Death's Head II is a comic published by the Marvel UK imprint of Marvel Comics. It's written by Dan Abnett and was initially illustrated by Liam Sharp.
It stars the eponymous Death's Head II, a Legacy Character replacing the original Death's Head (who was a well established Marvel UK character).
The initial 1992 Death's Head II limited series (subtitled The Wild Hunt) tells his origin story: he was originally a cyborg named Minion, created in 2020 by A.I.M. scientist Dr. Evelyn Necker. To protect A.I.M. from a psychically predicted threat, Minion was sent to assimilate the knowledge and skills of the 106 most deadly individuals in the galaxy, killing them in the process.
Minion's penultimate target was the original Death's Head, whose robotic nature meant that when the cyborg absorbed him, his entire personality surfaced, not just his skills. Having attained free will, Minion adopted the Death's Head name, rebelled against A.I.M., recruited a new partner (Tuck) and discovered that the threat against them was a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy triggered by his own creation.
The limited series was swiftly followed by a Death's Head II ongoing series, also written by Abnett and initially illustrated by Sharp. This was accompanied by another 12-issue limited series, The Incomplete Death's Head, which reprinted key stories from the original Death's Head, using a new adventure for Deaths Head II and Tuck as a framing sequence to bind them together.
A fourth series, the giant-sized quarterly Death's Head II Gold, written and illustrated by Liam Sharp, was launched just before Marvel UK ceased publishing. Only one issue was released, although a shorter "Issue 0" prologue was also published as a back-up story within the main Death's Head II series.
As well as his own series, Death’s Head II was billed as deuteragonist (alongside Killpower) of the two Battletide miniseries, is one of the leads of Death³, a member of the Dark Guard team and one of the leads of the Death’s Head II & the Origin of Die-Cut miniseries.
Another version of Death's Head, largely unrelated to it's predecessors, was introduced in the Amazing Fantasy series, billed as Death's Head 3.0. This was less commercially successful and has made few appearances over the years.
Death's Head II comic appearances contain the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Tuck
- Arch-Enemy: Charnel, the corpse of the original Death's Head possessed by Baron Strucker IV.
- Arc Welding: With the 3.0 versions. During Planet Hulk, several 3.0 style Death's Heads were working for Hulk, and he brought them to Earth in World War Hulk. A few months later, in the Nova tie-in for Secret Invasion, they wound up in the care of Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S., and Doctor Evelyn Necker, who was later shown to be working on her own little secret project for AIM...
- Assimilation Backfire: As noted in the description, trying to assimilate the mind of the original Death's Head was what turned Minion into a new Death's Head.
- In the What If? story Death's Head escapes their initial encounter, and Minion proceeds to successfully kill and assimilate Reed Richards. After Strucker merges with Minion and becomes Charnel, Death's Head combats him by pushing him far enough to tap into all available resources, which includes the mind of Reed Richards. Because Reed's recorded mind also retained his morals and willpower, it manages to stall Charnel just long enough for Death's Head to finish him off.
- Death’s Head II is later on the wrong end of this with at least a couple of the previously absorbed personalities. The plot of the Battletide II series is kicked off by the assimilated sorcerer Bezial escaping, and the Death’s Head II & the Origin of Die-Cut series involves Czorn Yson regaining his individuality and escaping into a new body (although much of that tends towards Teeth-Clenched Teamwork after the initial shock).
- The Bus Came Back: After the end of his own series (and the collapse of the Marvel UK imprint), Death's Head II dropped into obscurity for a few years.
- An Alternate Universe version gets a cameo in Avengers Forever
- He turns up in a Magik limited series.
- He gets another cameo in the finale of Captain Britain and MI13.
- Eventually, about 20 years after Marvel UK ceased publishing, he returns in a much more significant way as one of the leads of the Revolutionary War event.
- Death by Origin Story: Death's Head is one of Minion's last victims, 'Subject 105', and his successor only develops full independence and an identity of his own after the Assimilation Backfire. Eventually subverted when Revolutionary War plays with the Timey-Wimey Ball and establishes that time can be rewritten, allowing both to exist in parallel.
- Enemy Without: Two of his absorbed personalities, sorcerer Bezial and warrior-technologist Czorn Yson, manage to get out of his mind into new bodies. Both immediately try to kill him (although Yson, who becomes Die-Cut, eventually calls a truce).
- Heroic Build: Not necessary heroic, but very stocky.
- Legacy Character: He's the successor to the original Death's Head robot, who was Dying to Be Replaced.
- Mind Hive: Death's Head II initially contains 106 uploaded minds (and adds a couple more in later stories). Although he was only after the knowledge and skills, the entire mind of each target is there, but suppressed most of the time.
- The original Death's Head is the obvious exception, as his robotic nature leads to an Assimilation Backfire.
- Other personalities, such as Bezial and Czorn Yson, sometimes surface. And it seems that all personalities can perceive the outside world and mentally speak to the 'main' Death's Head II mind.
- Shapeshifter Weapon: Death's Head II's right arm can shapeshift into different weapons as needed.
- Sidekick: Tuck, an artificial human from the planet Lionheart.
- Split-Personality Merge: Death's Head II is the collected personalities and knowledge of the personalities he's assimilated, with the original Death's Head being the most dominant.
- Stripperiffic: Tuck.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: As of the end of Revolutionary War Death’s Head and Death’s Head II have met, allied, and seem to be coexisting. This has implications for the original Death by Origin Story and is very different to previous stories such as Death³, where changing history has erased future characters.
- Title Confusion: The comics are Death's Head II, to disambiguate them from the original Death's Head. But the character himself is simply named Death's Head in-universe.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: His creator, Dr. Necker, during Revolutionary War. In her appearances in Nova, she'd been a surprisingly benevolent mad scientist (due in part to having the hots for Richard Rider). In Revolutionary War, she attacks both Death's Heads.
- Exaggerated in the 2019 Death's Head miniseries, where she goes after original Death's Head (alongside the Young Avengers), serving as the main antagonist for the series.
- Wolverine Publicity: Death's Head II was very popular in the UK market for a while, with many, many guest appearances in other Marvel UK books.
- Canon Welding: Building on the canon welding that’s already in some of the original Death's Head (Marvel Comics) stories, the Big Bad is Hob, a robot first introduced in Doctor Who Magazine.
- Clip Show: Almost all of the series is made up of reprinted Death's Head stories (and a few related stories featuring supporting characters). Some are slightly altered or have a little Talking Heads exposition added, but most are presented exactly as per the originals. Most issues only have one or two pages of new material as a framing device.
- George Lucas Altered Version: Some captions and art in the reprinted Death's Head stories are slightly amended when they reappear in this series.
- Inside a Computer System: After connecting to Maruthea’s computers to scan the archive, Death's Head II finds his mind forcibly sucked into the system.
- Place Beyond Time: Maruthea is described as "a unique world outside time-space", which is why Hob is using it to investigate and archive the original Death’s Head's complicated life.
- Writing Around Trademarks: The summary of Death's Head's earliest appearances mentions that he was much larger at the time, and mentions his interactions with a race of similarly giant robots. It's very careful not to directly mention The Transformers, though.
- Aborted Arc: The Cut Short nature of the series leaves a number of these.
- We never find out why Death's Head sought out Psyphon, or what their true relationship is.
- Cicatrice escapes and the Ludites are never fully defeated.
- Cicatrice mentions a plan to ensure that Tuck couldn't aid Death's Head on Catspur, and is amazed when she appears - a Note from Ed. suggested that it would all be explained next issue, but that issue was never published.
- Apocalypse How: Catspur suffers planetary extinction due to explosions ravaging the surface of the planet - there are only two known humanoid survivors, Noon and Heron, and both are killed shortly thereafter. Death's Head still managed to run into something tentacled, vicious and subterranean - so some life remains, at least in the short term - but the world is laid waste, the ecology's ruined and most species are dead.
- Bad Habits: Cicatrice's troops are disguised as Temploids, a benevolent religious sect of pacifist robots.
- Brain Uploading: Heron's fate. She's the last survivor of her species, so when she's mortally wounded, Death's Head assimilates her to ensure they're not lost entirely.
- Broken Pedestal: Noon is a mentor and father-figure to Heron and she’s shocked to discover that he was a traitor.
- Call-Back: Cicatrice is revealed as the unseen Greater-Scope Villain for the previous Lionheart stories. And Noon provided cyborg components to enable the Ludites to infiltrate the Hood's rebels, explaining how they were found and slain so easily way back in the original Death's Head II: The Wild Hunt series.
- Cliffhanger: Issue #1 ends with Tuck and Death's Head on Cicatrice's four mile long spaceship, which is losing power and atmosphere as its orbit decays and it falls towards Catspur.
- Cut Short: Only one issue was ever published and the "Nechromachiad" arc was never finished.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Cicatrice's troops impale a bound and unconscious Death's Head on a stalagmite-shaped rock formation, with the spike protruding from his chest and shoulder.
- My Future Self and Me: Implied and discussed. Psyphon doesn't remember being Death's Head II, but there's a definite resemblance - and Phaedra says that he's Death's Head's destiny.
- Hive Mind: General Cicatrice is apparently a single being spread across multiple bodies.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: As soon as Death's Head is neutralised, Cicatrice's troops shoot their collaborator Noon as well.
- Villain Respect: Cicatrice is impressed by both Death's Head and Tuck, and directly tells them so.
