Saturday, January 30, 2021

JOHN KELLY


 

JOHN KELLY

Real Name: John Kelly
First Appearance: Marvel Comics Presents (Vol. 1) #62, November 1990

Powers: John Kelly is a master of both armed and unarmed combat due to his time as both a former United States Army Colonel and a New York City police officer.

Technology from Deathlok I (Luther Manning) found its way into the hands of the present-day RoXXon Oil Corporation. By hacking classified files from S.H.I.E.L.D., they created the first robotic duplicate and later advanced the technology through their subsidiary company Cybertek Systems to reverse-engineer a new Deathlok cyborg years earlier than they did in Manning's timeline. Approached by Cybertek CEO, Harlan Ryker, John Kelly readily volunteered to become the prototype for the modern-era Deathlok. His body was cybernetically re-engineered and retooled into the framework of the Deathlok cyborg. The Deathlok cybernetic implants and CPU worked in conjunction with Kelly's brain to store and retrieve data at incalculable levels.

Kelly's initial test-run as Deathlok II consisted of a set of manually-loaded mission parameters into the cyborg's CPU. The objective was to "terminate" 12 targets. To that end, Deathlok II (armed with a paintball gun) was pitted against 12 trained mercenaries (all armed with real weapons). The test-run was going well until Kelly attempted to deviate from the mission parameters. The onboard CPU interpreted Kelly's actions as an error and, after determining the source of the error being from the organic software (the brain), corrected it by electrocuting Kelly's brain, killing him.

1 comment:

sylar10 said...

However, despite his seeming end, John Kelly would continue to live on as something of a genuine trinity: His body is the Deathlok cyborg (which, after the test-run, was later piloted by the transplanted brain of Michael Collins as Deathlok III), his electrocuted brain mutated into the grotesque biped called Biohazard, and his digitally-preserved soul inhabits the cyber warrior called Siege.