Science's Less Accurate Grandmother: subseries: deaths head

Showing posts with label subseries: deaths head. 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:

22 December 2021

The Incomplete Death's Head (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 17)

After his appearance in The Sensational She-Hulk, Death's Head was killed off in Marvel UK's Death's Head II miniseries—and as that title might imply, he was replaced by Death's Head II. DHII had the original Death's Head's memories, but was otherwise his own character. I am not so interested in pursuing the Death's Head strand that I would follow any of DHII's appearances. To my eyes, he has a very generic 1990s killer cyborg look, and none of the knowing humor that makes the original Death's Head work.

However, Death's Head II was Marvel UK's smash hit, and an ongoing series was quickly commissioned, and DHII was dropped into every other Marvel UK book he could fit into. As I understand it, Marvel UK couldn't produce DHII content fast enough, and so they commissioned The Incomplete Death's Head, a twelve-issue reprint series. Its conceit was that DHII, along with his partner Tuck, ended up in an archive devoted to the original Death's Head, whose memories were replayed for them; each issue usually had one to two pages of new material framing an archival story. In addition to reprinting the original Death's Head vol. 1, it also reprinted Doctor Who Magazine #135, 140, and 173, Dragon's Claws #5, Marvel Comics Presents #76, and Sensational She-Hulk #24. (Death's Head doesn't appear in DWM #140, but the story features characters who reappear in Death's Head #5, reprinted in Incomplete Death's Head #6.) The major omissions are Fantastic Four #338, the The Body in Question graphic novel, and all of Death's Head Transformers appearances.

In the normal course of events, I wouldn't pick this up, but I had my reasons. The first is that it contains two stories Marvel didn't reprint in their 2019 Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent trade, one of which features the Doctor and DWM's Josiah W. Dogbolter. The other is that the frame story actually features both the Doctor and Hob, Dogbolter's robotic assistant from DWM. It's actually set during "Party Animals" (DWM #173), which was reprinted in The Good Soldier, so I read it after that collection, even though that's slightly out of publication sequence. I did dutifully read the whole thing, but in this write-up I am just going to focus on the three new-to-me stories. Just let me tell you that any story featuring Dragon's Claws does not get better on a second reading.

The first story I hadn't read before is a simple one-page tale just called "Death's Head!", though many people on the Internet call it "High Noon Tex." Basically, Death's Head goes and gets a guy with his usual style, the end. Cute but not essential. I have no idea what this wasn't reprinted in Freelance Peacekeeping Agent, given it's only a page and Marvel clearly ought to have the rights to it, given the story of its genesis.

from The Incomplete Death's Head #1
(script by Simon Furman, art by Bryan Hitch)

The oft-repeated story about it is that Marvel UK quickly had it made after Death's Head's first appearance in The Transformers #113 was written and drawn, but before it was published, and then published it in various Marvel UK titles before TF #113 actually appeared. Since it featured Death's Head but not the Transformers, that would make Death's Head a Marvel character who happened to appear in The Transformers (akin to Spider-Man), instead of a Transformers character, so Marvel UK would hold the copyright instead of Hasbro. They could tell he was going to be a breakout star and didn't want to be limited in what they could do with him.

I can find no evidence this actually happened. No one on the Internet provides any specific issues this strip supposedly appeared in. Indeed, most of the evidence I can find indicates this is not true. The notes in Incomplete Death's Head #1 say "the original appearance of Death's Head was a one page strip called High Noon Tex (reprinted this issue) which set the tone for the character. Originally, it had been intended as a one-off page to appear in a British comics fanzine, Scan." No mention of any Marvel UK title; indeed, the main thing we know is where it did not appear. As a Wikipedia sleuth drew my attention to, the strip is drawn by Bryan Hitch, who was not yet active as a comics artist when TF #113 came out in 1987... and indeed, it is clearly signed "Hitch '88" in its final panel. As far as I can tell, it actually originally debuted as a back-up strip in Transformers #167 in March 1988, the month before Death's Head made his first non-Transformers appearance in DWM #135's "The Crossroads of Time." So sure, Marvel UK was establishing Death's Head as a Marvel character... but seemingly retroactively and belatedly, no matter what has been claimed elsewhere.

The other omission from the FPA trade is much more understandable: Death's Head #8, "Time Bomb!", features the Doctor, Josiah W. Dogbolter, and Hob, and thus Marvel would need BBC permission to reprint. Unfortunately, it's a pivotal story for Death's Head, establishing how he went from 8162 in the Doctor Who universe to bouncing around in time in the Marvel universe. (It's also pivotal for DWM from a chronological perspective; because Dogbolter appears in it, it's the reason we know that a vast number of DWM characters including Frobisher, the Free-Fall Warriors, Sharon, and Olla the Heat Vampire reside in the 82nd century.)

It's been interesting to note in my DWM readthrough that the idea of a DWM universe hasn't really emerged yet; usually, writers do not reference the idea of previous eras of the strip. This is one of the first times something created for DWM has been brought back later; Dogbolter appeared in two fifth and sixth Doctor strips from 1984, five years before "Time Bomb!" (Abslom Daak was the first, back in Nemesis of the Daleks.) The reason he made a comeback is because "Time Bomb!" is the only Death's Head vol. 1 story (and, indeed, the first-ever Death's Head story) not written be Simon Furman; it's penned by Steve Parkhouse, regular DWM writer from 1981 to 1985, and creator of Dogbolter.

from The Incomplete Death's Head #9
(script by Steve Parkhouse,
art by Art Wetherell & Steve Parkhouse)

Thankfully, this isn't just a keystone story for both Death's Head and DWM, it's also very good. Dogbolter has created a time machine, and he hires Death's Head to kill the Doctor. What Death's Head doesn't know is that the time machine itself is a bomb, so the Doctor and Death's Head end up working together to turn the tables on Dogbolter. The previous Death's Head/Doctor Who team-up, "The Crossroads of Time," didn't work for me because it wasn't much of a story in general, and it wasn't a good Doctor Who story in specific. Despite the fact that this is a Death's Head story, it feels more like Death's Head turning up in a Doctor Who story than the other way around, and it's all the better for it. Parkhouse writes a good Death's Head, but there's a certain goofy charm that only Doctor Who can yield: Death's Head is initially lost in time when trying to find the Doctor, so we get some quick historical hijinks. (My favorite gag is when Death's Head thinks he's found his mother.) Then when he does find the Doctor, he's acting in a pantomime! The cuts between the Doctor and Death's Head in one strand, and Dogbolter and Hob in the other, are effectively done. Overall, this is a nice story, and I was glad I tracked down this series to read it.

As I said, the whole set of reprints has a frame. I think it runs about thirty pages in total across the twelve issues. In the first issue, it's called "Connections," in the second, "Mind Meet!", and after that it has no title. The credits are also inconsistent; how I've indicated them below is how they are given in the book.

Death's Head II and his sidekick Tuck are teleported to an unknown location; Tuck is attacked by robots while DHII is uploaded into cyberspace, and both watch memories of the original Death's Head. Eventually, the original Death's Head joins DHII in cyberspace.

Eventually, we learn a number of things:

This is Maruthea, the planet at the heart of the space-time vortex from the DWM strip "Party Animals."
This in fact is set during "Party Animals"; in the middle of its events, both the seventh Doctor and the original Death's Head come to aid DHII and Tuck.
The archive was made by Hob, Dogbolter's assistant. Dogbolter was destroyed by the bomb in "Time Bomb!", but Hob was flung into the space-time vortex and eventually ended up on Maruthea.
The Doctor has been manipulating Death's Head's life longer than we knew: he shrunk him down and sent him into the Transformers universe to begin with. He also wipes the original Death's Head's mind of the events of "Party Animals" and this story to maintain the timeline.

I mean, it's fine. It does what it needs to, I guess. Like I said, there's no Transformers content here; it's just called a "robot universe." I thought it was curious to establish that Death's Head didn't come from this universe, given that he himself is a robot, though now that I think about it, that might be consistent with what we learned about his origins in The Body in Question, so I guess I didn't think that through enough. I thought it was odd that the vague references to the robot universe aren't actually consistent with the Transformers comics, as it seems like it would have been easy to make them so.

What I don't understand is why this whole story takes place during a Doctor Who one, and why in the process of writing the Transformers out of Death's Head's backstory, they write the Doctor in. One would think that Marvel UK had just learned its lesson about incorporating licensed characters into the backstory of their original characters! Like, this story can never be reprinted now for the very same reason that the Transformers ones couldn't be at the time.

(For an archive on Death's Head's history, the events of The Body in Question seem like a staggering omission... but I imagine that the 1990 collection was still in print when this came out, so it wasn't needed here.)

I am not sure what I think about Hob becoming a gigantic death robot who is also insane. I don't exactly remember how Dogbolter and Hob return in DWM, but I feel pretty certain all this will be ignored.

from The Incomplete Death's Head #2
(script by Dan Abnett, art by Simon Coleby)

Nothing about this story made me rethink my preconceptions of Death's Head II. He is clearly the inferior character to the original, and I don't understand how anyone could think otherwise. His partner Tuck is all the worse thing about "strong female characters" of the 1990s. The bit where the Doctor suggests that maybe she could be a companion boggles the mind. What a clash of genres! I guess I could imagine her hanging out with New Adventures–era "Spacefleet" Ace, though.

Ultimately, I have enjoyed this weird side-step. The early 1990s were a weird, often bad time in comics, and the strange journey of Death's Head from The Transformers to Doctor Who to the Marvel universe embodies that. When the character is written well, he's fun, but I've come to realize he's one of those characters who's a better foil than a star. I'm not sure that Simon Furman, at least, ever figured out how to make him a main character.

Anyway, this was basically it for the original Death's Head at Marvel, until Kieron Gillen revived the character in his S.W.O.R.D., Iron Man and Spider-Man runs in the 2010s. Those, I am given to understand, actually take place before Death's Head's Transformers appearances, as he is still big but doesn't yet call himself a "freelance peacekeeping agent." I'm not so motivated as to track them down, but he did get a miniseries in 2019, which I'll read when I get up to that year in DWM. Until then, it's the end, yes?

“Death’s Head!” (also known as “High Noon Tex”) was reprinted in issue #1 of The Incomplete Death’s Head (Jan. 1993). The story originally appeared in issue #167 of The Transformers (Mar. 1988), and was written by Simon Furman, illustrated by Bryan Hitch, and lettered by Richard Starkings. The reprint was edited by John Freeman.

“Time Bomb!” was reprinted in issue #9 of The Incomplete Death’s Head (Sept. 1993). The story originally appeared in issue #8 of Death’s Head vol. 1 (July 1989), and was written and inked by Steve Parkhouse, pencilled by Art Wetherell, lettered by Annie H, colored by Louise Cassell, and edited by Steve White.

“Connections” / “Mind Meet!” originally appeared in issues #1-12 of The Incomplete Death’s Head (Jan.-Dec. 1993). The story was plotted by John Freeman (#1); scripted by Dan Abnett (#1-2, 5, 8-12); pencilled by Simon Coleby (#1-2, 5, 8-12); inked by Simon Coleby (#1-2, 5), Sean Hardy (#8-10), Niel Bushnell (#11-12), and Tim Perkins (#11); lettered by Annie Parkhouse (#2, 5) and Gary Gilbert (#8-12); colored by David Leach (#2, 5, 9-12) and David Boyle (#8); and edited by John Freeman (#1-2) and Tim Quinn (#5).

This post is the seventeenth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Evening's Empire. Previous installments are listed below:

20 October 2021

Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent in the Marvel Universe (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 15)

Collection published: 2019
Acquired: March 2020
Second half read: July 2021

Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent

stories from Death's Head vol. 1 #9-10 (Aug.-Sept. 1989), Strip #13-20 (Aug.-Nov. 1990), Fantastic Four vol. 1 #338 (Mar. 1990), The Sensational She-Hulk #24 (Feb. 1991), Marvel Heroes #33 (Mar. 2011), and What If... vol. 2 #54 (Oct. 1993)

Writers: Simon Furman & Walter Simonson with Ferg Handley

Pencilers: Geoff Senior, Bryan Hitch & Walter Simonson with John Ross & Simon Williams

Inkers: Geoff Senior, Bryan Hitch, Walter Simonson & John Beatty with John Ross & Simon Willams

Colorists: Louise Cassell, Euan Peters, Geoff Senior, Christie Scheele, Glynis Oliver & Sarra Mossoff with John Charles, Jason Cardy & Kat Nicholson

Letterers: Annie Halfacree, Helen Stone, Todd Klein, Jim Novak & Janice Chiang with Tim Warran-Smith

Issue #8 brought a big change of direction for Death's Head... but due to rights issues, it can't be printed in this collection! Suffice it to say that the Doctor takes Death's Head out of the Doctor Who universe in 8162 and plops him in the Marvel universe in the present day; I will eventually read it when I pick up The Incomplete Death's Head. So now Death's Head is in his third universe thus far!

So #9 picks up with Death's Head on the roof of Four Freedoms Plaza, where the Fantastic Four live. At first they fight, of course, but then they must team up the Fantastic Four's security system goes haywire. At the end of this issue, the Fantastic Four try to send Death's Head back to 8162 (I guess no one knows he's in the wrong universe), but when Reed Richards realizes he's a paid killer, he switches it off, which ejects Death's Head in the far-off year of, um, 2020. (Iron Man 2020 had been a feature of some Marvel comics, so this was an established setting.) The set-up is a bit confusing, as Death's Head is already established, and trying to find money to fix up his spaceship... which didn't come with him... and which doesn't appear in 2020 until the issue's end!

Even Death's Head can't resist a baby.
from Death's Head vol. 1 #9 (script by Simon Furman, art by Geoff Senior)

These two issues are basically fine. There's some fun interplay between Death's Head and the FF, and the Iron Man 2020 has some great Death's Head moments, but on the other hand falls foul of the dull convolutions that bedevilled a number of the pre-time-jump stories. Overall though, one can sense a comic frantically searching for a new direction... and getting cancelled abruptly, as an obviously hastily final two pages in #10 sum up a lot.

After this, Death's Head doesn't have a status quo. The graphic novel The Body in Question (which has three parts; book one is set between the antepenultimate and penultimate pages of #10, and then books two and three after #10) makes the mistake of delving into the history of Death's Head, though it does reunite him with his supporting cast from his ongoing. No one cares about where Death's Head came from; what makes him interesting is what he does. Unfortunately this story gives us very little of that, instead spending time on a lot of cod mysticism. There is one good joke, though.

Actually, the issue number below is an educated guess. I can find very little information out there about the original appearance of this story.
from Strip #17 (script by Simon Furman, art by Geoff Senior)

I don't know why Furman bothered bringing the supporting cast back, because they never appear again. We next follow Death's Head into Fantastic Four #338, when he's starting freelancing for the Time Variance Authority. This is not much of a Death's Head story; it's just a Fantastic Four one he happens to be in. Better use is made of him in Sensational She-Hulk #24; he's back in New York 2020... but in a grave for some reason. (He still has his TVA time-bike, though, because he never returned it.) The story is goofy, but enjoyable, and actually makes good use of the 2020 setting in that something She-Hulk does in 1991 has repercussions thirty years later... and vice versa. Then in 2011, he's being hired by aliens to fight on their behalf (against the Hulk, as Earth's champion). (I assume because of time travel again, but I don't think anyone says.) Each of these is probably fine as a guest appearance, but it is a pretty disappointing way for the character to go out. He's brought into the Marvel universe... and promptly amounts to nothing!

Only thing that comes close to Geoff Senior drawing Death's Head is Walt Simonson doing it, complete with those amazing Simonson sound effects.
from Fantastic Four vol. 1 #338 (script & art by Walter Simonson)

Part of the reason was that in 1992, he was killed off and replaced by Death's Head II, an "extreme" 1990s character. So Death's Head makes it into a new universe, and is killed off for his troubles. Simon Furman got the opportunity to kind of undo this in an issue of What If..., which has him uniting a team of 1992 superheroes to take down a villain in 2020. It probably would have been much more interesting if I was familiar with the story it was rewriting... but I also can't imagine I would enjoy reading that story either! Geoff Senior's usually solid art seems compromised in pursuit of the mediocre 1990s aesthetic, to boot.

Is he in a grave because the character was "dead," as in no longer published? Is that the joke? If so, he'd only been last published three months prior!
from The Sensational She-Hulk #24 (script by Simon Furman, art by Bryan Hitch & John Beatty)

So, I wish Furman had left Death's Head in Los Angeles 8162 and perfected that set-up instead. This was a pretty dismal way for a once-great character to go out. (Though, in my marathon at least, there is more Death's Head to come.)

(Also it seems like a bummer that this doesn't contain the 2011 Revolutionary War: Death's Head one-shot... I haven't read it, though, so maybe there's a good reason for that.)

This post is the fifteenth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers The Good Soldier. Previous installments are listed below:

11 October 2021

Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent in the Doctor Who Universe (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 13)

Collection published: 2019
Acquired: March 2020
First half read: June 2021

Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent

stories from Dragon's Claws #5 (Nov. 1988), Death's Head vol. 1 #1-7 (Dec. 1988–June 1989), and Marvel Comics Presents vol. 1 #76 (May 1991)

Writer: Simon Furman

Pencilers: Geoff Senior, Bryan Hitch, Lee Sullivan, John Higgins & Liam Sharp

Inkers: Geoff Senior, Mark Farmer, David Hine, Lee Sullivan, John Higgins, Paul Marshall & Jeff Anderson

Colorists: Steve White, Nick Abadzis, Louise Cassell & Stuart Place with Joe Rosas

Letterers: Annie Halfacree with Richard Starkings

I had always intended to follow Death's Head out of A Cold Day in Hell! and into his solo series. If I had been smart, though, I would have picked up Panini's two-volume collection of his adventures; since Panini has (had?) the UK reprint rights to both Marvel and Doctor Who, they could include both Death's Head stories with Doctor Who elements and ones with Marvel elements. Alas, I did not, and that collection is now prohibitively expensive and/or just unavailable. Instead, I picked up this Marvel collection, which has to skip over, for example, Death's Head #8 because both the Doctor and Josiah W. Dogbolter appear in it.

So: in the Transformers storyline "The Legacy of Unicron!", Death's Head was lost in a time portal; in the Doctor Who Magazine story The Crossroads of Time, he emerged in the Doctor Who universe. At the end of that story, the Doctor sent him to Earth in the year 8162, setting up his appearances here. That means all the stories in the first half (which are the ones I'm discussing here) take place in the Doctor Who universe, and thus also Marvel UK's Dragon's Claws series must take place in the Who universe, though neither Lars Pearson's Ahistory nor the Tardis wiki seem to buy this argument. As I discussed in my review of A Cold Day in Hell!, the fact that Dragon's Claws is set in the 82nd century is actually what allows us to date a significant number of DWM stories: Dreamers of Death, The Free-Fall Warriors, The Moderator, The Shape Shifter, Polly the Glot, War-Game, the Kane's Story sequence, A Cold Day in Hell!, Redemption!, and many I haven't gotten to yet must take place in the 82nd century because Death's Head #8 established that Dogbolter was from the same era as Dragon's Claws. Yet, as far as I know, we never see Earth in DWM during what Lars Pearson calls "the Mazuma Era"; the status of humanity's homeworld in this time is only fleshed out in Dragon's Claws and in Death's Head #1-8. (I think? It may have appeared in passing in the Kane's Story sequence now that I think about it.)

Earth in the 82nd century isn't up to much... maybe that's why the Doctor didn't care if he unleashed Death's Head there.
from Death's Head vol. 1 #3 (art by Bryan Hitch & David Hine)

Okay, okay, enough context, what about the stories? Reading this, at first I wondered if Death's Head could actually work as a solo character. What made him fun in The Transformers was the way he was above it all-- or rather, beneath it all. Here's this vast cosmic war happening, and especially in the 2006-set stories he originated in, it features titans of the universe. But Death's Head doesn't give a crap: he just cares about money, and if someone is going to call him a "bounty hunter" instead of a "freelance peacekeeping agent." The fun derives from the fact that Death's Head is basically operating in a totally different story to that of our usual protagonists and antagonists. But can that be maintained when he becomes the star of the show?

Most of the time, Simon Furman seemingly can't figure out how to do it. At first, this title really struggles because of Dragon's Claws. The first issue collected here is Dragon's Claws #5, and the story drops you right in, with no context for who these people are or why you should care about them. Which, okay, to be fair, it was their series and Death's Head was a guest star. Why should they be explained? But Death's Head was the breakout star of Marvel UK, and surely Death's Head fans followed him from The Transformers into this without picking up issues #1-4? Yet no concession is made for them. This is also true of some of the individual issues of the actual solo series once it gets started, especially #2, which really strongly assumes I understand who all these characters are and what they are doing when I just don't.

Just try to care about these guys... it can't be done!
from Dragon's Claws #5 (art by Geoff Senior)

In issues #3-7, the series moves into its short-lived status quo, where Death's Head with his assistant Spratt set up a business in the Los Angeles Resettlement. There are two I particularly liked, two that make the format work. The first is #5, which brings back self-interested space trash Keepsake from the Doctor Who Magazine story Keepsake. Now, when I saw this, my reaction was, "uh, really?" because Keepsake wasn't exactly a noteworthy story where I was thinking, "let's bring back that guy." But when I read it, I finally saw what this series was doing and could do. In this one, Keepsake returns to L.A. to meet up with an old partner; between the two of them, they have a complete map to a buried treasure. Only Keepsake-- who now has a new girlfriend in tow-- ran out on his wife so that she wouldn't get part of his half, and so the wife hires Death's Head to get Keepsake. The result of this is a confusing panoply of Keepsake vs. ex-partner and Keepsake vs. ex-wife. But just like the Autobot/Decepticon war, Death's Head doesn't give a hoot, he just wants a payday. It's dumb, and it's fun because Death's Head agrees with us that it's dumb, and doesn't give the interpersonal dynamics any real thought if he gets his money.

Don't annoy Death's Head, lady.
from Death's Head vol. 1 #5 (art by John Higgins)

Similarly, #7 is about Death's Head and Spratt chasing a mark-- but what they don't know is that two different bounty hunters are chasing down Death's Head. So these two bounty hunters are trying to kill him, which he doesn't know, and also trying to kill each other so that the other one doesn't get the credit. Again, this sense that Death's Head attitude means that he's just above it all is where these stories are the most fun.

They've won, and they don't even know why.
from Death's Head vol. 1 #7 (art by Bryan Hitch & Jeff Anderson)

But when they expect you to take these things seriously, they don't work, because much of the time, they are impossible to: a lot of macho early 1990s stuff, even though it's still the late 1980s. Too many stories are dependent on action, which I don't care about, or keeping track of a bunch of interchangeable nobodies. There are occasional flashes of wit and color, but overall the effect is drab.

(I did also like #1, where we get a series of flashbacks each of which ends with Death's Head laying down one of his principles of being a freelance peacekeeping agent.)

Still, I think the comic was getting somewhere and figuring itself out, which is why it's a bummer that #8 totally shifted the direction of the comic, though I'm sure there were good sales-related reasons for this. Well, at least I think it'll be a bummer; I'll see when I get there.

This post is the thirteenth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Nemesis of the Daleks. Previous installments are listed below: