Death's Head Ongoing Coming Soon!

[SuperiorIronman]

I'm just glad they're going with the original fun/retro design. I always hated the Death's Head II look. It looked like the original Death's Head and the 1990s gave birth to a Predator. Just terrible.

Assuming my data is correct, ironically Deaths head would debut about a little less than a month in Transformers before Predator in 1987. Deaths head 2 which does have something of a superficial resemblance to the character would be created less than 2 years after Predator 2, but would be created during Kenner's production of the Predator toy-line. An unreleased figure was set to have horns and feature a removable mask with a mouth piece similar to Deaths head's own face.

[milton75]

But not well known at all in the US. And Disney won't let Marvel UK be a thing - UK rights holders Panini (who got the rights by buying Marvel UK) are forbidden from originating new Marvel material. I agree that this book's existence is completely unexpected.

I don't quite understand how this can be the case - do you have a source for this? I've not been able to find any word on this outside your observation!

I read that as well, that Disney won't allow any new material featuring Marvel Characters unless it originated in the US. I think the UK Collector's Editions mentioned it in a letter page long ago.

So far the only source online mentioning on it is here: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel_UK

If you look on Twitter, guys like Simon Williams, who was doing art for the Panini comics at the time, have spoken openly about this policy decision and the impact it had.
It's a real shame as although the strips and comics themselves were aimed at a younger market, there was a lot of love shown for the work, and guys like Simon understand the characters and have the talent to bring out their best (his Hulk is a classic homage to Kirby from a true Hulk fan).

[Digifiend]

Yeah, one consequence was that Spectacular Spider-Man, a comic originally tying in to the 90s cartoon and ending up forming it's own continuity, had to go to reprints of the Ultimate Spider-Man comics based on the then-current cartoon.

[Chris Wing]

Gotcha.
Slight confusion between Marvel UK, the 90s imprint, and Marvel UK, the UK publishing arm of Marvel US, I think.

So, of course, there is nothing stopping Marvel (US) from putting out new stories with Marvel UK (the imprint) characters at any time.

[Digifiend]

Yeah. When Panini bought Marvel UK, they got the UK rights to publish Marvel comics (they do newsstand titles and trades). But the rights to the characters themselves remained with Marvel. If they created new stories featuring Marvel characters, Marvel gets the copyright. Then when Disney took over, they issued the edict which turned Marvel UK into a fully reprint operation. Panini now only do new comic material in one former Marvel title - Doctor Who Magazine. Because of course, when Panini bought Marvel UK, that title became completely divorced from Marvel, as the BBC hold the copyright to that.

[milton75]

I miss Doctor Who being part of Marvel.