When we last discussed this topic it was revealed that back in 1983 George Romero met with then editor of Marvel Comics Jim Shooter about a super hero movie and comic book series. To get up to date read Part 1 HERE.

Back?

Jim Shooter assigned Jackson (Butch) Guice and Bob Layton to this new hero for George Romero. Guice and Layton were to create the storyboards for the film which would then be used as the panels for the comic book.  A brilliant time and budget saving idea. These creators came up with the idea of a post apocalyptic hero.

A soldier, transformed into a high-tech killer cyborg, who rebels from his fascist creators and leads a underground rebellion against them.

While this sounds like an overdone idea today, remember this was in 1983, Robocop wasn’t until 1987, Terminator was 1984 (which to be fair is based on a 1964 episode of The Outer Limits, which is based on a 1957 Harlan Ellison story, but that’s another tale). The closest comic book counter part is Marvel’s own Deathlok who debuted in 1974, appeared sporadically for the next few years but coincidentally showed up at the end of 1983 before disappearing until 1990.

Their intent was to make this story epic. Love, betrayal, war – all the good stuff. While much of the plot has been lost to memory and no scripts are known to exist, Bob Layton was nice enough to unearth some art on his OFFICIAL SITE.

Our hero was dubbed Copperhead, because of the color of his cyborg cranium. There is a lot implied in this art. Super strength, speed, futuristic weapons, and possibly some sort of extra abilities in his robotic eye. What looks like an EKG and an obvious scientist brings in some Six Million Dollar Man memories.

While nothing ever happened with Copperhead, in theory someone still owns it. The estate of Romero or Marvel itself. While the original art is said to no longer exist the idea is still out there in the ether and ready to be told. Fans of comic books and horror movies are known for their passion and the combination could lead to a new hit series.

The documentary series, Untold Horror, has a bonus clip of this tale. Check out the video below for the story.