Death's Head Ongoing Coming Soon!

[Gaastra]

Marvel owns her. She was in secret wars 2 first so they could keep the rights. Same with death's head who was in a one page comic in another comic before showing up in transformers. That's also why idw could not use her in their marvel follow up comic and just had spike get her powers without talking to much about her to avoid copyright. Again she would make a great iron man bad guy but you really need to update her look. The only thing is her human name Josie Beller may be in a loophole with hasbro. Marvel may have to rename her human name.


Idw had to cut her out of some of the reprint books along with Spider-Man, death's head and nick fury till marvel gave them the ok to reprint them.

Though she was created for use in the pages of Transformers, her first appearance was a brief but major cameo in the pages of Secret Wars II #3. This was done specifically to enable Marvel to claim copyright ownership of the character. (A similar trick was used for the Marvel UK character "Death's Head.")
Because of this, Marvel owns the character of Circuit Breaker, though not the character's civilian identity of Josie Beller. This, in turn, has created a major problem for IDW, which now cannot reprint any of the Marvel Transformers Comics that star Circuit Breaker, which are issues #9, 22, 23, 46, 68, and 72 through 80, without permission. Earlier editions of the Classic Transformers trade paperbacks published in 2008 excluded these issues; in their places were brief synopses of those issues. However, later editions published in 2012 included the omitted stories. How long future editions will continue to include these comics remains to be seen.

Marvel did let them reprint the issues but at first they had to cut them out of the reprints! Hasbro has said on the transformers boards marvel owns her in the past when fans ask about her for comics and cartoons. Bring her back marvel!

https://transformers.fandom.com/wiki/Circuit_Breaker

[CentralPower]

Is anybody familiar with the creative team? (If this turns in to "Death's Head shipping" I am not going to bother.)


And, what "Infinity Wars" issues did Death's Head show up in?

[Digifiend]

Sleepwalker. He was an Infinity Warp with one of the Raptors (the villains who look like Darkhawk).
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Infin...walker_Vol_1_1

[milton75]

I'm personally more excited about this than any book for a while - I'm only disappointed that it's only 5 issues long.

Kei Zama's art is just a delight from start to finish; she loves what she does and that bursts out of every panel. Just incredibly talented.

Nick Roche's covers are exactly as one would imagine and hope for. If it was a longer ongoing he'd doubtless be doing some of the issues too.

I don't know enough about Tini Howard, but everything I've read makes me excited. Get this book out, get the pre-orders flowing, get shouting about it, and get an ongoing to follow.

ETA - the covers are just great.

DH John McCrea #1 VARIANT COVER.jpg

That's the John McCrea variant to #1

[milton75]

And this is the B/W version of Nick Roche's #1. See how many easter eggs you can find.

DH #1 Nick Roche cover BW.jpg

[leokearon]

Is anybody familiar with the creative team? (If this turns in to "Death's Head shipping" I am not going to bother.)

Not familiar with Tini Howard but Kei Zama was the main artist on Optimus Prime for IDW and is really good

[MyriVerse]

So with death's head back will circuit breaker show up also?

The two characters are completely unrelated, so why?

[Chris Wing]

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!

[Chris Wing]

Well, Death's Head II was!

In fact, after the MUK imprint imploded, I'm surprised DHII didn't go mainstream, seeing how popular he appeared to be. Much like Spider-Girl outlived the M2 line, I would have thought, but it wasn't to be!

[Chris Wing]

Looking forward to this very much series!

Been waiting for #11 to come out since 1989.

I spent years thinking my local newsagent just stopped stocking it.

Good to see him with his name at the top of a cover, even if it is only 5 issues.

[leokearon]

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

[Kaijudo]

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.

[Rincewind]

The two characters are completely unrelated, so why?

Both characters appeared as antagonists in the Transformers comics. But in order for Marvel to keep the rights to the characters, both had a small first appearance in a non Transformers, Marvel title.

[Captain Craig]

So....time to renew a copyright/trademark type series for Deaths Head?

I'm not a fan but glad to see niche characters get some time. We all have our niche, c/d list characters after all.

[SuperiorIronman]

So....time to renew a copyright/trademark type series for Deaths Head?

I'm not a fan but glad to see niche characters get some time. We all have our niche, c/d list characters after all.

I believe the way it works with trademark is that you have to renew it every 10 years but every 5 you have to prove its still in usage which wouldn't be a problem for Death's head because he has appeared in usage in recent years. I wouldn't be surprised if they renewed the trademark but Deaths head has appeared somewhat regularly in some manner for the company.

Although as it comes to copyright, Deaths head is post-1978 in 1987 if I'm not mistaken. So while his copyright is pretty far along, the copyright wouldn't have lapsed yet.