Let the Games begin
Battletide is the title of two Mini Series published by Marvel Comics in the early 1990s, as part of their Marvel UK brand.
Both series have Killpower and Death’s Head II as the protagonists, and both centre around the eponymous Battletide, a storm of demonic energy that’s sweeping across space.
The first series has a larger cast, including a few well known Marvel characters, with some of Earth’s heroes and villains kidnapped and forced to participate in gladiatorial battles on the alien world of Colosseum. Wolverine, Sabretooth, Dark Angel, Psylocke and Hercules find themselves fighting alongside (and sometimes against) Killpower and Death’s Head.
On the villainous side, Termagant and Megaira are the reigning champions of the Games, determined to ensure that this is the bloodiest, deadliest event yet. And in the background, the Battletide itself is rushing towards the planet, attracted by the bloodshed. Which may not be entirely coincidental…
Battletide II has a much smaller cast, with Death’s Head II and Killpower recruited by the robots of the Temploid Order, reuniting to stop a new threat taking control of the Battletide - a threat that’s very familiar to Death’s Head. However, their mission is slightly complicated by the unexpected arrival of the Hulk.
Tropes common to both series of Battletide
- Asshole Victim: It’s hard to feel too sorry for Colosseum overseer Tasker when the Battletide surges through his remote coverage screen and a demonic serpent eats his hover platform.
- Great Offscreen War: The Battletide is a surge of hate, aggression and dark energy from the “Daemon Wars of prehistory”.
- Hate Plague: The Battletide itself. Sentients who get too close to it will slip into a frenzied rage, as the population of Colosseum discovers.
- Robot Religion: The Robot Knights of the Tempered Brotherhood (also known as the Temploid Order), pacifists who follow the Sacred Program and seek universal peace.
- Swirly Energy Thingy: The Battletide. Closer to a hurricane than a whirlpool, but a huge, hungry demonic space storm that can destroy ships and worlds.
Tropes used in Battletide (1993)
- Accidental Kidnapping: The Colosseum wanted to capture Death’s Head for the Games, not Killpower, but accidentally got both of them.
- Bar Brawl: Sabretooth starts one in the Pleasure Drome, on the first night of the games.
- Blood Knight:
- Termagant and Megaira are at the very darkest end of the scale and clearly love the slaughter of the Games.
- A few of the Earth heroes also qualify, as usual - Hercules, Wolverine, Killpower and Death’s Head II are all clearly in this category. As is Sabretooth, when not mind-controlled or drugged by his collar.
- Brought Down to Badass: Termagant and Megaira are extremely skilled killers who may be physically superhuman. But even if they are, that’s an awful lot less power than they used to have as a demon lord.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Smith is introduced as Dark Angel’s battle partner. The series doesn’t really stop to explain who he is or what his powers are, but much more is revealed when he reappears in Gun Runner.
- Explosive Leash: Colosseum’s inhibitor collars are set up to kill the contestants if their partner dies.
- Fusion Dance: Villains Termagant and Megaira physically merge in the final issue, after regaining memories of their former existence as the demon warlord Termagaira.
- Gladiator Games: Colosseum broadcasts the battles to the multiverse, with Tasker claiming that there are trillions of viewers.
- Heel–Face Brainwashing: The only way to keep Sabretooth in line long enough for the heroes to escape. And only possible because the inhibitor collars weaken his resistance to Psylocke’s control.
- Identity Amnesia: Downplayed. Termagant and Megaira don’t remember what they were - and don’t realise that they’re both splinters of the same demonic being - but, on the whole, they’re pretty horrible people even when they think they’re just mortals.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Termagaira’s fate when Death’s Head II and Killpower push him off the transmitter tower in the final battle.
- Kneel, Push, Trip: Death’s Head II and Killpower pull this on Termagaira in the final battle. It sends him over the edge of the tower they’re fighting on, and he’s Impaled with Extreme Prejudice at the end of his fall.
- Magitek: It’s mentioned that Termagant’s technology has mystical elements, making the inhibitor collars harder to remove.
- Old-Timey Bathing Suit: Downplayed. Killpower’s vacation swimwear is striped and fairly modest, so conjures up this imagery, but it also has trunks and doesn’t cover his arms.
- Opponent Switch: Killpower’s fighting a seemingly invulnerable bruiser who shrugs off his best blows; Death’s Head is fighting a blob that keeps regenerating and reforming. They decide to swap foes, with great effect.
- Screw Yourself: Termagant and Megaira are a couple, and don’t initially realise that they’re amnesiac fragments of the same demonic being. They’re still perfectly happy when they do find out, though.
- Shock Collar: Colosseum’s inhibitor collars. Which can also be turned up to Explosive Leash levels, and can modify the wearer’s behaviour by pumping them full of endorphins.
- Television Portal: The Battletide can be spread via Colosseum’s omniversal broadcast of the Games.
- The Reveal: Termagant and Megaira are part of one being, a demon lord of the Battletide, and have been subconsciously working towards his resurrection.
- Token Evil Teammate: Sabretooth, but only because the inhibitor collars give Psylocke a way to temporarily psychically control him. Once the threat’s dealt with he’s returned to earth in a straitjacket.
- We Can Rebuild Him: Killpower repairs and resurrects Death’s Head at the end, rebuilding him from a sack of body parts.
- Wolverine Publicity: Wolverine himself, as well as Hercules, Psylocke and Sabretooth.
- Worf Had the Flu: A mental version. Sabretooth’s normally very resistant to telepathic control (and has nearly killed Psylocke in the past) - this time it’s explained that the Colosseum inhibitor collars weaken his will enough for her to control him for an extended length of time.
Tropes used in Battletide II
- Assimilation Backfire: After being assimilated by Death's Head II, the sorcerer Bezial manages to escape, leaving Death's Head infected with a lethal virus in the process.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Hulk, possessed by one of the Battletide’s demons
- Call-Back: One to the end of the original series. Bezial made his bid for freedom at the point when Death’s Head was disassembled after facing the Battletide itself.
- Continuity Nod: The Temploid leader mentions that when they first realised something so powerful was approaching, they assumed that it was Galactus
- Enemy Within: Bezial apparently tried to become this, but wasn’t terribly effective - Death’s Head defeated and restrained him. On the other hand, he did manage to leave Death’s Head infected with a lethal virus before escaping from his mind.
- Enemy Without: Bezial, previously imprisoned in Death’s Head II’s mind, has escaped, acquired a body of his own, and seized control of the Battletide.
- Mental World: With a touch of Cyberspace, as it’s Death’s Head II’s cybernetic mind. Killpower and the Temploid leader join Death’s Head in checking that Bezial is still securely imprisoned there. He’s not.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: At the very start of the series, Death’s Head II and Tuck are fighting their way through a temperature-controlled A.I.M. base, carefully avoiding any weapons that generate too much heat. Killpower, oblivious to this, turns up to ‘help’ with energy weapons, overloads the cooling systems and triggers a nuclear explosion. Oops.
- No Name Given: The Temploid leader is never named.
- No-Sell: The robotic Temploid leader steps in to pacify the enraged Hulk with his powers, stating that it will be a simple task. Hulk immediately decapitates him and tears his body apart.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: It’s not a physical can, but Bezial’s imprisoned in a very secure storage node, a sealed cell within Death’s Head II’s mind. Or at least he was. He’s returned to it at the end of the series, after being banished from his stolen body.
- The Reveal: Bezial possessed Termagaira’s demonic body after their death at the end of the first Battletide series.
