Death's Head


 * For the Kaldor City audio drama, see Death's Head (audio story).

Death's Head was a metallic life-form who worked as a "freelance peacekeeping agent" (effectively, a mercenary, bounty hunter and assassin, though he hated being called any of those things) in a number of dimensions and time zones. Death's Head described himself as a mechanoid, a designation not related to the Mechanoids, the enemies of the Daleks.

Biography
Death's Head did not take pleasure in killing, merely in being professional and financially astute, and possessed a rather pedantic personality. He was a habitual traveller between alternate realities, spending most of his career in universes other than the main one. At the time that he first encountered the Seventh Doctor, Death's Head had been enlarged to nine metres in height.

Some unspecified time after his enlargement, Death's Head worked as a freelance bounty hunter. One of his targets was the Cybertronian Decepticon called Galvatron. After various dealings with the Cybertronians, Death's Head was released into the Time Vortex. (The Transformers (Marvel UK) #151)

While travelling through the Time Vortex, Death's Head collided with the Doctor's TARDIS, forcing both to materialise. Death's Head attacked the Doctor, but was shot with a TCE and returned to his original size apparently uninjured. The Doctor eventually used the TARDIS to launch the mechanoid through time and space to the planet Earth in the year 8162. (DWM: The Crossroads of Time)


 * There is marginal evidence to suggest this version of Earth is in the main universe to the Doctor and Death's Head both encountering the scavenger Keepsake at a later point, but it could just as easily be Earth-616 or another as yet unidentified parallel.

Death's Head later attempted to claim the price put on the Doctor's head by Josiah W. Dogbolter, using a prototype time machine to track him down. However, Dogbolter meant to double-cross the mechanoid, hiding a nuclear device in the time travel unit to kill both him and the Doctor. The Doctor saved Death's Head from the bomb and in return the mechanoid decided not to complete the contract on the Time Lord... this time. (DH: Time Bomb!)

Death's Head, while counting money, raised his glass in acknowledgement to the Doctor at Bonjaxx's party. When a drunk Beep the Meep started a fight, Death's Head happily joined in. (DWM: Party Animals) On the way out of the party, Death's Head was attacked by Dogbolter's old servant Hob but was saved by teaming up with his own future self. The Doctor erased the memory of this encounter from Death's Head, and was revealed to have manipulated Death's Head II into being in this situation. (The Incomplete Death's Head #12)

Behind the scenes

 * Death's Head was the lead character of a comic book published by Marvel UK, which (as described above) had several crossovers with Marvel UK's Doctor Who comic strip, thus tangentially placing Doctor Who (or at least the DWM comic strip version) within the Marvel Universe.