Comics Digging Up Dirt on Death's Head's Debut

It has long been the stuff of Marvel and Transformers legend: When writer Simon Furman created the character of Death's Head, it was decided that Marvel should own the character, rather than Hasbro, the owner of the Transformers property, and to whom any characters who first appeared within the pages of that licensed book would belong. And so Marvel created a short, one-page comic starring the freelance peacekeeping agent called "High Noon Tex" to run in their other publications before he appeared in 1987's The Transformers #113, thus ensuring their ownership of the character.

At least, that's what we were told.

In the following video, Wixhael takes us through the early history of the character, statements from Simon Furman and Marvel UK Editor Richard Starkings, and shows why all the explanations as to how the character ostensibly belongs to Marvel don't really add up.

What do you think? Is there more to the puzzle? Did Marvel UK pull a fast one? Is there more to the contract we don't know? Did Marvel UK even have to adhere to the same contract as drawn up by Marvel in the USA? Did Hasbro just say "Nah, you can keep him" behind closed doors? Or, as far as we know, should Hasbro be the rightful owner of Death's Head? Tell us your thoughts down below!

Thanks to NovaSaber over in the "Random Transformers Videos" thread for bringing this to our attention!

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[DarylM]

I hadn't thought that the story about the origins of High Noon Tex was a deliberate lie - just a misremembering of events.

High Noon Tex was published in several Marvel UK titles to promote the launch of the Death's Head comic. So I thought Furman misremembered when it was published. It may even be the case that the intention of the strip was to cement Death's Head as a Marvel UK character rather than Marvel US or Transformers/Hasbro - even if it was after the fact of his first appearance.

However, the editing out of the '88' in Bryan Hitch's signature in the 2002 Fallen Angel collection suggests someone knew it might be an issue. Although, weirdly enough, the collection is published by Titan Books and "Licensed by Hasbro".

If you had asked me, I would have said that I always thought High Noon Tex was Death's Head's first appearance - long before the claim made in the 2006 DH collection. But I don't know where I originally got that idea from. Maybe from The Body In Question.

In any case, I assume that Hasbro just don't know that they've got a claim on the character. Or, if they do know, they don't particularly care and don't want to complicate their relationship with Marvel.

After all, this started in the UK title - presumably small fry for them compared to the US comics. And, much-loved as Death's Head is by his fans, he's not really a huge character.

And if Hasbro do know, they can't care too much because they have released Marvel action figures of Death's Head and Death's Head II.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

In any case, I assume that Hasbro just don't know that they've got a claim on the character. Or, if they do know, they don't particularly care and don't want to complicate their relationship with Marvel.

This makes sense to me. Hasbro owns so much, and has owned so much at one time or another, that I doubt it's feasible to keep track of it all.