Origin
Rebecca Ryker was an ordinary teenager, albeit the daughter of scientist Harlan Ryker. One day, however, she forgot her laptop at home and returned just in time to watch a Deathlok from the future explode and kill her mother, Anna, and her baby brother, Bryan. Her father, the man who created the Deathloks, used the process on his family to try and save them. It didn’t work for Anna, but it did for Rebecca. Unfortunately, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents arrived seconds later, arresting Harlan and taking Rebecca away from him. Scientists tried to figure out, what Harlan had done to his daughter, but deemed his work too advanced for their understanding. She was kidnapped by Arcade mere seconds after she first glimpsed her new robotic appearance.
Creation
Deathlocket was created by writer Dennis Hopeless and artist Kevin Walker. She first appeared in Avengers Arena #1.
Major Story Arcs
Avengers Arena
Rebecca was one of the 16 superpowered teenagers kidnapped by Arcade and taken to Murder World. Once there, the kids are told they will be competing in a 30-day long deathmatch with only one survivor. The teens immediately attack him but are soundly defeated by his new powers. In order to start the game, Arcade offers to make the first kill. When Hazmat, unwilling to back down, attacks him again, Arcade picks her to be the first death. Unwilling to let her die, Jenny’s boyfriend, Mettle, takes her place and is killed.
Seconds after Arcade departs, fellow captive Red Raven (Dania) tries to fly out of Murder World, but breaks her neck on the invisible barrier surrounding the island. Rebecca, recognizing that she stands a greater chance of surviving if she has allies, tries to form an alliance with Jenny, Reptil, Juston Seyfert, and X-23, but goes into a mysterious trance and attacks Jenny with a flamethrower. She runs into the forest, fleeing Jenny’s radiation blasts.
he later wanders into the snow quadrant and has a run-in with Cammi, who she also tries to forge an alliance with. Cammi rebuffs her, claiming she only spoke up because Rebecca was about to step on a land mine and get them both killed. She dubs her a “Deathlok-ette” and sends her back the way she came. During the first evening, she is captured by Braddock Academy student Kid Briton and taken back to his camp. The other students argue about what they should do with her, with Brian and Nara believing they should kill her and Anachronism and Bloodstone thinking they should let her go. Apex shows up with several rabbits and lets her live. Rebecca joins the group and begins a friendship with Katy.
Things start to spin out of control after the third day, when a person or persons unknown begins attacking the kids camps at night, including one particularly brutal attack on the Avengers Academy camp that destroys Juston’s Sentinel Mark IV and leaves him missing. Cammi and Darkhawk try to find out who is behind these attacks but have no luck, and Chris goes missing. Apex and Rebecca are later seen watching Cammi on the eighth night.
Later, Arcade, bored by their inactivity, announced that he has dropped a supply crate in Murder World that is full of food, medicine and guns. He also begins causing environmental disasters, including floods, avalanches, and earthquakes, with four safe zones being scattered around the island, one of which holds the crate. The Braddock kids set out for it but are quickly separated when Aiden and Cullen fall down a ravine. Rebecca, going into another trance, then blasts Nara down as well. When Brian confronts her about this, Apex defends her, claiming that it makes the best sense strategically and revealing that she knew about his affair with Nara.
The two sides are swiftly reunited when Apex, Kid Briton and Rebecca arrive at the food cache only to find that Arcade has teleported Nara, Cullen, and Aiden to the safe zone ahead of them. Nara then starts a fight with Apex, having been told by Cullen that she was secretly responsible for Rebecca’s unprovoked attack, which splits the group down the middle. Aiden sides with Nara, while Death Locket enters another trance, this one at the behest of Katy. A timely rocket from Cullen separates the two sides and Rebecca awakens from her trance just in time to watch Kid Britain attack Nara. Brian was about to kill her when Aiden beheaded him. Apex fled the group, heading for the snow quadrant, and Rebecca gave chase in order to find out how she was able to control her. She was the first person to see Apex change from Katy into Tim.
Meanwhile, Juston Seyfert and X-23 finished rebuilding a modified version of his Sentinel Mark IV and Juston set out to get revenge on Apex, who was responsible for both his paralysis and the death of his best friend. Trying to escape from him, Apex, now with Tim in control, and Death Locket fled and ran into the gathered living survivors, minus Reptil and Hazmat who were in a different safe zone. After Tim used his technopathy to shut down all the nearby electronics, he then explains to the group how his body-switching works, during which Death Locket stands up for him and claims he is the “good twin.” When the time comes to decide what to do about Apex, Death Locket is one the survivors who votes not to kill them.
That same night Tim teaches Death Locket how to control her Deathlock tech and the two share a brief kiss, which is interrupted by Nico Minoru who has first watch. Unfortunately, Katy takes control back from Tim and mind controls Death Locket into freeing her and knocking Nico out while she kills Juston and claims his sentinel as her own. Apex later puppets Death Locket and the sentinel into an assault on the other survivors, which ultimately results in Nico’s death.
However, before she died, Nico was able to cast a final spell which brought her back to life and she immediately tracked down and assaulted Apex and her robots, which included her best friend Chase Stein, who now had the Darkhawk Amulet. During the ensuing fight, Nico disassembled Death Locket’s robot arm and, during the fights climax, was buried alive alongside Apex. Luckily for them both, the landed in Arcade’s secret bunker and, upon regaining consciousness, saw a room full of the bodies of the fallen contestants, including Darkhawk and Red Raven who were being kept in tanks of an unknown fluid.
While the other contestants fought Bloodstone’s mystical parasite and then each other, Death Locket, Katy, and Tim attempted to end the deathmatch by calling outside the arena. During this time, Tim was able to build a new arm for Death Locket, albeit one more suited for death and destruction than needlework. Unfortunately, Arcade’s computer required voice and fingerprint identification to authorize outgoing calls and they were caught. Instead of sending them back to the surface however, he allows them to watch the others fight, but is immediately hit in the back of the head by Chris Powell, who Rebecca had released from suspended animation.
The group tries to get him to stop the deathmatch but he escapes when they are all distracted by Chris throwing up. Rebecca leaves Katy and Time in the control room while she and Chris go to the kitchen for water. Unfortunately, Arcade calls and convinces Katy to let the game play out. She then takes control of Rebecca again and uses her to shot Chris in the arm. Rebecca is then made to watch Katy attack the other kids with some of Arcade’s unused traps, including a living typhoon, sand monsters, and killer bugs.
Unluckily for Katy, Tim is able to release Death Locket from her control and Rebecca punches her furiously, tired of being referred to as a toy. She is just about to shoot Katy when Tim takes control of their body. Rebecca apologizes for almost shooting him to which he responds by asking her to kill him. Rebecca, crying now, claims she can’t. However, deep down she knows she has to. Tim begs her to kill him or else Katy will kill everyone, even her. Ultimately, she consents and kills Apex, and ends the deathmatch. She then goes up to the surface and tells the other surviving kids what happened. She also agrees with them about keeping what happened on Murder World a secret.
The next day, the adult heroes arrive to rescue the living and injured kids as well as locate the bodies of the fallen. One week after they leave and news or the story has broken, Arcade makes his move. In an undisclosed safe house, Arcade uploads the footage of what happened in Murder World to the internet, popping a bottle of champagne to celebrate his victory over the heroes.
Avengers Undercover
Three months after escaping Murderworld, the footage of the events that occurred within was posted online by Arcade and the survivors have gone their separate ways. Death Locket found herself at a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, where scientists were trying to graft a new arm onto her that wouldn’t be transformed into a weapon. During her stay, she is confronted by a researcher who viewed the footage and was a ‘fan’ of her. His consistent trivializing of the traumatic nature of Murderworld upsets Rebecca, who leaves the base to meet with the other survivors.
At the meeting, held at one of Ulysses Bloodstone‘s homes, Anachronism reveals that he asked them to meet because Bloodstone has disappeared. Taking the group further into the manor, Aiden shows the group a room full of claw marks, pictures of Arcade and safe houses, friends of Arcade, and the phrase “Kill Arcade” spray painted over the walls in black paint. He goes on to play a recording of the last time anybody heard from Cullen, which was three weeks before the meeting. The video shows Cullen removing his Bloodstone Ring and throwing himself mid-transformation down into Bagalia, home of Baron Helmut Zemo‘s Masters of Evil. Aiden, Rebecca, Cammi, Hazmat, Chase Stein, and Nico Minoru all agree to go to Bagalia to find Cullen and get him to safety.
Things become complicated once they arrive, however, and the teens are attacked by numerous teen villains, including Black Knight, Coat of Arms, Egghead, Excavator, Executioner (DuBois), Mako, Melter, Morg, Mudbug, and Snot. During this battle, Rebecca reveals that she doesn’t know how to fight, at which Hazmat tells her to blast away with her cyborg arm. Following Jenny’s advice, Rebecca successfully knocks out Excavator, Executioner, and Snot, and the group is able to resume their mission. They track Cullen to Arcade’s bar, The Hole, which is packed full of villains. Before they can come up with a plan, Aiden charges in smashing his way through a window, thereby drawing the attention of all the assembled villains.
Luckily, Cullen is there and is able to persuade all the villains to let it go. He then reveals to the group that he stayed in Bagalia voluntarily, due to the lack of pressure to live up to an ideal that just doesn’t suit him. The group decides to stay and try to persuade Cullen to leave, mingling with the bar patrons so as not to draw any further attention to their presence. Tinkerer approaches Death Locket and begins examining her Deathlok technology, much to Cammi’s chagrin. However, several of the teenage villains from earlier appear, having tracked the group to the bar. Just when it seems like another fight will break out, Excavator and his friends beat up Tinkerer for his treatment of Rebecca. Excavator explains that she is more than some science experiment, she’s a human being and should be treated as such. He offers to buy her a taco, which Rebecca happily agrees too.
Four hours later, Cammi pulls the group out of bar and tells them they’re all leaving but are more than welcome to return after they’ve left. Cullen appears and claims to want to show them something, at which point Hellstorm teleports the group away. When they appear, the group is in the midst of a party wearing formal clothes. Despite repeated questions about where they are and what they’re doing at the party, Cullen tells the group to wait and see. The hostess then finishes her toast, and Arcade appears, whereupon Cullen reveals that they are here for revenge.
Powers and Abilities
Her left arm can transform in to a powerful raygun. She also lacks control over her abilities, evidenced by her abduction being just after her cybernetic implants and the trances she has been shown to slid into uncontrollably which has lead to attacks on several other captives of Murderworld. The trances seem to be precipitated by actions which would lead to or cause direct harm to Rebecca, as seen when she attacks Hazmat who threatens her.
Other Media
Games
Marvel Avengers Alliance
Death Locket is a boss, introduced in Special Operations 33 “Masters of Evil”.She was later released as a playable character. She can be purchased after completing Covert Task: Q/A Testing
Her bio in the game says: A failed assassination attempt on Rebecca Ryker’s father by rebels from the future left Rebecca seriously injured. Using his knowledge of cybernetics, Rebecca’s father turned his daughter into a Deathlok in order to save her life.
Lego Marvel´s Avengers
Death Locket is a playable character in the game.