The original Death's Head returns in Marvel Heroes

A page from the new Death's Head
versus Hulk story by Simons Furmsn
and Williams. Via Simon's blog

(with thanks to Simon Williams): One of Marvel UK's most popular characters, Death's Head, is set to return in an all-new story for Panini Comics Marvel Heroes.

Issue 33 of the newstand title, on sale in March, will see the original Freelance Peacekeeping Agent Death's  Head back in action – and fighting none other than the Incredible Hulk.

"For the past month or so, I've been making hints on both my Facebook and Twitter accounts in regards to a certain project that I've been working on," says Simon on his official web site on deviantart, "a project which I truly believe is the most exciting thing I've worked on since breaking into the comics business in 2003.

"Well, after numerous weeks of teasing the masses, I can now finally spill the beans... Death's Head is back! The original Freelance Peacekeeping Agent is returning to the pages of of a UK comic, in the pages of Panini Comics' Marvel Heroes, in a tale written by original Death's Head creator Simon Furman, with art by yours truly.

"It's the second part of a two-part story (both parts in the same issue), the first written by Ferg Handley with art by John Ross. Death's Head grand entrance however isn't until our part of the tale."

"Amazingly, this marks my first work on the original Death’s Head since the early 1990s," says Simon Furman, "when he guest-starred in the likes of She-Hulk, Marvel Comics Presents and Death’s Head."

A page of Simon Williams'
fan fiction tale featuring
Death's Head and Hulk

For Simon Williams, this is a dream come true - the accomplished artist even created his own Hulk versus Death's Head strip just for fun some time back, which features in his online gallery.

"It's no secret that I've been campaigning for the return of Death's Head since I broke into comics," Simon enthuses, "so I can't begin to tell you how excited and proud I am to be part of this."

For him, the fact that Death's Head will be fighting none other than the Hulk is "icing on the cake".

"Honestly, my job could never get any better than this," says Simon. "I know for sure that a lot of Marvel UK and Transformers fans out there are going to be very pleased with this news!!

• Marvel Heroes Issue 33 is on sale in all good UK newsagents from 24th March 2011. Death's Head is back... and it's about time, yes?

• Simon Williams blog is here: http://soulmaninc.blogspot.com

Hulk versus Death's Head!

Apart from a cameo confrontation between Death's Head II and the Incredible Hulk in Marvel UK's Shadow Riders #1 (a little in joke on the part of myself and co-writer Brian Williamson, at the expense of the often maddening demands of editor in chief Paul Neary to have as many Death's Head II appearance in MUK early 1990s books as possible), it's amazing the two characters have apparently never met in the 'real' Marvel Universe.

While it's incredibly unlikely such an encounter ever will happen (which we all here at downthetubes think is a downright shame), comics artist Simon Williams has at least stepped up to the plate and is delivering an unofficial encounter between the original Death's Head and the green-skinned behemoth over on his deviantart pages.

"I thought some of you older Marvel UK fans may get a kick out of this," he told Marvel UK fans on the make Mine Marvel UK Facebook group. "It's a comic strip that just started out for fun... but has since taken on a life of it's own!

"It features a battle between two of my all-time favourite characters: Death's Head and the Incredible Hulk... a fight I've always wanted to see done in comics, but the likelihood of it happening seemed like zilch. So I thought, well.. since I've drawn both characters professionally, why don't I do it?

"It started of as just a couple of pages that I'd posted up on my Deviant Art page, but has since then became pretty popular... with people often emailing me asking when I'd be doing more! Seeing as it's set in the Hulk's past, I decided to draw it in a style much like the old Marvel UK comics from the 1970's... hence the grey-toning."

The art is a wondrful tribute to the Hulk strips republished by Marevl UK bac in the 1970s and 1980s and well worth checking out. Plus, it's Death's Head -- what's stopping any MUK fan from checking that out?

• Check out the ongoing battle at: soulmaninc.deviantart.com/gallery/#The-Incredible-Hulk-vs-Death-s-Head
• Simon Williams Deviant Art Web Site

Tube Surfing: 29 June 2008

• Tim Perkins and other comics creators and web sites includng The Beat report the sad news that US artist Michael Turner (Witchblade, Fathom and many superb covers for Marvel) has died aged just 37 after a long battle with cancer. Our sympathies to his family and friends. Tim's post inlcudes some of Michael's outstanding art. Anyone wishing to make a charitable donation to please send to Michael Turner's requested charities: The American Cancer Society or The Make-A-Wish Foundation.

• To celebrate the release of the over-sized hardcover Dan Dare collection, MySpaceTV is airing an exclusive trailer of Virigin Comics take on the doughty pilot of the future. To view the bold, new trailer journey here. The over-sized hardcover edition collects issues 1 through 3 of Dan Dare, written by Garth Ennis with art by Gary Erskine.
• Preorder the collection (out in October) from amazon.com or amazon.co.uk

• Comic artist Al Davison (Spiral Cage, Sprial Dreams and many more great works) is hosting a five week life drawing class which begins on Wednesday, 9 July. For more information contact Al via his Astral Gypsy website

• The July 2008 issue of scifi webmag SFcrowsnest.com is now online. There are lots of goodies to read, including interviews with SF/F writers Robert J. Sawyer, Jacqueline Carey, Steven Erikson, Paul Kearney, Conrad Williams and Nancy Kress, articles in memory of Stan Winston and Algis Budrys, a movie review of the The Incredible Hulk, while author Philip Palmer reports back from the Cannes Film Festival with a fan's eye on events.
US author L.E. Modesitt also asks what's likely to last in the genre, and there's more news and reviews of books, dvds, comics and magazines than you can shake a lightsabre at. Point your ordinance at www.SFcrowsnest.com

• Talking of SF, Steve Holland's Bear Alley is proving avtreasure trobve for fans of SF book cover art of late. One of his latest postings is devoted to John Harris, another illustrator being covered (albeit briefly) in Steve's upcoming Sci-Fi Art book so I won't say much here. A very good book of his work came out in 200, Mass, with text written by Ron Tiner, which offers a lot of insight into his thinking and techniques.

• The Beat has published several new photos from Batman: Dark Knight, which has been dedicated to Heath Legder, who completed his role as The Joke shortly before his untimely death.

• Talk about memorable reading. Over on blog London Loves Comics there's a plug for the 1981 2000AD annual, which features the Mekon's "10 ways to destroy the world". One of them, which operhaps stuck in the mind of Garth Ennis when it came to the new Virgin Dan Dare series, is to introduce a black hole to the solar system and watch it such all the energy from the Earth...

• Neil Gaiman offers a disturbing post, The New Paranoia, on the tricks authorities might get up to when you enter a country with your laptop. "I have friends who practice ultra-safe computing when crossing borders: examine their computers and you'll find yourself on something almost data-free, so you'd not be looking at encrypted files, you'd simply not be looking at files -- the same kinds of things that Cory Doctorow describes in Little Brother. And I've always thought they were being, well, silly." Then Neil read an article in the LA Times which reported that US Courts have ruled, as recently as this spring in a case stemming from a search at LAX, that there's no need for warrants or suspicions when a person is seeking to enter the country because any "routine search" is reasonable under the Fourth Amendmentm and started to worry... . In effect, it's like luggage: anything and everything in your laptop, cellphone, BlackBerry or digital camera can be examined and copied by US Customs and Border Protection agents. Read Neil's full post

• Finally for this TubeSurf, a quick reminder about the excellent Alan Moore interview published earlier this month on the Forbidden Planet International blog (part 1, part 2) and a plug for writer Pádraig Ó Méalóid’s Glycon live journal. It’s a fascinating repository of all things Alan Moore, including a lot of completely unavailable and extremely rare work, such as these incredible examples of Moore’s artwork for the From Hell series (thanks to Joe Gordon for the link).

Hulk Goes Mobile

Marvel and Hands-On Mobile, producers of Guitar Hero and Iron Man for mobile phones, have released a new mobile game and personalization content around the latest big-screen adaptation of The Incredible Hulk, which has been getting positive reviews as a straight forward action movie on its release.

The game and content are currently available on select carriers worldwide.

“The Hulk is a character who is beloved by many, and we worked closely with Marvel to develop a mobile game that was true to his legacy,” said David White, Chief Executive Officer of Hands-On Mobile. “Just as we’ve seen consumers embrace Iron Man, we expect The Incredible Hulk to gain a similar following with an exciting mobile game to complement its film release.”

In this explosive and action-packed mobile game, players become the Hulk to smash through walls, hurl cars at enemies, scale cityscapes, dodge precision missiles, and battle The Abomination as they seek out a cure to the gamma radiation that poisoned the Hulk's alter ego Bruce Banner's cells and transformed him into the green-skinned behemoth.

”This summer is an exciting time for Marvel, and we're excited to be working with Hands-On Mobile to create mobile games that complement our latest big screen releases including Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk,” said Simon Philips, President of Marvel International. “As we’ve already seen with the success of Iron Man, fans are eager to continue to interact with these beloved characters after they leave the movie theaters, and mobile games are a great way to do this.”

HandsOn say The Incredible Hulk game features unique gameplay that distinguishes it from other tile-based, action-adventure games in the mobile market. The game re-creates movie scenes as players smash from the hidden factories of Brazil to the city that never sleeps.

• For information and other exciting Marvel Mobile content, visit www.MarvelMobile.com. The Incredible Hulk mobile game can be downloaded in the US by text messaging HULK to 46966.