Death's Head #1-4

 Death's Head #1-4

Originally released in 1988

Written by Simon Furman

Art by Bryan Hitch

All I know about the character of Death's Head is that he has a weird history. A robotic bounty hunter, he connects the universes of Transformers, Marvel, and Doctor Who together.  A freelance peacekeeping agent (a polite way of saying bounty hunter), Death's Head was originally a part of Marvel UK's Transformers run before running into the Seventh Doctor from Doctor Who, who eventually drops him off in the Marvel universe.  It's entirely possible that I've gotten some details wrong, but between that and series like Godzilla and Conan the Barbarian still being canon to Marvel Comics, it makes for a fun "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" sort of thing with Marvel characters.

The first issue is an overview of Death's Head's mercenary lifestyle, working for whoever pays him better and fulfilling his contract to the letter. For example, a group of the king's soldiers, posing as resistance agents, hire him to kill the king with the intent of killing anyone who might accept work from resistance groups.  He kills the would-be ambushers, and then kills the king for good measure since that's what he was hired to do, and even the king calling off the contract doesn't save him.

There are times where Death's Head is annoyed with his client, like if they're prone to babbling on and on, but he'll work for them as long as he's contractually obligated to - and not a second more.  In one case, he is counting down the seconds until he can leave.

One person who got caught up in his missions, Spratt, becomes Death's Head's self-imposed partner, regardless of what Death's Head has to say about it.  I'm guessing he was added so that Death's Head would have someone to talk to, but he talks to himself or has an internal monologue fairly consistently, so that might not be it.

At any rate, Death's Head doesn't seem too concerned about his safety, even when Spratt is taken hostage.  Spratt reminds me of Rick Jones in the early issues of the Avengers, a younger character who desperately wants to prove himself to the protagonist despite being out of his league, though rather than Captain America (who teaches Rick some basic self-defense but doesn't want him involved in superheroics after Bucky's death), he's stuck with an amoral mercenary.

There's not really an overarching story so far, just Death's Head on a series of missions trying to collect separate bounties.  His adventures take place in the year 8162, far removed from modern day, though cities like Los Angeles still exist.  The series lasted for ten issues, though issue 8 is left out of Marvel Unlimited due to its Doctor Who connection.

The series has a good sense of humour about itself, never taking its content too seriously. With a robotic bounty hunter in the distant future who has no problem with killing those who cross his path or badmouth him, the risk is there, but Death's Head can be goofy, and Spratt inadvertently getting dragged into dangerous situations get some chuckles out of me.

Even without Autobots, Daleks, or the Fantastic Four involved, I had a good time with this. (The Fantastic Four don't show up until issue 9) Death's Head is the main attraction here, as the rest of the characters are pretty forgettable, but he feels like Howard the Duck with Steve Gerber or She-Hulk with John Byrne, where you can tell that the writer really likes writing for that particular character to the point where they'd probably declare anything that other people wrote to be non-canon or just a dream.