Marvel is preparing a new Deathlok project for 2024

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What kind of birthday present do you get for an aggressive cyborg from the future? Well, you'd better get shopping - Marvel is preparing to celebrate Deathlok's 50th birthday.

Recently, Marvel Comics' executive editor Tom Brevoort announced that the company was working on a "Deathlok 50th anniversary project" for this year.

Originally planned to be named Cyborg, the character initially debuted as Deathlok the Demolisher before simply being known as Deathlok. Originally marketed as "the world's most offbeat superhero," Deathlok eventually segued into being less a 'superhero' and more a sci-fi soldier from the future, predating the Terminator, Cable, and various other characters with a similiar concept.

Deathlok's exact 50th birthdsy would be August 1, 2024, according to Marvel.com's listing of his first appearance: 1974's Astonishing Tales #25. The idea of a man brought back from the dead with 'Deathlok' technology has been something interwoven across the Marvel Universe over the years - with four major iterations of Deathlok across titles as varied as Fantastic Four, X-Force, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Iterations of the character have, of course, started in multiple short-lived ongoing Deathlok series.

Two iterations of Deathlok have appeared in the MCU, if you still count the TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Angel alum J. August Richards played Mike Peterson, while the late Bill Paxton played John Garrett.

Marvel has not yet revealed details on their plans for the "Deathlok 50th anniversary project," so stay tuned for more.

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights: Disney CEO Bob Iger is promising Deadpool & Wolverine will be MCU's biggest movie "in a long time", how Marvel Studios is now working "much more closely" to sell Marvel comics, where Marvel sees its future audience (and it's not at Marvel, yet!), Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak, and the biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows.