Come for Death's Head II, stay for the sorta Mephisto.

The first series of Warheads was only fourteen issues: I almost bet, if you check your local quarterbooks, you might find an issue or two. Probably not all, so you might have to check other quarterbins, but you'd best hope I didn't get there first! From 1992, Warheads #6, "Killing Ground" Written by Nick Vince, art by Simon Coleby.

The splash page features very 2000 AD-style narration, as Warheads hitter Gregory has been having nightmares about the demon "Meffy 'Soklees," made out of lost socks and underwear. That's probably not right...The demon seemingly turns half of Gregory into mismatched socks and drawers before he wakes up, which might be an omen. Insult to injury, he's also fined 20£ (pounds) by team administrator Mr. Grant, for "screaming at night." How much is that? Uh...British money has always confused me, but it also depends when this story falls; as the pound went all sideways on "Black Wednesday" in '92. Grant then gets chewed on by one of his bosses, Rathcoole of Mys-Tech, who is furious a Warhead named Che was still alive. But, Grant was also taking orders from a demon-looking creature called the Golem, who seemed to have plans for Che and the Kether Troop.

Gregory is sent to Rathcoole, who wanted Che for this job, and furiously orders Grant be disemboweled when he turns up. Still, Gregory would have to do for this mission: killing Mephisto, with a magic crystal sword. Gregory realizes he had dreamed of Mephisto, which Rathcoole considers a good omen, but Gregory isn't sure. Meanwhile, the Kether Troop is sent via wormhole, to a massive city that seems surprisingly low-tech. One of the troop, Desmond, shoots a local seemingly for laughs: before Colonel Liger can have his weapons removed, an ambush captures all of the troop except Che: he was described simply as a "martial artist," but was the sole survivor of a lost troop and wasn't entirely trusted.

In Darkmoor, Rathcoole summons Mephisto...who was super off-model here: the John Romita Jr. redesign would've been standard by then. Here, he's colored like the old John Buscema look, but that's about it. Rathcoole tells Mephisto, he wanted to die: as part of Mys-Tech, he had sold his soul a thousand years prior, but was wearying of bringing souls to Mephisto. Not because of conscience, because it was too easy: humanity was so corruptable, Rathcoole didn't think they had a chance. That was incidental, though: he was just trying to get Mephisto in position, for Gregory to stab him in the back with the magic sword. Which does nothing: they needed to use a different wand to make the sword, and Mephisto had that one locked down. Gregory is made half-demon; and Rathcoole turned over to the rest of the Mys-Tech board, who claim they're still loyal: Mephisto probably doesn't put much stock in that, but turns Rathcoole's powers off for a bit so they can punish him.

The captured Warheads are tortured, and a couple killed, by the local wizard-king; who was interested in finding Che, since he was invisible to his magics. Che arrives with Liger's talking gun, in time to save him and Misha, the only two regulars on this mission. The gun--which gives itself the name "Clementine" now--takes out the wizard, and finds his power source, the Sapphire Lotus. But before they can grab that, someone else grabs Liger: Death's Head II! He and Tuck were there to collect, but not what you would think: DH II claims Clementine was stolen, but if they pay for the "outstanding charges" they can keep it. Liger isn't anxious to give DH II any money; but the local army might be about to swarm them--or so we're told, we'll probably have to wait until next month to see them. Read more!

We saw the Iron Man vs. Alien riff of Iron Man #237 a while back; but as a title Warheads was tailor-made for bughunts. So, why not get Iron Man in there for one too? From 1992, Warheads #3, "Metamorph!" Guest-written by John Freeman, guest art by Geoff Senior.

Feels a little early for a guest crew, as well as a guest-star: readers would've barely had any time with the regular crew or cast yet. (Actually, the book's designer Gary Erskine had already left! He wouldn't be back in this run.) That said, maybe Geoff Senior should've got an Iron Man, as he does a great job on the current suit, the model 9, which I've seen referred to as "neo-classic" or "coffee-can," for the style of boots! (Looking it up, Senior would do a couple issues of War Machine later.) Nick Fury calls on Tony Stark, to examine captured Mys-Tech weaponry; Tony does so, and at first glance it shouldn't work. Tony keeps it to himself, but suspects this could be related to Justin Hammer stealing his tech again, which tied into current continuity: Tony was also dying of a nervous system disorder. Fury had discovered a team of Warheads was headed for Central America, and with his new hologram disguise tech, Tony flies down to check it out.

Tony eavesdrops on the Warheads, as they set up for a dimensional jump: a lot of their stuff was mystic-based, so I think they were in South America because this was ley-line based. Colonel Liger's regular Kether Troop was short-handed due to deaths and injuries, so they had more subs than usual, including mouthy tech support Grierson. Figuring they wouldn't notice if his behavior was off, Iron Man stuns Grierson, and holographically disguises himself to take his place on the mission. The Warheads are then sent via wormhole, across the galaxy, to try and salvage tech from a downed spaceship. "Grierson" and Peters are attacked by weird blobs and separated from the others: Tony realizes whatever that thing was, it was only trying to scan him; but Peters panics and tries to shoot his way out and is killed. The other Warheads fight their way through the ship, with an eye out for any tech they could maybe swipe, and find first cocoons with aliens in stasis, then weird copies of the Warheads attack.

Outside, Tony watches the blobs trying to absorb and scan the local wildlife, then gets attacked by one of the sub Warheads, who thought he was a robot sentry or something. The telepathic/precog Misha tries to warn her, but she is killed by the ship's defenses; so Misha teams up with Tony, since her "voice" tells her today they're on the same side. Today, anyway...Rejoining the rest of the squad, they start to put the puzzle together: the aliens didn't have anything like terraforming equipment, because they worked the other way: the ship would alter the alien colonists to survive in the local conditions. Or it should; the ship's programs seemed to have gotten crossed. Misha and Tony confront the alien computer and 'reset' it. The Warheads escape with some stolen goodies, and only Misha had seen that "Grierson" was Tony, which she keeps to herself. The real Grierson wakes up, confused why Colonel Liger was telling him great job on the mission; but that's written off as typical head-trauma for one of their jobs. 

A little beat-up, Tony manages to get home, with maybe a little intel for Fury: their tech was mostly magic, not swiped from him. And the Warheads might be dangerous, but whatever they were facing could be worse...

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We saw a later issue some time back, but artist Gary Erskine recently reflected on his work some thirty years ago, as "no fear." And I think he's right! From 1992, Warheads #2, "A Fine Time to Die!" Written by Nick Vince, art by Gary Erskine; and "The Trouble with Pellis Globus" Written by Nick Vince, art by Lee Sullivan.

Last time we mentioned how the Warheads were mercenaries, warping to alternate dimensions on missions; and while the back-up story will allude a bit more to the why's of it, we open with a mission already in progress; as "diseased sleazoids" rise from the carcass of a slain dragon, for a grotesque game of tag. Johnny gets tagged/infected, then blown away by rookie Leona; but the psychic Misha breaks the spell, allowing the team to leave. But a mysterious shadow seems to attach itself to Leona...Later, in the Danger Room Rehearsal Room, as the Warheads train, the voice in Misha's head explains she may have other powers, like precognition. The "Cherubs" that run the Rehearsal Room had replaced a Warhead's dummy grenades with real ones; Misha warns him to save everyone, but is worried "no-one likes prophet in own city." She already knew she would see situations where teammates would die that she wouldn't be able to help. But she sees something else coming: S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Nick Fury was blackmailing 'Bad Hand' to infiltrate Mys-Tech Central and check out their tech.

Bad Hand and some rookie agents break into the Rehearsal Room during a "weapons failure" test: the Cherubs don't know why ninjas are on the test, but assume one of them screwed it up, and let it run. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are chewed up and spit out without mercy, as the Warheads thought they were "mechanicals," test dummies; and Misha manages to save team leader Liger with a hold-out pistol. The Cherubs flood the room with corrosives, intent on covering their mistake; but while the Warheads get out, so does Bad Hand, who at least snagged a battle gauntlet for S.H.I.E.L.D. to check out. Post-mission, the Warheads' immediate supervisor Mr. Grant hands out some fines, including a hundred pounds to Misha for not warning them earlier, but her little inner voice does show her a pleasant future vision: Grant, disgraced and homeless on the streets.

In the back-up story, Leona is trying to work through Johnny's death, taking it out on a dummy of Liger for telling her to "be professional." To cheer her up, Stacy takes her to the research labs "where they sort the money maker from the disaster spinner." They want to see the "pellis globus," or "fur ball," a cute little rabbity-thing...with acid spit! Leona gives chase, but the creature gets to Mys-Tech director Rathcoole, who isn't in any danger...since he had sold his soul to Mephisto, along with the rest of the Mys-Tech board! This was related to events in Hell's Angel/Dark Angel; and explains the Warheads' ultimate goal, that even they may not have known: find a weapon capable of killing Mephisto. When the fur ball spits acid at Rathcoole, time stops for him to save himself, and Leona in passing. But the shadow that attached itself to Leona moves to Mr. Grant, and seems to find itself more at home there.

I remember a promo piece of Erskine's from an old Marvel Age issue, that made this book look cool as hell--as well as just impossible to draw on a regular basis! The Cherubs make a cameo in Erskine's issue of Firearm; but I think my favorite of his was Hypersonic.

Ooh, almost forgot: also this issue, house ads for two of Marvel UK's other books, the aforementioned Hell's Angel, later Dark Angel; and the revamped Knights of Pendragon. I believe that's Liam Sharp art...well, Arthur Ranson seems to agree, so we'll go with that. I'm not sure if Sharp did more for the book, though: the previous Knights series had, at least at first, a more Alan Davis-look; and I thought maybe Sharp was going to take the second series in more of a Slaine direction, but that may not have happened. 

Also almost forgot, at least to mention: the Lilac City Comicon tomorrow! Which I'm completely unprepared for, absolutely no game plan in my head. We'll just see what jumps out at me. Then again, I say 'no game plan,' yet I think in the back of my head an elaborate end-run is being plotted to maybe see if I could get another stuffed Nightcrawler... 

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