The Energon Pub

We have a new sighting of the Freelance Peacekeeping Agent extraordinaire that has often crossed paths with the Transformers universe in the Marvel comics of old - as he is still indeed part of the Marvel sandbox, and last we saw was appearing in the Saladin Ahmed / Chris J Ward Black Bolt series almost a year ago.

This week, the totally not a bounty hunter reappears in the pages of a cosmic Marvel comic, as he squares off against Chris Powell, the superhero known as Darkhawk - originally co-created by Tom DeFalco, who was editor of the Transformers G1 and G2 comics after Jim Shooter! A small universe, yes? Check out the variant cover by Ron Lim (and colourist) for the issue below, and a snippet from the interview with writers Chris Sims and Chad Bowers that doesn't mention Death's Head at all - though the comic does indeed have more that a cameo.

Nrama: What’s your message about this title to fans who love Darkhawk but haven’t seen him for a while, or for those who haven’t read his comics before?

Bowers: If you’re a fan of Darkhawk from back in the day, he’s still that guy! Chris Powell, the blue collar kid with an edge against crime. Only now he fights crime in outer space, too, and it’s even cooler than it sounds!

Sims: And if you’ve never read his comics before, we can all but guarantee that there’s something here for everyone. We’ve got a good guy trying to do right by the universe, a villain who’s been forced into a terrible situation by forces beyond his control, sentient alien fighter jets, and even a little romance. We wanted to do the biggest, boldest, wildest Darkhawk story ever, and c’mon. Do you really want to miss out on that?

> Sentient fighter jets

>>>> S E N T I E N T F I G H T E R J E T S <<<<

Guys, I can't believe Starscream finally takes the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos to erase Megatron from history.

An absolutely abysmal rendition of Death's Head. Not only is the character nothing like the professional business man we know and love but the artistic rendition is, honestly, the worst I have ever seen. Which is really sad as the art in general in Darkhawk is pretty good (much better than the second rate writing of the whole book), but Death's Head barely resembles Death's Head. It wouldn't have taken much to make him look kick-ass either. Left side is how he appears in Darkhawk, right is a quick and dirty edit by me. Really disappointing and a let down from the Editor, writer and artist.

Yeti wrote:An absolutely abysmal rendition of Death's Head. Not only is the character nothing like the professional business man we know and love but the artistic rendition is, honestly, the worst I have ever seen. Which is really sad as the art in general in Darkhawk is pretty good (much better than the second rate writing of the whole book), but Death's Head barely resembles Death's Head. It wouldn't have taken much to make him look kick-ass either. Left side is how he appears in Darkhawk, right is a quick and dirty edit by me. Really disappointing and a let down from the Editor, writer and artist.

dhsad.jpg

Yikes.

Just read it, I don't even like Marvel stuff but eh i thought i'd try it.

'perps were last seen at the corner of Furman and Hitch..." Nice reference to Death's Head co-creator Simon Furman and to Bryan Hitch who drew the original one page High Noon Tex strip that introduced the character.
Anyways yeah the character looks much more sorta-fantasy style than the usual shiny, sharp robot he normally is but it's alright. Still better looking than Death's Head 2 or 3.0. That Ron Lim variant cover is a tribute to the original DH design. I maaay read the next issue but as i said i'm not at all a marvel fan these days so i ain't sure.

Oh man I hate being this guy......
Technically Tom DeFalco was the Editor In Chief of Marvel Comics and not just the Editor of Transformers. In other words he oversaw all the Marvel comics made at that time.