Spoiler alert for a 26-year-old comic, but I suppose it's on the cover as well: from 1992, Death's Head II #1, "The Wild Hunt Part One: Mergers and Acquisitions" Written by Dan Abnett, pencils by Liam Sharp, inks by Andy Lanning and Bambos Georgiou.
Tracking down an old foe, Death's Head finds his target in the process of being murdered by another large and angry robot, who tells DH after his "next appointment" he's next. It's Minion, the creation of Dr. Necker; who makes a progress report to her bosses in A.I.M. that while Minion had absorbed the talents of his first 103 targets, it was also becoming somewhat erratic. Target 104 is an alien barbarian named Lehdrox, who was in the middle of torturing a fortune teller for his future. Minion kills Lehdrox and absorbs his instincts, and the fortune teller tells "Death's Head" they will meet again.
Returning to the year 2020, Dr. Necker tries to get Minion to comply with a system check, when Death's Head catches up to him. Minion isn't worried, in fact, he welcomes it: DH was target 105! After a three page fight, Death's Head is decapitated, and Minion absorbs him, but something goes wrong. Distorted and disoriented, Minion time jumps after target 106, but with a flippant "I'll be back, yes?" like Death's Head might say. Dr. Necker is forced to go after him to the year 1992; while elsewhere, a pair of characters I'm not sure we've seen before check who the next target was: Reed Richards!
On the last page, I think that's Tuck in the last panel: she would be more prominent come Death's Head II #3, but with no transition it just seems like Dr. Necker had taken off most of her clothes! We saw another book with the not-so-good doctor last month, Death³ #1, which I think I got from the same quarter bin as this one, maybe. And I didn't get the other issues of that mini-series either, even if I have a fair idea what happened.
The art here's not too bad, but not that great either. Sharpe would get better from here, as evidenced by his all too brief Hulk run, and then elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteLooking at these panels I can't help but think of a cruder Barry Windsor Smith-eque style to his pencils.
And is it me, or does DH2's face look a bit inspired by Predator?
I was wondering if the transition from DH to DH II could be seen as a some kind of symbol for the changes comics went through in the early 90s and then I went to wikipedia and found this on the Death's Head page:
ReplyDelete"Furman has said he felt Death's Head II "lost his [DH's] most important aspect; the dark-edged gallows humour. So in and of itself I think it’s a very tight, proficient and action-packed comic that really tapped into that early 90s anti-hero vibe. But to me it was never Death’s Head. It was another character.'"
Yep!