Science's Less Accurate Grandmother: creator: kei zama

Showing posts with label creator: kei zama. Show all posts

17 May 2023

Death's Head: Clone Drive / Revolutionary War (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 45)

Death's Head: Clone Drive

Collection published: 2020
Contents originally published: 1988-2019
Acquired: January 2023
Read: February 2023

Writers: Tini Howard, Simon Furman

Artists: Kei Zama, Bryan Hitch & Mark Farmer

Colours: Felipe Sobreiro, Nick Abadzis

Lettering: Alessandra Gozzi, [Annie Parkhouse]

In the 2010s, the original Death's Head has experienced a bit of a resurgence at Marvel; one assumes this is because the 1980s kids who grew up on him are now in positions of creative authority themselves. Kieron Gillen, for example, used the character in his run on S.W.O.R.D., where he was still giant-sized and first adopted the designation of "freelance peacekeeping agent," indicating this was a prequel to Death's Head's Transformers appearances.

The one I decided to pick up, however, was Death's Head's first self-titled comic series since the 1980s. Death's Head vol. 2 was a four-issue miniseries by Tini Howard and Kei Zama from 2019 where the original Death's Head meets the Young Avengers and the new Death's Head V. It was collected under the title "Clone Drive" by Panini, along with a reprint of Death's Head vol. 1 #1.

Death's Head may have been killed off and absorbed into Death's Head II back in the 1990s, but he's still alive and well here. My understanding—such as it is—is that this is because originally Death's Head died in comics set in 2020. Back in the 1990s, Marvel UK's 2020-set comics were supposed to be the "real" future of the Marvel universe... but now we're up to 2020, so they're clearly an alternate timeline, and thus Death's Head died in this alternate timeline, but not in the real timeline, meaning he is alive and well and carrying on as normal. Evelyn Necker of AIM was responsible for the original Death's Head's death, and Clone Drive gives us the Evelyn Necker of "our" reality, who has become obsessed with finding and creating different versions of Death's Head.

I am not sure Death's Head really understands it... but maybe I do, yes?
from Death's Head vol. 2 #2

So anyway, this was pretty enjoyable. Death's Head is a fun character, but he is difficult to get right as a lead character; even his creator Simon Furman has struggled with that. What made Death's Head enjoyable in Transformers was the sense that he's outside it all, kind of. The Transformers may invest great significance in the was between Autobots and Decepticons, in their battles against Unicron, in the time-travelling antics of Galvatron... but Death's Head doesn't care about any of that, he just wants to get paid. But also Death's Head is at his best when he's a bit put-upon, when things get away from him and don't go as planned. So he's a great foil, but it's hard to make him a main character because how can you give your lead a vibe that what's going on around him doesn't actually matter? Furman occasionally managed this with the original Death's Head series; my favorite issue of this is the one where he gets involved in some guy's squabble over a treasure map with his wife, and it's clear Death's Head doesn't give a shit about any of this backstory or even who lives and who dies, he just wants the money.

Writer Tini Howard recreates that vibe here by combining Death's Head with the Young Avengers. Flung back in time from the future era of the original Guardians of the Galaxy (the 31st century), Death's Head takes refuge in the apartment of Wiccan and Hulkling. They are having relationship drama... and Death's Head just does not care at all. He just wants to get back to the future and stay alive. The teen angst of the Young Avengers is the perfect counterpart to Death's Head, because it's very clear he doesn't want to know about any of it, but they keep trying to explain it to him, and it keeps having an effect on him whether he likes it or not... plus, here's Death's Head V with his own existential angst!

The one thing that can give Death's Head angst is learning he's been rebooted as a millennial, yes?
from Death's Head vol. 2 #2

Howard is a fun writer, and does fun stuff with the characters here; in addition to Hulkling and Wiccan, we also get Hawkeye, who was my favorite in the original Young Avengers run. There's good jokes and good angst and good twists. Artist Kei Zama, appropriately enough, got her start on Transformers, and she's adept here with human and robot alike, capturing Death's Head expressiveness. There are some neat layouts.

Someday I need to get around to picking up Kate's solo series, yes?
from Death's Head vol. 2 #2

If there's a fault here, it's that I think the series wants the reader to care about the Hulkling/Wiccan drama more than I actually do. I'd rather be like Death's Head and be a bit above it all! The series ends with new, potentially set-ups for both Death's Head (with Evelyn Necker) and Death's Head V (with Hulkling and Wiccan). Alas, though, I don't think either character has had any subsequent appearances; specifically, Hulkling and Wiccan have returned but without any indication that "Vee" is still living with them.

I didn't mean for all of my scans to come from the same issue. It just happened, yes?
from Death's Head vol. 2 #2

My Panini trade paperback includes, as I said, a reprint of Death's Head vol. 1 #1, but since I've read that twice before in recent months (it was reprinted in Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent and The Incomplete Death's Head #2), I skipped it. It also has an introduction by Brady Webb, which gives background on Death's Head that unfortunately repeats the apocryphal, untrue story about Death's Head's supposed original appearance in "High Noon Tex."

After finishing Clone Drive, I took the opportunity to pick up one other modern return appearance for the original Death's Head, which was omitted from the Freelance Peacekeeping Agent trade paperback. Revolutionary War was a 2014 Marvel event which brought back a bunch of mediocre 1990s Marvel UK characters, among them Death's Head II. But in the Death's Head II–focused issue, DHII's friend Tuck hires the original Death's Head to help save his future self. This story was clearly working on the assumption that the 2020 future still was the future of the regular Marvel universe; here, Evelyn Necker thinks that the 2020 Necker is her future self, not an alternate self. But it definitely also sets up how Necker becomes obsessed with Death's Head in Clone Drive, so Howard picked up on it despite tweaking its details.

Death's Head II is still boring and I don't care about the broader premise of Revolutionary War at all, but this is fun enough because despite being the writer who killed him off, Andy Lanning clearly has an affinity for the original Death's Head, and like Clone Drive, this plays to the character's strengths: he is confused by the time travel and grumpy about having to work with his replacement, but happy to come in swinging with acts of gratuitous violence. Thankfully, it's illustrated by Nick Roche, who like Kei Zama, cut his teeth as an artist on Transformers, and thus is eminently suited to Death's Head. Thankfully, Roche is a lot better at drawing humans now than back when he did a fill-in for IDW's Doctor Who comic.

Unfortunately, it ends on a cliffhanger that leads into Revolutionary War: Supersoldiers #1, which I have never and will never read, but on its own, it's fun enough and I'm glad I spent the time reading it.

"Synchronicity II" originally appeared in issue #1 of Revolutionary War: Death's Head II (Apr. 2014). The story was written by Andy Lanning & Alan Cowsill, illustrated by Nick Roche, colored by Veronica Gandini, lettered by Clayton Cowles, and edited by Devis Lewis & Stephen Wacker.

This post is the forty-fifth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Skywatch-7. Previous installments are listed below:

20 August 2019

Review: Transformers: Unicron by John Barber, Alex Milne, Sara Pitre-Durocher, Andrew Griffith, Kei Zama, et al.

Comic PDF eBook, n. pag.
Published 2019 (contents: 2018)
Acquired and read April 2019

Transformers: Unicron

Written by John Barber, with Chris Ryall, David Rodriguez, Brandon Easton, Christos Gage, Magdalene Visaggio
Art by Alex Milne
Additional Art by Sara Pitre-Durocher, Andrew Griffith, Kei Zama, David Messina, Nelson Dániel, Juan Samu, Paolo Villanelli, Fico Ossio
Colors by Sebastian Cheng, David Garcia Cruz
Additional Colors by Joana Lafuente, Alessandra Alexakis, Mattia Iacono
Letters by Tom B. Long, with Curtis Fandango

Though I gave up on John Barber's take on Transformers a couple years ago now, I still had some curiosity about how it would all end, and so I dutifully picked up Unicron, which ties up the IDW continuity that began all the way back in Infiltration-- three-and-a-half years of reading for me, and thirteen years of storytelling for them.

I don't know why Rung of all people would be at the center of Optimus's memories of the fallen, but hey, I love Rung, so I'll take it.
from Transformers: Unicron #6 (script by John Barber, art by Alex Milne)

Anyway, it's about as bad as all post-Dark Cybertron John Barber Transformers comics have been. Too many characters I don't care about, too much ancient Transformer mythology, too many banal human beings, too many shoehorned-in other Hasbro properties, too much indecisive Optimus, too many characters reverting again and again. Why did Starscream undo his progress from Till All Are One? Why am I reading about yet another millennia-long Shockwave masterplan? Didn't the jokes about Thundercracker writing screenplays wear thin years ago?

Why yet another story where Prowl is a jerk and this backfires?
from Transformers: Unicron #5 (script by John Barber, art by Alex Milne)

I guess the biggest point of frustration for me is the title character itself. Say what you will about the 1980s Transformers film, but Unicron is awesome in the original sense of the word. Its coming feels ominous and significant and unstoppable; it is the doom of a universe. Where and why does it come from? Irrelevant. It hungers, and it will have you. Here, though, Unicron never dominates. Neither the writing nor the art give it the immensity it deserves, it always feels squeezed in, instead of dominating. And then to give it an origin story that ties into one of the mediocre Hasbro properties! Visionaries, I think? I've already forgotten. This diminishes Unicron and thus the whole story.

I usually like Alex Milne, but his Unicron just feels really unimpressive. Ooh, it's sucking up some rocks.
from Transformers: Unicron #0 (script by John Barber, art by Alex Milne)

The IDW Transformers universe had a strong start in Infiltration, and despite missteps such as All Hail Megatron, went some very interesting, unprecedented places once the war ended. But John Barber, the same architect of those innovations slowly dismantled them after Dark Cybertron and then piled on the mistakes with the Hasbro comics shared universe-- necessitating the destruction of the entire continuity, because there was no other way to reset things to the way they'd been. But that destruction turned out to be as banal and uninteresting as the writing that made it necessary to begin with.

Next Week: Meanwhile, in another universal stream... the Fall of Cybertron!