Dwayne McDuffie leaves Marvel and Gregory Wright takes over mid-story. For his final arc, McDuffie revisits Black Panther, who teams up with Deathlok to help defend Wakanda against a sentient computer virus. (And he titles issue #22 “Not Just Knee Deep.” Gotta love the Funkadelic reference.) Deathlok jacks into the Wakandan mainframe and tracks the villain down.
There’s also physical threat, and Black Panther tends to those. Moses Magnum assembles an army of relatively unknown villains–one of whom is Venomm from T’Challa’s old Jungle Action book–and they attack Wakanda.
It’s a good story and a fun read. Deathlok’s son and wife accompany him to Wakanda, so those relationships area also developed a bit further. I’ll miss McDuffie’s writing on this book.
A TON of pencilers worked on these three issues.
The story reads like the final issues of the Deathlok series, and maybe it should have been. McDuffie did a really good job with it, keeping a book about a badass looking guy with a huge gun different from all the other such books on the market.
The final page sets up the next story, with Luther Manning (who becomes Deathlok) talking to his psychiatrist about having dreams of being Deathlok. It appears to take place in the present day, so let’s see what happens next.