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Comic Reviews, Dragon's Claws

DRAGON’S CLAWS #10: ORiGiN END

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This month’s strip may have an extra page. It may end on a splash page of the whole team pledging they’ll never stop fighting injustice. The cover may be a special painted one by Geoff Senior (Steel does look a bit like an alien panther, although if he were it’d fit his personality). The story may be called End of the Road. However, there’s no editorial mention that this is the final issue of Dragon’s Claws.

While the story makes it pretty clear this is the end, how clear it would’ve been to a much, much younger me at the time, I do not know. The comic was devised as an ongoing title and there had even been a subscription offer in the early issues, so I’m just a little surprised there isn’t even a small note about its cancellation. It was mentioned in the pages of Transformers, I remember that.

I mustn’t quibble. It’s now 2024 and I knew this moment was coming, as much as I didn’t want it to. End of the Road begins with this thrilling opening of a hijacked chemical waste transporter with both Dragon and Deller attempting a rescue. It appears after everything that happened last time they’re at least trying to work together. The tension between them does make for some funny dialogue here and there, reminding me of some of the best buddy cop movies of the 80s.

Elsewhere, in Switzerland, we see Ambassador Golding fresh from his ordeal in the last couple of issues and standing up for the Claws at the headquarters of the World Development Council. Isolated amongst snowy peaks, their clear separation from the people they’re meant to serve is echoed by the way their chambers of power tower over anyone wishing to speak with them. On this occasion, Golding is here to plead the case for the innocence of the Game team.

Clearly just as corrupt as modern day governments, all they’re concerned about is saving their own backsides. Golding becomes enraged with them at one point in this issue and I’ve really grown to like the character, one that I assumed was just a one-off hostage to be rescued back in #4. On a side note, at one point the chairman addresses the entire board as “gentlemen”. Sigh. Not one single woman anywhere to be seen. No wonder the world is falling apart, we clearly haven’t learned any lessons from the past.

We jump about some more and head off to Havana in Cuba a few hours earlier to catch up with Tanya, her father and Michael, her son (and Dragon’s adoptive son) and they’re still hostages of ex-Game team Shrine. Kurran is leading his team on supposed holy missions to weed out evil, but in actual fact it’s all a front for death, destruction and getting rich. Still believing Tanya’s family to be related to Deller, who paid Kurran’s brother’s team to attack Dragon in #1 (resulting in his death), Tanya finally lets the truth slip to one of the more rational Shrine members.

I’m very happy to see I wasn’t wrong about this story arc being the focus of the final issue, as they deserve a proper ending unlike some of the smaller arcs which were concluded off-page last time. The hijacker of the chemical waste transport pops up here too, hired by Kurran to smuggle a defector out of the country to safety and at this point we return to the battle to regain control. We also check in on Golding’s speech to the council, including a specific example of the Claws’ good work.

Anyway, back on the road and Dragon and Deller’s working relationship (if we can call it that) is so enjoyable it breaks my heart to know we won’t get any more of this! It feels like such an 80s action flick again, just like those first two issues did, especially Deller’s very 80s-action-man one-liner in the midst of the action. This is a blast! Finally for this scene, our unnamed court jester looks like he’s about to dispose of the defector, but instead just plops a clown nose on him. Another character I’m left wanting to have seen more of.

Holden, the defector, seems to have gone to the wrong person to get him safely out of the country and he soon realises his error; upon finding out it was Dragon that saved him he gladly tells him all about Shrine, Tanya, Michael and where to find them. We now flash forward to the team arriving in full force upon Shrine’s base, the arrival of their craft The Pig sending Kurran into a panic and ordering Strength to eliminate all of ‘Deller’s’ family.

Now fully aware of who they really are, Strength sees to their escape instead but Tanya hands Michael to her father and tells Strength to get them to the ship. In keeping with her character she knows the full force of Dragon’s Claws are about to come down hard on the place and she won’t have anyone die because of her, not even those who kidnapped her family.

All hell breaks loose, Dragon crashing through doors all guns blazing and it looks like Tanya’s unhappy prediction is coming true. Was she right about Dragon’s wish to win at all costs? When push comes to shove would he let her down, even as he rescues her? Will his emotions get in the way of justice? Actually, no. While things start off as a typical action movie climax, the usual body count never happens.

Writer Simon Furman is clearly trying to leave readers exhausted after an incredible ten months

Instead, the team incapacitate each member of Shrine, one by one, then picking them up and getting them to safety so they can face justice and jail. But upon crashing through one of those doors, Dragon accidentally knocks over a flaming torch, setting fire to drapes nearby and soon the entire complex is burning, ready to come down at a moment’s notice. Just as they’re about to go after Kurran himself (Dragon’s instructions being to shoot to wound only) Tanya screams at them all to stop!

She shouts at the whole team, their storming in has caused the fire and stopped Michael and her father getting to safety. These are the consequences of Dragon’s actions, something she’s been trying to get through to him since the very beginning of the comic. Writer Simon Furman is really cranking up the tension in this issue, clearly trying to leave readers exhausted after an incredible ten months. As Dragon rushes off to find Michael, we quickly check in on Deller. Is he really a reformed member of the team after his heroics over the last few months?

That would be a ‘no’. Rationally speaking, this was always going to be the outcome here, wasn’t it? Deller couldn’t have Dragon finding out he was responsible for everything that happened in #1, and for everything that Dragon, Tanya and Michael have gone through since. But I was so swept up in the story, and in what I thought was Deller’s redemption, that this was a genuinely shocking moment. To see Deller in the final page of the story (see below) as part of the team just heightens that feeling of loss, because this could’ve made for some brilliantly tense story arcs in future issues.

I’d never read a single issue of the comic before this read through. I’d no idea what to expect, I just knew I was a big fan of the creative team behind it

Then as if that wasn’t enough, tragedy strikes. For a second I thought it was Michael who got killed by the falling beam but a closer glance sees him safe in Dragon’s arms. There’s very little in the way of dialogue and no captions on this particular page but it doesn’t need them. Geoff Senior’s art is dramatic enough. Heightened by Steve White’s colours, it’s the final shocking twist of not just this chapter but the whole comic.

I’ll get back to the final few pages of the strip in a second. First, the only extra feature in this issue is Scavenger’s fact file. For the most mysterious of the team there’s little here needing answers in further stories. I do love the little mentions of how the world at large has changed (mention of ‘the Austro-Zealand crosslands’) and I would’ve loved to have seen a story based on The Tunnel Wars. The rest we’ve actually seen already. (I guess very little was known about him after all!)

However, I wanted to finish the review with the final splash page of the strip, so back to the last pages of the story we go and Tanya has run off, never to be seen again. Back at Dragon’s Nest, Golding confirms the W.D.C. has agreed to let the Claws continue the work they were doing above and beyond (and in spite of) Matron’s orders, with Golding now as their direct supervisor, and in exchange the W.D.C. will use their resources to track Tanya down. It’s kind of like the situation with Archangel overlooking the crew of the Airwolf working for The F.I.R.M.

In that 80s action show Stringfellow Hawke recovered the stolen Airwolf helicopter but kept it until The F.I.R.M. could locate his M.I.A. brother, working on covert missions for Archangel in the meantime. This all adds up to this final Dragon’s Claws chapter feeling like a new beginning, almost as if the ten issues were one long origin story. Of course, if the comic had continued indefinitely this ten-issue arc may have gone on much longer, but as it stands now it feels as if everything is finally in place, that it was all leading to this moment and the tales of Dragon’s Claws can really begin away from readers’ eyes.

“Dragon’s Claws were reactivated to bring order to chaos, to make this rotten world a better place for children”

Dragon

So a very open ending then. I’d never read a single issue of the comic before this read through. I’d no idea what to expect, I just knew I was a big fan of the creative team behind it. I wasn’t let down. This has been an incredible series and I can see why it’s still held in such high regard today. I can confirm after reading it now, even without any form of rose-tinted glasses fans may have, that I’d highly recommend it to anyone. Each issue usually goes for a few quid on eBay so it won’t cost you the Earth and they’ll be worth every single penny. So long Claws, it’s been an absolute hoot.

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Comic Reviews, Death's Head

DEATH’S HEAD #5: KEEP CALM AND CARRiON

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This striking John Higgins (Transformers, Batman: The Killing Joke, Before Watchmen) cover welcomes us to the fifth issue and, after reading it, the midway point of Marvel UK’s Death’s Head. When I collected together this run of comics I noticed a lot of crossovers with other Marvel characters on the covers, especially in the later issues. No, I never read anything inside (just counted the pages to make sure it was all there), but the covers do reveal a lot of who is to come.

I remember thinking it seemed there were an awful lot of what would normally be seen as ‘event’ stories, perhaps to raise the profile of the comic with potential readers, however I was surprised to see this issue has the first non-Dragon’s Claws crossover character. Okay, so he’s a minor character from one Doctor Who strip but it was still a nice surprise to see the Doctor mentioned again after he was so instrumental in Death’s Head’s own story.

Keepsake appeared in #140 of Doctor Who Magazine (August 1988) when a distress signal lured him to a planet where he originally just wanted to salvage the crashed ship for parts. Instead, he ended up enjoying the actual rescue thanks to working with the Doctor and at the end of the story the Doctor left the rescued medic, Bahlia, in Keepsake’s care. This is where we pick things up.

Oh, and he has a pet vulture who reminds him of his wife.

John drew Keepsake’s DWM adventure and is also the artist for our strip this month, coloured by Nick Abadzis and lettered by Annie Halfacree. You’ll see even more of John’s work soon because he was one of five(!) artists when The Sleeze Brothers made their Doctor Who Magazine debut. Watch out for that later this month. Back to the issue at hand and speaking of Keepsake’s wife it looks like she’s hiring a certain Freelance Peace-Keeping Agent to track him down, promising a somewhat large reward too.

Not that Death’s Head is easily swayed, of course. Meanwhile, Keepsake is meeting with gangsters looking for the second half of a map to the aforementioned gold shipment. Editor Richard Starkings told me, “‘Half the map’ was my idea, as was ‘half the gold’ in Death’s Head #5. Never waste a good gag.” Keepsake doesn’t come across as the smartest of scavengers and is easily double-crossed, so the men make off with both halves of said map.

Death’s Head is very much the lighter-hearted comic of the pair, while Dragon’s Claws can be much darker

After reading the penultimate issue of Dragon’s Claws the contrast between the two titles has never been clearer. Despite being created and written by the same person, and despite the fact this comic has the word “Death” in its title and follows someone whose job it is to kill people, Death’s Head is very much the lighter-hearted comic of the pair, while the one about a game team gone rogue can be much darker. Not what people may expect, and I’m here for it!

Case in point below, as we get a lot of exposition from Thea about how Colt (the gangster) and Keepsake had double-crossed each other in the past over this shipment (hence the two parts of the map) and a seemingly endless amount of further double-crosses involving Thea and her husband, leading to this point. Clearly, no one can be trusted. But it’s Death’s Head’s reaction to this intriguing story that made me laugh, never mind Keepsake’s pet sneakily sampling what they thought was Colt’s water.

With Keepsake easily cheated out of his piece of the map he sits about moping, making him an easy target for our Peace-Keeper, however first of all we get a funny interlude of some of the more rudimentary detective work our anti-hero has to do in order to find his targets. Remembering this is the same mechanoid who helped take down the giant Lord of Chaos Unicron just makes this sequence all the funnier, especially the last two panels; the question mark, the hint at the top of the penultimate panel and the final reveal.

This seems to be a trend in the comic, at least for what makes me laugh the most. Take his name, his appearance and his occupation and you’d expect something completely different than the situations writer Simon Furman consistently places him in.

Death’s Head catches up with the sullen Keepsake and calls in Thea to meet him at the bar, where he’s trying his best to ‘persuade’ his target. Just before this Thea saw Colt kidnap Bahlia outside, clearly as protection against the salvage expert as they dive for the treasure out at sea. It looks like Keepsake’s pet wasn’t much use as protection either.

Our strange little threesome (Spratt is conspicuous by his absence this month, perhaps still recovering from his ordeal last time) soon track down the gangsters not far from the shore in a tiny boat, Bahlia tied up and a gun held on her. At this point I thought Death’s Head would be going alone to take on everyone involved but I was pleasantly surprised to see his plan involved all three of them. I was even more pleasantly surprised to see how well they worked together.

While the old trick of sending in the attractive woman to distract three male idiots wasn’t exactly new even in the 80s, for me the jokes come from how Death’s Head and Thea handle the men after that. There’s one particular guy who won’t be forgetting the impact Thea makes (literally) for quite some time, I’m sure. It’s the perfect example of the comedy-action this comic does best and there’s more to come that genuinely had me giggling.

The first two panels really did have me laughing, the sight of Death’s Head’s daring rescue coming so completely undone so quickly

As they make their way out on a boat to rescue Bahlia and recover the gold, Keepsake hovers overhead in his aircraft, ready to assist. But one previously concealed rocket launcher lends a sinking feeling to the first part of their plan. The first two panels below really did have me laughing, the sight of Death’s Head’s daring rescue coming so completely undone so quickly, and this image of what the notorious hunter of bounties (I didn’t said it!) is reduced to is hilarious.

He then uses thrusters in the soles of his feet to blast off and use his body as a different form of rocket launcher, although clearly the end result wasn’t quite his intention.

So far it’s been a comedy of errors but it’s swung generously in his favour. As the man on the boat desperately seals the hole with pieces of wood and some form of foam glue he doesn’t see Bahlia being hoisted to safety, taking all of the gold with her. Below the surface Death’s Head subdues the remaining divers before taking off again with his feet… right through the patched up hole. So far, so funny, but the page below contains something which didn’t sit quite right with me.

Death’s Head has always honoured his contracts. This was the first of the rules he established in #1, rules he always abides by. They’re part of what makes him and his stories so interesting. Think about when he was fighting Dragon in #2 even though he respected the man. He kept fighting until the exact second his contract with the villain of the story ran out and then he just stopped. That was such a great part of that story and told us a lot about his character (this aspect had already been well established in Transformers). But here a quick whisper in his ear from Keepsake and he chucks his client out the side.

After this, Death’s Head then double-crosses Keepsake and ends up with all the gold himself. That I can live with since Keepsake was a snake and not his client, but Leah was. Even though he didn’t like her, this is so out of character that it undermines things already established in earlier issues. It’s a strange inclusion, that’s for sure.

Again, the cliffhanger is underwhelming as we see a group of apparent mercenaries called Sudden Impact being introduced and recalled from a firefight for “a vitally urgent job”. Last month’s final page introduced another man with a gun called Big Shot but there’s no sign of him this month. Are all of these clichéd, hyper-muscled alpha males going to team up against Death’s Head? I trust Simon’s writing but so far I’m not particularly impressed with these potential adversaries.

So another brilliant issue, even if it was let down a bit by the final couple of pages, but I won’t dwell on them. This feels almost like an interlude story of some kind, especially with the lack of Spratt. In an action-comedy comic series this one leaned more towards complete farce and I was fine with that (until the ending). Enjoyable but forgettable then. I still can’t wait for the next issue though. That’ll be right here on Monday 1st April 2024.

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Comic Reviews, Death's Head

DEATH’S HEAD #4: DOG-GEDLY BRiLLiANT

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The front cover to this fourth issue of Death’s Head may be drawn by the familiar team of Bryan Hitch and Mark Farmer but inside Plague Dog is drawn by renowned Transformers artist Lee Sullivan (also Havoc (RoboCop), Doctor Who), with Annie Halfacree on letters, Nick Abadzis colouring and Simon Furman writing of course, with Richard Starkings editing. While I love Geoff Senior’s art being in every issue of Dragon’s Claws, I like the mixing of styles here.

Last month we saw Death’s Head’s new office wasn’t the perfect purchase Spratt seemed to think it was, having spent his new partner’s hard earned cash before he’d earned it. This issue sees that picked up and developed into two separate stories, one for each of our main characters. While our mechanoid anti-hero is hired by one gangster to hunt down and kill his rival’s pet mutt, Spratt comes face-to-face with it in their new property.

We kick things off with Death’s Head arriving at Jules ‘Kneecap’ Venici’s birthday party in his usual understated style. A huge birthday cake arrives but Venici has seen this movie before and fills it full of lead. Surprised at finding no one inside he still insists on killing whoever sent it because his own actions have made him look stupid. He then sits down to eat a slice, not noticing the highly conspicuous waiter in his latest in a long line of ridiculous wigs.

Predictably a huge shoot-out occurs between all of the gangsters and our lone hero, although even in this dire situation there’s time for some comedy. Elsewhere, Spratt is checking out their new digs and the lights are out. After we see a clawed hand swiping down in the darkness he lets out a blood-curdling scream and we’re led to believe the hand has made contact, until you read the following caption. Simon once again playing with our expectations.

I particularly like Spratt’s reaction to the sound effect of the plague dog, the alien monster used by Venici to take revenge out on those who wrong him. Last month we saw someone who looked like an undertaker sell the office to Spratt and in this issue we find out he is in fact called The Undertaker, a killer-for-hire whose method of assassination is somewhat gruesome.

But yes, that sound effect. We get all sorts of wording to describe sounds in our comics. Sometimes they’re downright bizarre to say the least. The fact Spratt correctly names this rather random sound effect is very funny and just shy of the character breaking the fourth wall and identifying he’s in a comic. It genuinely made me laugh. Back in the other half of the story, as the issue constantly flicks back and forth between the two scenes, Death’s Head is still at it even when cornered and out of ammunition.

Death by cocktail sausages! As a form of getting back at the bad guys it seems appropriate for this blog. Death’s Head isn’t the only one up against the odds, nothing to shoot with and having to use his ingenuity to get out of a tough scrape. As the rotten internals of the office building collapse around him, Spratt is trying desperately to escape but is hopelessly out of his depth.

In fact, the crumbling of the building saves him on more than one occasion, luck playing a huge part in keeping him alive. He could be learning a thing or two from his new boss though, or perhaps they’re just more suited than the mechanoid realises, because despite his fear (or perhaps because of it) he can’t help making quips.

Slipping out of his boot and shoving it into the monster’s mouth (complete with another joke) he makes a run outside and finds a car parked (well, hovering, it’s in the future after all). This is Spratt’s speciality. Quietly boosting cars is a particularly useful skill that Death’s Head needs him for. There’s a little bit of tension here as Spratt struggles to get inside, panicking as the plague dog bears down on him.

The engine doesn’t immediately kick in either and the tension rises further as the thing makes a leap for him and crashes through the rear window, clawing at the interior, getting closer and closer to Spratt until it finally places a claw on his shoulder. The escape vehicle now seems to have become a death trap. We know Spratt can’t die, but even if he takes off surely the thing’s head and arm are already inside so what can he do? Well…

Just like last month when an accidental slip of the hand by Spratt turned the tide of battle, here his mistake with the gears sends him rocketing backwards, squashing the monster against the building. Fuel tank ruptured, the dog roaring out to his “Foood!” as it starts to push the car off itself, Spratt characteristically can’t help but bask in his glorious victory, no matter how accidental.

The final spread of the issue sees The Undertaker making a phone call, apparently to activate the plague dog at its lair. So are we to assume he actually sold the lair to Spratt? His job also done, Death’s Head makes his way to the office and finds chaos has ensued, although Spratt seems somewhat subdued and not showing off for once. Of course, our mechanoid friend can always turn a situation around when money is concerned and our story ends.

On the next page a somewhat tacked on cliffhanger has The Undertaker hiring someone called Big Shot, a muscly man with a big gun. I can’t help but be a little underwhelmed with this after last month’s ending. Surely having a plague dog lying in wait was the more dramatic cliffhanger. I’m aware I haven’t read the next issue to see how good this guy is with his gun, but I feel this is a bit of a muted ending by comparison and the two should’ve been the other way around.

Head to Head is the comic’s new letters page and there’s an anonymous letter from my home city of Belfast. Although, if this person had actually read Death’s Head’s adventures in Transformers and properly understood them I don’t see how they could think he’s commonly seen as a full-blown villain. Not too sure who “Bob” is that the first letter is addressed to (Richard Starkings is the editor and Jenny O’Connor the Managing Editor) but there’s definitely a lot of high praise here and I agree with it all.

I just wish Lierne Elliot had been right when he said “seems we have a hit here”. Of course, it may have seemed that way at the time, especially since this was a comic based on a very popular character from another Marvel UK title, but alas the sales figures wouldn’t be good enough to make up for the cost of producing the comic, as Richard explained to me in the introductory post to this series.

But let’s not dwell on that, we’ve another six months of this to go!

On the back page is an advertisement for a new fortnightly Marvel comic that would never actually appear. The William Tell TV series was apparently shown on ITV, although I don’t ever remember seeing it advertised. There’s a chance it either wasn’t broadcast on Northern Ireland’s UTV or it didn’t last long before ITV pulled the plug, despite it running for three seasons of 72 30-minute episodes in France and elsewhere, where it was known as Crossbow.

I remember this comic advert alerting me to the TV series and yet I still never caught it in any TV listings magazines. Marvel’s confidence must’ve been knocked as the plan for a fortnightly changed to a Summer Special, an annual and a run of strips in the Marvel Bumper Comic, plus a collected graphic novel, the strips for all of these already created for the defunct fortnightly. This is why I think the show must’ve failed to pick up viewers here in the UK, as Marvel suddenly realised the audience wasn’t there for what they’d assumed was going to be a hit.

You just might see some of it on the blog at some point though, as the Bumper Comic is on the cards for the future, I just don’t know when yet, but you heard it hear first! (As if you’d hear it anywhere else.) For now, that’s us finished with another outing for Death’s Head… well, really more of an outing for Spratt this month. We return to Earth of the far future on Monday 4th March 2024.

iSSUE THREE < > iSSUE FiVE

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Comic Reviews, Dragon's Claws

DRAGON’S CLAWS #9: OOH, MATRON!

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Last month there was a feeling this fantastic comic was shifting gears towards a suddenly imposed ending, which with hindsight we know is coming in #10. At the very end of this penultimate issue of Dragon’s Claws it feels like there’s a rush to finish it all off before the unfortunate cancellation. For the majority of the strip however this isn’t obvious and it’s another belter of a chapter with these sadly short-lived characters.

The issue’s FastFax, normally a way of adding depth to the world in which the comic resides or hinting about future storylines or guest characters, is a more straightforward ‘Story So Far’ page like we’d get in other comics. While the fictional news service would obviously focus on the events in N.U.R.S.E.’s headquarters, it adds to the feeling of the title wrapping things up, when I was so used to this page being used as a way of looking forward. A sad reminder the end is nearly here.

The strip itself is called Treatment and the main focus is Matron’s capture of both Dragon and The Evil Dead’s leader Slaughterhouse. All three of them are linked up to a mind control machine Matron uses as a way of accessing their memories, then torturing them with those same memories. Yes, it’d be much easier to just kill them both and she mentions this at one point, but like all the best James Bond villains she wants to have her fun first.

She’s completely confident in her success and feels the destruction of both teams and the deaths of Deller and Golding are inevitable, so she wants to drag it out and savour it as much as possible. Despite an underwhelming cliffhanger involving Matron last month, the character is superbly written by Simon Furman here, her psychotic nature making me wish we’d seen more of her all along.

We get to see inside the minds of both team leaders, with Dragon being made to watch as his wife Tanya and son Michael confront him before being killed by Deller, which as we know didn’t happen despite Matron’s orders. In fact, I’m assuming their arc will be the final part of the story to get wrapped up next time. In a particularly dark and shocking scene Deller shoots and kills the young boy! We see the shot and then his dead body on the ground in the next panel!

It’s all rather harrowing for a Marvel UK title young Transformers fans may have been collecting after it was heavily promoted in that comic. Outside of his mind we see Dragon curled up and crying desperately, his own insecurities around the ones he loves leading to that scene playing out in his mind, Matron merely triggering them rather than forcing the scenario. At this point I was intrigued as to what resided in Slaughterhouse’s mind!

But first we head back down the building to catch up with the rest of the characters. Matron has seen on her screens that Stenson is dead, The Evil Dead and Dragon’s Claws are about to decimate each other’s ranks and World Development Council ambassador Golding and Deller are trapped in a burning room dozens of floors up from the ground. No wonder she’s confident.

For the unlikely pairing of Golding and Deller there’s only one option for escape, and that’s out the window and back in again to a different room. There’s a pole sticking out from the building which Deller can use to swing out and back in again through another window, then break down the locked door to get Golding out. But first he must overcome his fear of heights!

This is something that hasn’t cropped up before simply because the story has never put him in such a position. It adds drama to a sequence that plays out over a few pages scattered throughout the rest of the issue. In fact, we come back a few pages later to see he’s frozen to the spot and it’s Golding who encourages him to take the leap, to believe in himself after all the humiliation he’s faced in previous issues (albeit by screaming at him).

There’s a definite theme this issue of people from all sorts of backgrounds and from completely different sides coming together to fight a greater enemy. An enemy that’s using them all, that’s creating division and fomenting hatred to turn the populace against each other for their own selfish needs. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Dragon’s Claws could easily be released today and be just as relevant, if not more so than it was in the 80s.

Death Nell and Steel’s romantic history gives the story an opening to bring the two teams together to launch a united frontal assault on the upper floors of the building where the majority of security has amassed to protect Matron. As a reader you know it’s coming, even as the opposing sides continue to fight, Mercy in particular sticking the boot in. (Boom, boom!)

On a side note, I was surprised to read Nell saying, “Wise Up!” because as far as my friends and I were concerned this was always a Northern Ireland phrase. Indeed, when I used it myself in Scotland with some friends there in my teenage years it completely confused them. Perhaps we were wrong, but most likely it’s just a coincidence and wasn’t known to be a popular phrase in this part of the UK.

It’s at this point we finally get a look into the mind of Slaughterhouse. I was really looking forward to this and Simon doesn’t disappoint. His memories start off hard with an abusive father hitting him with a baseball bat because Slaughterhouse’s own mum died during child birth. Damn, this goes dark. This was enough to lead him to a life of crime, then once captured the corrupt government experimented on him in return for reducing his sentence.

The side effects included his pointed teeth, his skin colour and blood red eyes and Slaughterhouse, who was very much the victim of his life’s circumstances, couldn’t handle it and he turned on the whole world, the world that had beaten him down so cruelly time and again. But his mind was lost by this stage and he began killing people, seeing everyone as an imaginary enemy, and within just a couple of pages Slaughterhouse’s entire origin story is told.

“We do this my way!”
“The weak way… the stupid way!”
“Let’s just kill ’em!”
“Try it, curly!”

Dragon’s Claws and The Evil Dead

We can only guess if it would’ve been told at this stage (or so quickly) had the comic not been cancelled but somehow it doesn’t feel rushed. In fact, it just makes me lament the fact we can’t see more character development for him now that we (and Dragon) know the truth. The whole chapter is a great piece for both leads. Dragon’s own insecurities while leading his team and in his position in the world could’ve made for a wonderfully deep character too.

As the Claws and The Evil Dead make an uneasy alliance to take down N.U.R.S.E. and rescue their respective leaders, the two men’s minds are thrown into a climactic final battle, one which Matron fully expects will mentally tear them apart, leaving them gibbering wrecks and essentially dead. But she hasn’t reckoned on the power of said minds. Dragon slowly realises he’s in his old Game uniform and tries to convince Slaughterhouse it’s all fake.

He does so through reasoning. Yes, they’re physically fighting of course, we have to have our action in an action comic, but they come to realise they’re flip sides of the same coin, that they both do what they do because they believe in it, they’ve both been manipulated into becoming what they are and they agree giving in now would be the easy way out. But they don’t do easy. For once the hardest thing to do isn’t to fight each other, it’s to work together and they turn their minds on Matron’s.

They start to take her mind down in another physical battle but we’re inside her thoughts now so she’s all-powerful and the two men have to fight side-by-side if they’re to survive. Dragon only wants her beaten, so she can face justice for her crimes in the real world, but Slaughterhouse can’t stop himself. His thirst for revenge is too much and inside the mind machine he slits her throat just as Nell does so to her physical body.

It’s a shock ending but then it all kind of deflates on the next page, the final one of the strip. In just five panels we get a lot of exposition and explanations about what takes place next instead of actually seeing anything. The Evil Dead are let go, Dragon knowing they could never work together, Deller is somewhat redeemed in his own eyes, the team decide what they’re going to do now their employer is no more… a lot happens ‘off-screen’, dealt with through a very quick conversation between the team.

I understand the next issue is the last and it’ll most likely wrap things up for the Dragon family’s arc, but so many other important story arcs just seem discarded far too easily, like one of those final scenes you’d see at the end of an old 80s cartoon. To be clear, it’s only disappointing because of the quality of what came before, not just in this exciting chapter but in the whole run up to now.

The team should be incredibly proud of this chapter though. Writer Simon Furman, artist Geoff Senior, colourist Steve White and editor Richard Starkings are to be congratulated. What the final page lacks is what the other 21 pages do superbly, quickly wrapping up as much of the main story as possible without feeling rushed. Which is why page 24 feels so unlike what we’ve come to expect.

To round off this penultimate review is Digit’s fact-file and more interesting tidbits of information on Dragon’s teammate that would’ve been elaborated on in future issues. These include the fact he’s Scottish, a missing amount of time in his life and just how stable/unstable he actually is. I bet his lost memories would’ve made for some great stories. Instead, we must say goodbye. That’ll happen a little over a month from now. The final issue didn’t go on sale the same day as Death’s Head for the first time, instead it appeared a week later. So watch out for the review of #10 of Dragon’s Claws on Monday 11th March 2024.

iSSUE EiGHT < > iSSUE TEN

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Comic Reviews, Death's Head

DEATH’S HEAD #3: DEADLY FUNNY

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Alongside Dragon’s Claws #8 the first week of 1989 (and 2024) brought us the third issue of Death’s Head and, while the story inside may be light on plot, it’s aim is to establish the relationship between our mechanoid friend and Spratt. Spratt was the young fella who rebuilt the Freelance Peace-Keeping Agent in #1 after he was nearly destroyed by Dragon and his team, and it seems he’s determined to help Death’s Head navigate this era on Earth, as well as balance his books so he’s never left broke again.

We kick off with this scene setting display below. There’s nothing quite like a good old 80s dystopian future, is there? Mass consumerism, unhealthy food, sex and violence may seem like a clichéd way of depicting the future but it was created in the late 80s and this style was very much in vogue, pencilled by Bryan Hitch, inked by Dave Hine and lettered by Annie Halfacree. Even the basic way in which it’s coloured by Nick Abadzis adds to the overall feeling of grime in the Los Angeles Resettlement. (Resettled why?)

Tracking down a man for information on his target, Death’s Head follows him into a packed club where he uses non-lethal projectiles in the crowded space. Aimed with precision, they end up only affecting the one person. Whether this is because he didn’t want to harm innocents or because he only injures/kills those he’s paid to do so (see his rules in #1) is up to the reader to decide. Once outside for interrogation things take a turn for the worse.

The target grabs Spratt and Death’s Head instantly regrets letting the kid tag along. However, the man makes one big mistake. Spratt tries to tell him this, that he’s made a bad move and the man argues back that he can’t be killed while holding a hostage, so it’s clearly a good move. But this wasn’t what Spratt was referring to. No, in the heat of the moment the man had called our main character a bounty hunter! Oh dear. This leads on to this page below.

This is just the first of several laugh-out-loud moments in this issue and it’s clear writer Simon Furman intends to bring as much comedy as possible to this comic, certainly a lot more than in Dragon’s Claws anyway. They get the information they need but Death’s Head is warned he’ll be no match for his objective, a person named Ogrus, especially if he takes the kid along.

Death’s Head can’t help but agree. While he appreciates Spratt’s help in doing things he’d find difficult, like blending in or stealing a car for example, and he’s good at the accountancy stuff, he’s far too keen to impress and prove himself. As such, Death’s Head inwardly questions why he let him come along in the first place and we get a brilliant flashback to a transport vehicle skimming over the Atlantic Ocean a few days prior.

On board, a hostage situation had kicked off and in the end it was Spratt who had saved the day, albeit in an overly flamboyant way involving an automated rubbish cart, some acrobatics and a lot of showing off. However, what’s so funny about this scene to me is seeing Death’s Head, after everything he went through in Transformers, doing normal things like complaining about the food, or just sitting there watching the whole situation unfold with interest. Maybe it’s just me but I was giggling along to all of this.

There’s some hilarious chemistry between these two already and despite the title character’s protestations he still takes his new recruit to the rendezvous in a rough looking bar and casino. Now remember, this comic was created in the 1980s, the characters have just walked into a bar full of dodgy criminals, the main character is a no-nonsense individual looking for one certain person and has no interest in anyone else there. You know what this means, don’t you? Yup, that’s right, a massive bar brawl.

There are some knowing nods here to this sort of thing inexplicably breaking out in the movies of the day, when one or two punches from people in the foreground somehow leads to everyone in the background laying into each other. Here, it begins with Death’s Head taking out one person who had innocently said something to a dealer at the casino, knowing full well what it would cause, thus allowing him to simply walk up to his target in the middle of the chaos, unchallenged.

The little bits of dialogue on the second page make it feel almost like a spoof of those movie scenes, especially the one about someone’s mother. Outside, Spratt has been ordered to stay in the car he stole (that was graciously received by the Peace-Keeping Agent), but Spratt knows Death’s Head will be outnumbered and can’t help throwing himself in to help. Crashing the vehicle through the casino wall and shouting at everyone to freeze, his diminutive frame leads to nothing but uproariuous laughter. He’s not down and out yet though.

Climbing into a position above Death’s Head’s fight with the mark he questions whether he should get involved or not, tossing a coin to decide. By now it should be clear to the reader that anything Spratt sets out to do will not normally have the intended outcome. Here, he can’t even make the decision to get involved or not without something happening, albeit this time it’s one that distracts Ogrus enough for Death’s Head to start turning the tide of the fight he was clearly losing.

A quick gag or two from the mechanoid and he’s back on top again and a final one-two from the both of them together (Spratt jumping feet first into Orgus’ back as Death’s Head punches him in the stomach) and the battle is won, the contract complete. We close off this chapter’s main story with Spratt joyous that he actually helped and some reluctant praise is even thrown his way.

The “Partners/Don’t push it” exchange perfectly sums up the strange working relationship these two seem to have. Spratt is all in and as far as he’s concerned they’re already partners, he’s just clamouring for confirmation and a rhetorical pat on the back, especially from someone of Death’s Head stature. The fact his apparent partner is so dead pan and doesn’t show emotion easily is just another challenge for Spratt, which makes him even keener.

Death’s Head on the other hand finds Spratt annoying. He gets in the way. He’s too keen. He even wants conversation! Death’s Head would rather continue to work on his own. But he can’t deny the kid has helped with his money problems and has been a good guide to this strange time in Earth’s future, both things he promised he’d help with. Plus, he can get into places inconspicuously, something Death’s Head can’t do. Well, in theory Spratt can, but his wish to show off can hamper that somewhat.

It was only upon finishing it that I realised the plot was so simple, I’d just been swept along with these characters

As the duo walk off with their client’s trophy we turn the page and find ourselves “Elsewhere”. In that final panel above Spratt makes a throwaway comment that he’s managed to secure a new office (since Death’s Head’s previous one is thousands of years in the past), spending their money before they’d even earned it. Well it seems that’s where “Elsewhere” is.

Poor Spratt. His heart was in the right place, but not only has he spent Death’s Head’s reward money, it looks like even this good-intentioned gesture will come back to haunt him too. Poor kid can’t catch a break. Hopefully next month’s story will pick this mystery up as its main thread.

This third issue may be very light on plot but as I said above that wasn’t the point. The point was to establish this (very) unlikely pair as a working partnership. Having the plot as just another simple contract for Death’s Head and using this to show how enjoyable that can be with the two of them working side-by-side was a brilliant idea. It was only upon finishing it that I realised the actual plot was so simple, I’d just been swept along with these characters. I look forward to more sweeping on Sunday 4th February 2024.

iSSUE TWO < > iSSUE FOUR

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