Outnumbered But Never Outgunned, Yes?

Oh, so that's who Robocop was trying to arrest the other day.

Good luck, Murphy.

And happy birthday Simon Furman!

(And Hellboy: Seed of Destruction #1 was released on this day in 1994!)

#DrawDeathsHeadDay
#KelvinDrawsThings

Overcompensating, Yes?

It's #DrawDeathsHeadDay 2025! The most freelance peacekeeping day of the year! And, coincidentally, Simon Furman's birthday too!

A skinny, angry-looking DH this year. Maybe he's short of cash.

Sketched in pencil, "inked" in Krita, and a bit experimental. I'm still trying to find my confidence and style, so I went for something loose and messy, in an attempt to not overthink things and let the picture develop.

Mistaken Identity, Yes?

It's #DrawDeathsHeadDay the most freelance peacekeeping day of the year!

This year, as well as wishing Simon Furman a happy birthday, I must also apologise to Gene Colan for my artistic theft. Sorry, Gene.

(If it helps, I re-drew the entire cover, when a more sensible person would have just photoshopped Death's Head in. I have never been sensible.)

Fantastic, Yes?

To celebrate the Death's Head cameo on the cover of Fantastic Four #700 -- although he's probably in fact on the cover of the following issue, but it's a two-in-one connecting thing, so whatever -- the birthday of Simon Furman, and of course #DrawDeathsHeadDay, the most wonderful day of the year, here's DH trying on a new costume.

Death's Head is wearing the Fantastic Four costume from circa 1989 to 1990, when the freelance peace-keeping agent bumped into Marvel's first family a handful of times.

Not Taking Me Seriously, Yes?

It's #DrawDeathsHeadDay the most wonderful holiday of the year!

I would apologise for the pun, but you should never apologise for a good pun. Nor indeed a terrible one.

Incoherent Peacekeeping Agent

Right, so "Clone Drive" then.

I read this story when it came out as individual issues of Death's Head v2 in 2019 and it didn't make much sense then. I got the collected edition as a birthday present a few days ago and gave it another go, to see if a second try and a couple of years made a difference. Alas, it has not.

The main problem is a chronic lack of coherence. Despite being published as Death's Head v2, I think it's supposed to be the origin of a new version of the character -- Death's Head V, or "Vee" -- except he gets very little screen time and achieves almost nothing. So maybe it is about the original DH after all? It does start and end with him, but then he gets pushed aside by half of the Young Avengers, also achieves very little except to get a new sidekick, then disappears with her off to deep space where undoubtedly we will see neither of them again.

We don't get enough of Vee to make him compelling enough to follow, not that we can follow him because he hasn't appeared since as far as I can tell. If it's about reintroducing Death's Head to the Marvel Universe, sticking him in deep space is an odd way of doing it. If it's a celebration of the character -- which is what artist Kei Zama suggested when it was first published -- sidelining the ostensible star is an odd way to do it.There's no room for anything to breathe, and it all feels muddled.

Then there's the nonsense. We start with Death's Head falling through a space portal into a bin in New York, which is apparently enough to deactivate and dissasemble him. Then he is somehow turned into an amplifier for a punk band. I don't know how this works. Wiccan and Hulkling run into him by accident, except it's not by accident because Wiccan did some magic that brought them there. I think? Maybe? Wiccan did this because he already has a DH -- Vee -- under his bed and wants to know what it is. Probably? Wiccan has Vee under his bed because he did some magic to see possible futures for the Young Avengers and saw Vee in some of them, and then went on an untold solo adventure to an AIM laboratory and stole Vee. I think? But it turns out that the whole thing was some sort of elaborate plan by the villain to get her hands on the original DH for... reasons. Except the villain turns out to just want to hang with DH so they go off together and leave everyone else behind. It's possible that the villain just changed her mind and switched sides halfway through the story, but it's not clear. Nothing is clear.

Oh, and then at the end, Death's Head is standing, deactivated (?) in Vee's cupboard, except he's also running around space with his new friend.

I, uh, ah. No, I have nothing. I can follow the chain of events, just about, but the individual events are baffling and the storytelling is so weird. Wiccan goes off and breaks into an AIM lab on his own and steals a robot, but we don't get to see that. Why? Wouldn't that have been interesting? What's going on with the extra Death's Head in the cupboard? Wouldn't there have been easier ways for the non-villain to ask DH to be her friend? I cannot tell if I'm being dense and this is all clever plotting, or if it's just really bad. I suspect the latter.

On the plus side, Kei Zama's art is lovely. There's a nice balance between strong cartoony storytelling and intricate detail, although the inking is perhaps a bit heavy in places and makes some of the pages look a little muddy. Even so, the art is by far the best thing about the book.

Death's Head fans will probably get this because we like to follow all of his appearances, but I can't recommend it to anyone else because I'm not sure it's very good. Disappointing, yes?

Oh, and to pad out what is still a very thin book, we get a reprint of Death's Head v1 #1 by Simon Furman, Bryan Hitch, Mark Farmer, Nick Abadzis, Annie Parkhouse, and Richard Starkings. I list the entire creative team because Marvel seems to have forgotten to do so anywhere in the book. That's a poor show.

Cinematic, Yes?

It's #DrawDeathsHeadDay again! And I almost missed it, again!

This is based, of course, on the cover of Death's Head II #1 from 1992, and the beheaded, er, Head, is the version of the character that apparently appears in the first Guardians of the Galaxy film, although I didn't spot him!

(He's one of the Collector's exhibits, I'm told.)

Happy Mother's Day, Yes?

It's #drawdeathsheadday and it's also Mother's Day, so here's Death's Head and his "mum", Pyra.

So... Much... Head

Be aware, this is a nerdy post, even by my standards.

By my count, there are at least four versions of Death's Head running around the Marvel Universe. This matters to no one but me and about three other people, but it's keeping me awake at night, so let's go for a deep dive into some obscure continuity!

(Just to be clear, I'm not cataloguing every version of the character; rather I'm trying to work out how many versions of him are active in the 616 reality.)

• Original Death's Head
  The character that was introduced back in 1987, then bounced through various licensed comics, his own series, crossovers, and many cameos. He is supposed to be destroyed, assimilated, and replaced by Death's Head II -- see below -- in 2020, but a combination of Marvel's sliding timeline and DH's own time-jumping antics means that the 2020 of 1992 is now the alternate Earth-8140 and Original DH is safe from replacement. Probably.


• Death's Head II
  Originally the original in a new body. He's also a time-and-dimension hopper and is active in the current Marvel Universe, at one point in 2008 working for Pete Wisdom's MI13 against Dracula. Yup. Since DHII has the personality of the original -- sort of -- I'll count him.


• Big Death's Head
  This version appeared in S.W.O.R.D. in 2009 and is somewhere near the beginning of his career. He is Transformer-sized but hasn't yet picked up the "freelance peace-keeping agent" tic, suggesting that this appearance is from before his travels into the Transformers universe in Transformers (UK) #113 in 1987.
  
  Big Death's Head also appears in Iron Man (v5) in 2013. He is wearing his blue outfit, which confuses matters as he gets that after being shrunk, destroyed, and rebuilt, but it's written by Kieron Gillen, who also wrote S.W.O.R.D. so I'm going to assume it's supposed to be the same version.
  
  There is an argument that this one should be called Original Death's Head because it's the youngest non-flashback version of the character, but that kind of thinking makes my head hurt.


• Avenging Death's Head
  In Avenging Spider-Man #17 in 2013, the Time Variance Authority contracts Death's Head to deal with disruptions to the timeline. DH is human-sized and is wearing his blue outfit, which puts this appearance somewhere between his 1988 solo series and the present. His employment with the TVA suggests that from DH's perspective, this appearance is from around Fantastic Four (v1) #338 in 1990, but I admit that's speculation.
  
  
  
  Anyway, Spider-Man punches his head off, but the TVA summons DH again, from a few seconds earlier in his personal timeline. This time -- ho ho -- things go better, and DH walks off into the sunset.
  
  Given the TVA's involvement I don't think this is Original Death's Head, but rather a timeline-diverged version of the character. Or it is ODH, but at some point he goes back and rejoins his own timeline. For the purposes of how many Death's Heads there are in the current 616 continuity, I'm not sure it matters.
  
  Then it gets timey-wimey. We have seen in Death's Head (v1) #10 that beheading is at most an inconvenience to DH, which is confirmed by an easily-missed bonus panel on the "next issue" page of the Spider-Man comic, so it appears there are two versions of this version of DH active!

I reckon that makes four, maybe five, at a stretch six, versions of the same character active in the 616 Marvel Universe, a situation that looks like an excellent premise for a team-up story. One day Marvel will let me write Death's Head Team-Up and I will write that story, but it is not this day.

But we are not finished yet! For the sake of completeness, because if I were reading this post I would probably ask about them:

• Death's Head 3.0
  I read the series in 2006 but I have no real idea how this character connects to the original. I'm not sure anyone does. He's some sort of off-shoot of DHII but there was a suggestion at the end of the story that he was a precursor to Original Death's Head but that was Earth-6216 but then a bunch of unconnected but identical drone versions appeared in an Earth-616 Hulk story and I think we'd all be better off forgetting DH 3.0.


• Death's Head 4.0
  
  
  This unit appears in Death's Head (v2) in 2019 as an intended replacement for Original Death's Head, but is superseded by Vee and -- spoilers! -- destroyed by ODH.


• Death's Head 5.0/V/"Vee"
  
  
  Also introduced in Death's Head (v2), Vee is supposed -- like DHII -- to replace Original Death's Head but develops his own personality and hangs around with the Young Avengers instead. Unlike DHII there's no continuity or transfer of consciousness between him and the original, so I'm happy to consider this a different character with a similar name.
  
  (In the final pages of Death's Head (v2) Vee opens a door into what looks like a cupboard and behind the door is what looks like an inactive Original Death's Head, but then in the next panel we see ODH active and well elsewhere, so I don't know what that bit is about.)


• Darkhawk Death's Head
  
  
  This fellow appears in Infinity Countdown: Darkhawk in 2018 and I think he's supposed to be Original Death's Head but he looks weird as heck. The version in S.W.O.R.D. also looked off-model but at least he was a robot; I'm not sure what is going on with this more biological-looking version. I will assume he's ODH until confirmed otherwise.

Should further versions of Death's Head pop up -- which is a strong possibility given the way the character bounces about -- I will update this post, but I think four -- or more! -- concurrent versions of the same character is more than enough to be getting on with, yes?

I'm Back, Yes?

Marvel has released a new Death's Head comic, so I drew this.

Something Familiar, Yes?

It's #DrawDeathsHeadDay today and it's #HellboyDay either today or tomorrow, depending on whom you ask, so this was probably inevitable.

The image is based on the cover of Thor #126, by Jack Kirby.

Happy Day, Yes?

Apparently it's #DrawDeathsHeadDay today, something which passed me by -- hence the quick sketch -- but will be an annual event from now on.

Use Thinner Pens Next Time, Yes?

This is what happens when you only have a chunky marker and ten minutes to draw something and you grew up with Marvel UK.

Civil (Trouser) War

Why are Death's Head II and the Hulk fighting over a pair of trousers?

It's a long story.

Top Ten Comic Characters 2009 Edition

I'm not sure I've seen ten new films this year, I've barely read more than a couple of new books, and I don't know enough about music to write about it without embarrassing myself, so I'm just going to pinch an idea from Rol and just do my ten favourite comic characters. So, in no particular order (except alphabetical):

1. The Avengers: Immediately I cheat by chucking in a team. Oh well. I suspect that my first superhero comic was an Avengers title, as I've been hooked since I was a youngster. It's not even a particular lineup or era I like, but the team itself. Even though they live in a mansion and have a butler, there's something a bit more down to earth and approachable about the Avengers than their godlike DC counterparts (who don't have a butler, but look down on us all from their space station). Perhaps it's their open door policy, which allows Spider-Man villain the Sandman to fight alongside Captain America and Thor (I have a great idea for a Sandman Avengers story which will never see the light of day, alas). Or the fluctuating power levels, so you can have Thor and Iron Man in the team one month, then Firestar and Triathlon the other. One of my great regrets was dropping the title, after the franchise bloated, got mired in crossover hell, and came under the creative control of a writer who doesn't have the first idea on how to write the team.

2. Death's Head: It's difficult to explain the appeal of this character to anyone who didn't read Marvel UK's Transformers. I think it's because you've got a property which, like many of those cartoon/toy tie-ins of the 80's, split the characters into sharp delineations of good and evil. Then you've got this character coming in who cares not a jot for any of that, and just wants to get paid. Certainly this was unique in a kids' comic, and I can't think of many characters in "grown up" comics with a similar outlook. It helped that he was written well, with a humourous edge not often seen in the parent title, and he had a great character design. I was shocked and surprised to see him return recently, in the pages of S.W.O.R.D. of all places.

3. Doctor Doom: I like the theatrical chaos of the Joker, but for me, Doom is the greatest comic villain. Partly it's due to the great design (I once heard a rumour that the reason George Lucas gave Marvel the Star Wars comics rights was because they pointed out to him the visual similarities between Darth Vader and Doom), and it's partly to do with the pompous dialogue. The main thing I like about Doom is that he doesn't really see himself as a villain. He's a victim of circumstance, the most brilliant genius of his time, but the Accursed Richards always gets in the way. The best thing is that Doom may actually be right; Reed is no saint, and if their positions were reversed, things wouldn't be so different, I suspect.

4. Edward Hyde: As seen in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, this is the best version of the Hulk ever written.

5. Invincible: What if Superman's alter-ego was Peter Parker? That's essentially what we've got with this character. So we're not dealing with a hugely original concept, but it's all about the writing, which captures that clash of real life and superheroing which made the after-high-school-but-before-Clones era of Spider-Man so compelling.

6. Nextwave:. Another cheat, but it's Christmas, so tough. This team's title got cancelled because no one was buying it, since apparently most comics fans lack both a sense of humour, and the understanding that Lee and Kirby did stuff like this all the time, and if it's good enough for them, it's damned well good enough for modern Marvel. You've got an ex-Avenger with an superiority complex, an ultra-violent English monster hunter, a drunken Machine Man, a jailbait X-Man and a superhero with a name so profane Captain America beat him up because of it. All of them are on the run after stealing what is essentially a TARDIS from a suicidal Nick Fury. Great stuff, crushed by the disapproval of abhuman cretins who couldn't deal with it being in the same "continuity" as a multi-part crossover about Iron Man and Captain America punching each other. Idiots.

7. Rocket Raccoon: The star of a bizarre minor Marvel miniseries of the early 1980's, a strange blend of horror and Saturday morning cartoon loosely based on a Beatles song and drawn by a pre-Hellboy Mike Mignola. I normally don't have much time for the anthropomorphic animal thing (I can't get into Usagi Yojimbo, for example, even though I know it's good), but there's something compelling about a 50's Buck Rogers style space hero with rocket boots and ray guns who just happens to be a raccoon. He's recently returned as a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and I'm dreading his demise in some inane cosmic crossover.

8. Scott Pilgrim: He's a brilliant hand-to-hand fighter, and the ladies love him, but he's also a bit of a loser, living in a bedsit with only borrowed possessions, and he seems to have an odd kind of social autism where he fails to comprehend basic concepts. So another example of the Peter Parker archetype then. It would have been so easy to make Scott unfailingly cool and brilliant, and I love that he's just a bit rubbish sometimes.

9. Spider-Man: I don't have quite the attachment Rol does to Spidey, but it's close. I grew up reading his adventures, mainly from Marvel UK reprints, and Marvel got it dead right with this character. The balance of real-life and superheroics is spot on, and Spidey actually grew up and developed in a way superhero characters rarely do, which makes it all the more annoying that Marvel scuppered all that and turned the clock back for no reason at all. I still love Spidey, but Marvel make it so bloody hard.

10. Thor: I love the one-upmanship of the concept, of topping DC's strongest man alive by wheeling out a god. I like the silly Olde English dialogue, that he's a hero who can pull off a beard, and that he gets drunk at the end of a successful adventure purely for fun and celebration, and not because of socially relevant storytelling. He also works really well as an Avenger (see above), in particular during the Kurt Busiek era, when the writer would save Thor for the big climax, invariably giving him the hero shot. All this is set against the grand backdrop of Norse myth, complete with doom-laden prophecy and familial back-stabbing.

10a. Beta Ray Bill: As 10, but a yellow alien horse.