richard as young as 5 to as old as 7 (certainly not more than eight). His proportions looked like a 7 year old or older.

Astonishing Tales I#28 has Simon Ryker note Richard to be five years old at the time Deathlok encountered him.

So, whatever happened to Richard?

He would have been 25-26 years old around the time of the Demolisher stories, which were published in 1993 in the real world.

While Reality-616 is largely stuck in a time period of 12-15 years since the Fantastic Four's space flight, Richard Manning would be 34-35 years old in 2020 and getting older each year.

I would love to see a story of Deathlok the Demolisher by a continuity-conscious/respecting writer that followed up on his appearances from Daredevil, returning to his own world and meeting back up with the adult Richard.
Otherwise, every story reboots to "classic Deathlok," ignoring the progression. Annoyancing!

In Reality-74147, Luther Manning not mortally wounded in war games and transformed into Deathlok, enjoyed being a father to his son Richard.

New images by David A. Zuckerman.

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Richard Manning should be distinguished from:

Col. Glenn Manning - US Air Force--Avengers I#379/2
Sara Manning - possessed by a demon by Louis Childs and forced to act as Meredith Walker, aunt of Seth Walker, demon exorcised by Magik (Sefton), explained the truth to she and Nightcrawler--Nightcrawler III#2
other Manning characters

images: (without ads)
Astonishing Tales I#27, pg. 17, panel 8 (seated, with toy);
#36, pg. 8, panel 4-5 (infant with bottle; toddler)

Appearances:
Astonishing Tales I#27 (December, 1974) - Rich Buckler & Doug Moench (writers), Rich Buckler (pencils), Pablo Marcos (inks), Roy Thomas (editor)
Astonishing Tales I#28 (February, 1975) - Rich Buckler (writer/artist), Roy Thomas (editor)
Astonishing Tales I#36 (July, 1976) - Rich Buckler (writer/pencils), Keith Pollard (inks), Marv Wolfman (editor)
Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe I#3 (1982) - Mark Gruenwald (head writer/designer/editor), David Cody Weisse, Peter Sanderson, Roger Stern, Bob Simpson, Bob Harras, Joanne Harras (research)

First posted: 07/04/2020
Last updated: 06/08/2024

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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