Death's Head: Encyclopedia II - Death's Head - Death's Head original

Death's Head - Death's Head original

Death's Head's first appearance after High Noon Tex, was in Marvel's Transformers series, which saw him attempt to claim the bounty that Rodimus Prime had hastily placed on Galvatron's head. Learning that Galvaron had travelled back in time, Death's Head transported himself back to 1987 in pursuit of his quarry, while Rodimus Prime, realising his error, followed him back, and stopped him from destroying Galvatron, forcibly returning him to the future. Subsequently, Death's Head was contracted by the Decepticons to take out Rodimus Prime, a piece of business that Death's Head considered a pleasure, only to have the hit interfered with by Decepticons Cyclonus and Scourge, hoping to take the glory for themselves. Death's Head was tricked by Rodimus into entering the Autobot base, where, outnumbered, he cut a deal, and was paid by Rodimus to hunt down Cyclonus and Scourge.

Over the course of the next year, Death's Head pursued Cyclonus and Scourge across the galaxy, eventually confronting them on the Planet of Junk, where they all fell under the mental control of the disembodied head of Unicron. Death's Head tried to resist the control, but was manipulated into killing Shockwave, allowing Cyclonus and Scourge to take command of the Decepticons and re-ignite the stalemated Cybertronian war, which would disguise Unicron's own activities. In his continued battle against Unicron's control, Death's Head confronted him on the astral plane and discovered the true origin of the world-eater, using that knowledge to help Rodimus Prime seal Unicron within the Matrix. As explosion tore the area apart, destroying Unicron's head, Death's Head - vowing to see his contract through to the end - forced himself, Cyclonus and Scourge through Unicron's time portal, vowing to kill them "another time". However, in the course of the time travel they became separated, and while Cyclonus and Scourge wound up on Cybertron in the past, eventually joining with Scorponok and becoming Targetmasters, Death's Head instead encountered the Time Lord known as the Doctor. The Doctor shrank him to human size and shot him off through time, leading him into an encounter with the future government's troubleshooting team, the Dragon's Claws.

Subsequently, Death's Head was finally granted a comic book of his own, originally set in the year 8162 but later travelling to the present and then to the year 2020. During this series, Spratt, a young gang member rebuilt Death's Head after he was destroyed by Dragon's Claws, leading to a redesign of Death's Head body, and his becoming the cyborg's unwanted partner. The series was ended abruptly with a cliffhanger at issue 10 due to the closure of Marvel UK's own creative team.

In 1990, the ongoing storyline was resolved in the Marvel UK graphic novel, Death's Head: The Body in Question, which was serialized in the magazine Strip before being reprinted in the Marvel Graphic Novel format. In this story, Death's Head's origins were revealed to him for the first time.

His mechanoid body had originally been constructed to host the life energy of the techno-mage Lupex. However, a woman named Pyra, who wished to steal Lupex's secrets, ultimately decided to use the mechanoid body against him. She gave it a cold and calculating business-like mind, but before it could be used against Lupex, the body was stolen by an unknown party (later revealed to be the Doctor), enlarged to the size of the Cybertronians, and catapulted through time.

At this time, 6 issues of the original series were also collected in the graphics novel The Life and Times of Death's Head, together with the High Noon Tex strip and some words from writer Simon Furman and concept art for the character's original design. The article makes mention of a new limited series entering production, with a new, gothic, redesign of the character. However, this series was never published.

Around this time, Death's Head's increasing 'cult status' meant that he also made a few appearances in some US Marvel comics, most notably the Fantastic Four (issue 338), She-Hulk (Sensational She-Hulk issue 24) and Marvel Comics Presents (issue 76).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Death's Head original", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki