Death’s Head 2 – EHT Comics

Originally launched as a four-issue limited series, Death’s Head II then became an ongoing series – and also featured in a number of team-up limited series designed to showcase new Marvel UK characters. One of these was Death³, teaming up Death’s Head II with newly created “brothers”, Death Metal and his prototype Death Wreck. The recurring character throughout this was Dr Evelyn Necker, the scientist who creates the Minion series (Death’s Head II and his “brothers”). Death’s Head II became the flagship character for Marvel UK – a costume was even made for promotional appearances and was part of the 1993 Lord Mayor’s Show – and there were concerns at Marvel UK in early 1993 that they could be overestimating his popularity and over-exposing the character. When Marvel UK was cancelled, a Death’s Head II/Punisher crossover was in production and he was playing a key role in the completed, but never published, Loose Cannons (released online).

After the initial Death’s Head stories ceased publication, the character was revamped for inclusion in Marvel UK’s next wave of titles, where it became the company’s biggest ever exported seller.

There were plans in 1991 to bring back the original Death’s Head, which would have featured the character on trial and facing the death penalty, and flashing back to how he’d got there. Early into production the new editor Paul Neary scrapped it and commissioned Death’s Head II instead: replacing the character with a new version, created by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Liam Sharp. In an autumn 1992 interview with Comic World, Neary was dismissive about the original character and the aborted : “I didn’t like the pages that had been produced – I didn’t think there was much future in Transformers-style robots and I thought we could do an awful lot better.” He produced some sample sketches of how he wanted the character to look,and Liam Sharp’s take gave the project “a kickstart”. Ironically, the success of Death’s Head II meant Neary was ordered to create more titles and the easiest way was to reprint the original series (“The Incomplete Death’s Head”); editor John Freeman had to talk him into it.