Captain America #286
Captain America #286 opens the three-part Deathlok crossover (continuing through #288) that stands as one of the most thematically rich arcs of J.M. DeMatteis's celebrated run, deliberately pairing two Marvel super-soldiers both marooned out of their proper time — Steve Rogers the World War II man-out-of-time and Luther Manning the cyborg warrior from a dystopian near-future. DeMatteis uses the collision of their situations to interrogate what it costs a person to be remade by forces beyond their control, a meditation that gives the book weight well beyond its sci-fi premise. The issue also continues the early-partnership dynamic between Captain America and the newly minted Nomad (Jack Monroe), deepening the book's exploration of legacy, sidekick identity, and the burden of living in someone else's shadow. Together with its sequels, the arc is the creative high-water mark of Zeck's tenure on the title before he departed for Secret Wars.
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By the time #286 went on sale in July 1983, DeMatteis had been writing Captain America since issue #261, and his collaboration with penciler Mike Zeck and inker John Beatty had solidified into one of the tightest creative partnerships in Bronze Age Marvel. DeMatteis himself later described the Zeck/Beatty team as 'one of the great penciler-inker teams of the 1980s,' and Zeck would leave the book shortly after this arc to draw Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. The Deathlok crossover was edited under Mark Gruenwald and Mike Carlin, the latter a young assistant editor whose hands-on presence in the letters column was a hallmark of the era.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published with a cover date of October 1983; on-sale date was July 5, 1983 (per Amazing Heroes #27).
- Written by J.M. DeMatteis; penciled by Mike Zeck; inked by John Beatty; colored by Bob Sharen; lettered by Diana Albers.
- The issue is titled 'One Man in Search of Himself' and opens a three-part story running through Captain America #288.
- Central plot: the time-traveling Luther Manning clone — a copy of Deathlok's original human body sent back from 1991 by the freedom-fighter Godwulf — arrives in present-day New York to locate the lost Deathlok cyborg, who has been stranded in the mainstream Marvel timeline.
- Godwulf, who first appeared in Astonishing Tales #36 (1976, created by Rich Buckler), makes a significant return here as the architect of the time-travel mission; his Earth-7484 reality was later formally designated Reality-7484 following the events of Captain America #289.
- The opening sequence at Avengers Mansion shows Captain America training Nomad (Jack Monroe), only four issues into Jack's tenure as Cap's partner following his debut as Nomad in Captain America #282.
- The Steve Rogers/Bernie Rosenthal relationship thread runs throughout the issue: Bernie nearly runs over the Manning clone on Long Island, and Steve abandons a planned dinner with her family to investigate — a recurring tension in DeMatteis's character-driven subplot work.
- The issue has been reprinted numerous times, including in Captain America: Deathlok Lives! (Marvel, 1993), Marvel Masterworks: Deathlok Vol. 1 (2009), Deathlok the Demolisher: The Complete Collection (2014), Captain America Epic Collection Vol. 11 — Sturm und Drang (2022), and Marvel Masterworks: Captain America #17 (2025).
Cast · 9 characters
Full credits
Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
A clone of Luther Manning comes back in time from 1991 (this changes to 1993 in issue #288) to find the Deathlok cyborg. Steve is supposed to be spending the weekend at Bernie's house when they almost run down Manning. Captain America follows him into an abandoned Brand Corp. building where they come up against Brand soldiers and Deathlok himself.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).