Death's Head (Styrakos)

Death's Head
Name	Death's Head
Aliases	Il Diablo; Death's Head I
Affiliation and Relationships
Affiliation	formerly MI13, S.W.O.R.D., partner to Spratt
Relatives	Ty Rejutka Lupex (creator of body, "father"), Pyra (creator of consciousness, "mother")
Marital Status	Single
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Male
Height	6′10″ (2.08 m)
Weight	605 lbs (274.42 kg)
Eyes	Irises: Red
Hair	No Hair At All hair
Unusual Features	Two red horns
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Robot
Living Status	Deceased
Reality	Earth-TRN234
Place of Birth	somewhere in the pocket dimension of Styrakos, Earth-TRN234
Place of Death	A.I.M. Central, Los Angeles Conurbation, California, Earth-8410
Personal Information
Identity	Public
Occupation	Bounty hunter ("Freelance Peacekeeping Agent"), adventurer, assassins
Education	Programmed with business and fighting skills
Base of Operations	Mobile throughout space-time
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Simon Furman, Geoff Senior
First	High Noon Tex
First	High Noon Tex
Death	Death's Head II #1 (January, 1992)
Death	Death's Head II #1 (January, 1992)

 In the name of extreme profit, you're under arrest. 

—Death's Head

History

Death's Head was originally created on Styrakos as a robotic body intended to be used by a mage named Ty Rejutka Lupex, whose own body was beginning to fail him due to the massive energies he contained. Lupex however was double crossed by Pyra who made the body conscious and gave him his business-like attitude, and an unknown party stole the body.

Freelance Peacekeeping Agent, the Transformers, and The Doctor

Death's Head eventually surfaced as a bounty hunter, though calling himself a "Freelance Peace Keeping Agent," in one possible future for the robotic race known as the Transformers of Earth-120185, where he was enlarged to their size. His contracts there sent him bouncing through time and led him to play an instrumental role in the defeat of Unicron by Autobots. Escaping the aftermath of this battle through a time portal, he encountered the Time Lord known as the Doctor. The Doctor played a pretty nasty trick on the Freelance Peacekeeping Agent when he shrank him down to about human size and bounced him through time yet again to year 8162.

Dragon's Claws and Death's Head

On Earth-5555, Death's Head quickly got embroiled in local affairs of Greater Britain and was partially destroyed by Dragon's Claws, formerly the best Game team in the world. He was re-built by Spratt. Together they moved to the Los Angeles Resettlement, where Spratt became his 'partner,' and started taking on commissions. (Something DH never really liked or admitted but begrudgingly tolerated.)

Iron Man 2020 and Death's Head

After being hired to kill the Doctor and instead saved by him from a bomb, Death's Head was ditched on the Four Freedoms Plaza building on Earth-616 and was in turn transported by the Fantastic Four to a near future of Earth-8410, where he battled Arno Stark, the Iron Man of 2020, and once again settled down and started taking commisions. At some point Pyra found him and transported back to Styrakos, his place of creation. There, after a fearsome battle, he killed Ty Rejutka Lupex.

Time Variance Authority

Death's Head also worked as a freelancer for the Time Variance Authority (TVA). For one job he was hired to investigate a time-bubble, encountering the Fantastic Four and Thor. Later, he stole a time-bike from the TVA and was hired to steal a vase from She-Hulk. At some point, he encountered the Doctor at a birthday party.

Future Foundation

He was hired again by the TVA to kill the Future Foundation, as one of its members would have created a device which would have unleashed chaos on the timeline, the intervention of Spider-Man made it possible for the time-space to be safe once more. Death's Head was left away as he was thought to have vanished when the timeline was rewritten and traveled to space to continue his business as a bounty hunter.

Death and Death's Head II

Death's Head was eventually terminated by the Advanced Idea Mechanics cyborg originally called 'Minion'. Minion was programmed by Dr. Evelyn Necker to assimilate 106 of history's greatest combatants to protect A.I.M. from a predicted unknown future threat, and Death's Head was the 105th one to be assimilated. What no one counted on was that Death's Head's mechanoid nature meant his full consciousness was essentially downloaded into the Minion body causing the cyborg to become confused. When Minion went after Reed Richards as his 106th and final target, Mr. Fantastic scrambled his circuits with a device. Death's Head became the dominant personality and Minion became the new Death's Head. Minion then realized he could download the data he needed from Reed's computers instead of from Reed's mind and thus eliminated the need to kill him. He thanked Reed and went back into space-time.

Charnel

The remains of the original Death's Head body would later be claimed by Spratt, and brought to Baron von Strucker V in hopes that von Strucker could repair Death's Head. Strucker had other ideas, and using magic he fused himself with the robotic remains and became the entity known as Charnel.

Adventures with other heroes

Death's Head battled Iron Man inside a Voldi arena, then helped him battle Rigelian Recorder 451, and then 451 mind-controlled Death's Head into fighting Iron Man again..

At different times and with different degree of success, Death's Head took contracts to capture Cyclops, Novas Samuel Alexander and Richard Rider, Guardians of the Galaxy,, Monsteroso and Darkhawk.

S.W.O.R.D.

Death's Head began taking in extraterrestrial life for the government organization known as S.W.O.R.D..

Marvel Heroes

An early version of Death's Head was at one point hired by the D'Bari to fight Earth's champion, the Hulk, for the right to colonize Earth-9411. Given that Death's Head has been shown to be able to travel between realities as well as in time (having previously visited both Earth-8410 and Earth-5555 as well as Earth-616), it is unclear if this was that reality's own version of Death's Head or simply the mainstream Death's Head going where the money was.

Attributes

Power Grid

Powers

• As a mechanoid, Death's Head possessed:
  • Superhuman Strength
  • Superhuman Stamina
  • Superhuman Durability
  • Superhuman Agility
  • Superhuman Reflexes
• At 30 feet in height, his strength was likely in the 100-ton range. However, after being shrank down to around 7 feet in height by The Doctor, his strength was reduced significantly to a possible maximum of 25 tons.

Abilities

• Marksmanship: Death's Head is an outstanding marksman, having been able to knock out some of the Fantastic Four's roof defenses, and being able to hit the FF's rogue security system in the air.
• Master Combatant: Death's Head is a very skillful combatant, being able to hold his own against several known fighters, such as the Hulk.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

• Rocket boots
• Multi-use hand: Death's Head can switch his hand out for several attachments including, a blaster, a mace, a rocket, and a projectile spear simultaneously.

Weapons

• Various firearms, multiple weapons in the form of switchable hands, a double-bladed battle axe and a mace.

Notes

• After nearly being killed by Yondu's female robots due to a debt, it seems that Death's Head had developed a fear towards them, since the Fearmongers—robots created by Dr. Evelyn Necker which transform into their opponents' greatest fear—took the appearance of the female robots.

Trivia

• Death's Head's first appeared in Transformers (UK) #113. As Simon Furman explained in the 4th volume of the IDW-published trade-paperback collected edition of the series, "At this point [after seeing Geoff Senior's design for the character] we didn't know we wanted to get him out of the Transformers Universe. It was at least another six months before we decided to get him out of TFUK [Tranformers UK] and into his own title." To fulfil this goal, one-page strip High Noon Tex was created by Simon Furman and Bryan Hitch, which appeared in several Marvel UK publications, including Transformers (UK) #167 and Dragon's Claws #3. This strip was published specifically in order to secure Marvel's ownership of the character, who originally debuted in Transformers under Hasbro license.
• Death's Head's dream monster duplicate appeared on Nightmare's Realm.
• In S.W.O.R.D. Vol 1 and Iron Man Vol 5 Death's Head is shown at 30 feet tall. It is implied this is before he arrived in Earth-120185 not only due to his size but also because he appears to be unfamiliar with the term "Freelance Peacekeeping Agent" until the Beast suggests it. However, in both Incomplete Death's Head #1 and All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #3 he is said to be enlarged at that height only when he arrived in Earth-120185. In The Incomplete Death's Head, this is easily explicable due to the inaccuracy of Hob's archive regarding Death's Head's early life, but the information given in All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #3 explicitly conflicts with the aforementioned implications. Despite these inconsistencies, it has been confirmed by both Death's Head creator Simon Furman and the writer of S.W.O.R.D. and Iron Man Kieron Gillen that this is the original incarnation of Death's Head and not some alternative version. Gillen dismissed the apparent continuity complications, "Death’s Head is a dimension skipping time-travelling robot. He's probably a walking paradox several times over."

See Also

• 77 appearance(s) of Death's Head (Styrakos)
• 5 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Death's Head (Styrakos)
• 11 minor appearance(s) of Death's Head (Styrakos)
• 2 mention(s) of Death's Head (Styrakos)
• 3 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Death's Head (Styrakos)
• 80 image(s) of Death's Head (Styrakos)
• 19 quotation(s) by or about Death's Head (Styrakos)

Links and References

• Death's Head on Wikipedia.org