The series is a loose sequel to Marvel UK's original Death's Head series, acting as an origin story for the title character's successor, Death's Head II.
Death's Head, a robotic Freelance Peacekeeping Agent who operates across time and space, loses out on a very large bounty when another hunter gets the target first. But his rival, the cyborg Minion, isn't after money. Instead, he's uploading and assimilating his targets' minds to steal their skills. And Minion makes it clear that, at some point, he'll be coming after Death's Head as well.
With that in mind, Death's Head decides to go after him first, tracking Minion back to 2020 and the criminal organisation known as A.I.M.
A.I.M.'s precognitive scans have warned them that some sort of apocalyptic threat is coming so scientist Dr Necker has built Minion for them, a soldier that can acquire whatever skills it needs to defeat that mysterious opponent.
And to complete that list of skills, Minion's now been ordered to assimilate two final targets: Death's Head and Reed Richards. Needless to say, that doesn't go quite to plan.
By the end of the series the mystery threat is revealed, Minion's personality has been rewritten into the new Death's Head and a new character, Tuck, has joined the cast as his sidekick.
The first issue was released on January 21 1992.
The Wild Hunt was a commercial success and was immediately followed by an ongoing Sequel Series — Death's Head II (1992) — which was initially by the same creative team.
Death's Head II: The Wild Hunt contains the following tropes:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Minion abandons his original directives and shifts personality after Brain Uploading Death's Head, but even before that he's starting to show quirks that worry Dr. Necker, suggesting that his existence as a hundred-personality Mind Hive isn't entirely stable.
- Alternate Timeline: Charnel's Bad Future was created when he travelled back from 2020 to Make Wrong What Once Went Right.
- An Arm and a Leg: Lehdrox loses a hand to Minion's blade before he's killed and assimilated. So does Death's Head.
- Bad Future: The 2020 where Charnel won. A handful of heroes still survive in the wasteland - and we immediately get to see most of them die.
- Big Bad: Charnel, a Magitek entity formed from the Fusion Dance of Baron Strucker and the original Death's Head's remains.
- Big "NO!":
- Wilson Tyler's last word before Minion skewers his brain (and assimilates his mind) is a very big no.
- Spratt's reaction to the reveal of Charnel's face is another big no. It’s almost immediately followed by his own death.
- Brain Uploading: Minion uploads minds by physically skewering his victim's brain, so the process is always fatal.
- Clothing Damage: Shortly before assimilating Death's Head, Minion has one side of his armoured mask broken by the barbarian Lehdrox, revealing an eye and some teeth. This never gets fixed again, becoming part of the character's iconic look.
- Conqueror from the Future: Charnel, who travels back from his creation in 2020 to conquer the world in 1992.
- Decapitation Presentation: The first issue's cover shows Death's Head II holding the original Death's Head's broken, severed head.
- Dying to Be Replaced: The original Death's Head's fate, physically destroyed and mentally assimilated, with Minion becoming his successor.
- Evil Luddite: The world of Lionheart, where artificial life is outlawed, as are advanced weapons such as guns.
- Fantastic Racism: Lionheart is an Evil Luddite society and all forms of artificial life are banned, hated and persecuted. As are otherwise normal humans with mechanical prosthetic limbs.
- Fusion Dance: Charnel is Baron Strucker merged with the remains of the original Death's Head robot. Magic is involved and he does seem to be merged - it's not just a case of using Death's Head's mechanical body to become a cyborg.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: The fate of Charnel, vertically split via a modified Portal Cut. Half gets sent to prehistory, half to the 30th century. An appropriate ending for a Two-Faced, asymmetrical character.
- Intro-Only Point of View: The first issue initially follows the original Death's Head's perspective as he encounters Minion. This is dropped before Minion kills him in their second encounter.
- Just Like Robin Hood: Played straight and invoked. As the Hood, the second Death's Head and his merry men of Lionheart rob the rich and, seemingly, give at least some to the poor. And Death's Head is well aware of the original Robin Hood myth, so seems to be deliberately echoing it.
- Killed Off for Real:
- Spratt, the original Death's Head's partner, is killed by Baron Strucker.
- Eventually averted for the first Death's Head himself, but it stuck as a Death by Origin Story for a couple of decades, until Revolutionary War.
- Kill Steal: Death's Head's reaction when the Minion cyborg kills the bounty he's chasing, Wilson Tyler. Doubles as a Plot-Triggering Death.
- Mind Hive: Downplayed. Minion has absorbed the minds of over a hundred targets, but (until Death's Head) has only taken their skills and knowledge. Although there are early hints that this isn't entirely true - later stories build on that, but it's not explored in this one.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Lehdrox is a huge alien barbarian with four arms and enough Super-Strength to throw Minion about when they fight.
- Mutants: It’s mentioned that, back in olden times, Lionheart's champion Major Oak would have been referred to as a mutant. An alternate version of Wolverine also turns up in the final issue.
- Navel-Deep Neckline: A feature of Tuck's Stripperific outfit. Played straight, as the v-neck reaches navel level.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Downplayed, as Minion would have sought out Death's Head anyway, but Minion's Kill Steal of Wilson Tyler is what turns the tables and puts Death's Head on his trail ahead of schedule.
- Portal Cut: A variant. Big Bad Charnel is defeated when the Scarlet Witch triggers two time-jump devices at once. One’s set for prehistory, one for the 30th century. The simultaneous activation tears him apart.
- Rape as Backstory: Implied. Tuck's creator wasn't aware of Lionheart's harsh punishments for creating artificial life - and when he found out he promptly sold her to a cat-house, no questions asked, to get rid of her.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Tuck is a "replicated organic", an artificial being who's almost indistinguishable from a genuine human.
- Seers
- Phaedra can see the future, but can't foresee for anyone who demands it.
- A.I.M.'s Precognitive Data Collection (PDC) unit is a team of seers who monitor for future threats to the organisation. Unfortunately, this then leads to a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy when it justifies funding for the Minion project.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Necker's project to guard against the PDC unit's predicted threat to A.I.M. directly results in the creation of the threat, as after Death's Head's destruction by Minion, Baron Strucker IV magically fuses with Death's Head's remains and becomes Charnel.
- What If? #54, which revisits the Wild Hunt arc, played with a variation on this. Death's Head survives in this version, but Strucker fuses with Minion instead and Charnel's still created, preserving the prophecy loop.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: The original Death's Head's partner, geeky mechanic Spratt, is killed off by Baron Strucker. His replacement is Tuck, an Action Girl with Rape as Backstory and a Stripperific outfit.
- Tentacle Hair: Phaedra's long 'hair' is the same colour as her skin and appears to be made of tentacles.
- Two-Faced: The right side of Charnel has the distinctive metal face of the original Death's Head. The left side initially has Baron Strucker's own natural face, although it swiftly becomes more demonic.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: A few of the Hood's merry men get names and brief histories. They're all dead a few pages later.
