The Body in Question (comic story)

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You may be looking for The Bo(d)y in Question, the first part of Clone Drive.

The Body in Question was a standalone Death's Head comic story published in 1990 as a graphic novel by Marvel UK. A sequel to Death's Head's adventure in his own comic series, where he had encountered the Seventh Doctor, it featured a direct reference to the robot's encounter with the Time Lord, as well as an appearance by Keepsake's vulture.

Summary

Still stuck in 2020 New York City, "freelance peacekeeping agent" Death's Head is set to wondering if he really is just another bloodthirsty killer, rather than the collected, prosocial sort of bounty hunter he prides himself on being. Those concerns come to a head when an unexpected reunion with his companions Spratt and the vulture is compounded with an attack from rabid fellow merc Big Shot, who wants revenge not only for himself, but on behalf of a mysterious woman who claims to be Death's Head's vengeful wife.

After nearly being killed, Death's Head is transported to the occult pocket dimension of Styrakos, where he learns about his true origins as an android body created as a vessel for his own essence by the warlock and hunter, Ty Rejutka Lupex, his "father"; the woman who has been hunting him through Big Shot is none other than his "mother", Pyra, Lupex's rebellious consort, who seems to wrongly believe that Lupex had already succeeded in transferring his mind into the robot despite her efforts to thwart Lupex by giving the body a mind of its own.

In the ensuing hunt across the hostile landscape of Styrakos, Death's Head bests his ravenous creator, keeping his cool and his wits about himself instead of giving in to rage and personal thirst for vengeance. Revealing herself and returning him to New York and his friends, Pyra congratulates him on his independence, explaining that she actually knew the truth all along, and pretending to hunt him was only a ruse to keep Lupex off the scent. Seemingly at peace with everything he's learned (and uninterested in uncovering the identity of the person who really stole him from Lupex, as it wasn't Pyra after all), he acknowledges Pyra as his mother in earnest and they part on good terms, much to Spratt's srprise.

Plot

Prologue

The end of the hunt.

In an alien jungle, part of "a place that is not a place, a time where time has no meaning", a man is running from a mysterious, hunting figure. Though he encounters spikers, he pushes past them, trying to get to the City — only to fall off the edge of a cliff the spikers concealed and into an acidic pool, where he is easy prey for his hunter, who declares that the hunt has been "satisfying", though not exceptional. The hunter, whose silhouette is conspicuously similar to Death's Head, shrugs off his quarry's attempt to shoot him with a blaster, declaring that at this point in space-time, "techno" will not work — only "majik". Calling on the latter power, the hunter seems to suck out the victim's life-force, leaving behind a smoking husk, before going on his way.

Book One: Hunters

Spratt meets Pyra.

In 2020 New York City, the familiar Death's Head is fulfilling his usual duties as a bounty hunter, easily capturing a lowlife called Rogan (who was trying to make a getaway in a hotwired car) and calmly making fun of him as he tosses him around. However, just as the man seems beaten, he manages to surprise Death's Head with an electric shock to the face from a device he had concealed in his cloak, the Lectronux. Rogan lures Death's Head onto the roof, where their confrontation is broken up by a police officer, whom Rogan has called on Death's Head, describing him as a murderous maniac. Although Death's Head soon identifies his quarry as the wanted criminal Elo Rogan, this is enough for Rogan to knock the man out with the Lectronux and escapes on the felled officer's hover-bike.

Rogan's preliminary thoughts on where to hole up until the heat dies down turn out to be premature, however, as Death's Head turns out to be able to fly thanks to his rocket-boots, pulling the hover-bike down and causing them both to crash. Catching sight of a woman, Rogan makes to take her as a hostage; unwilling to allow innocent bystanders to get killed (though, he claims, only because "the local law will get heavy with [him]" if that happens), Death's Head gives up on capturing Rogan alive and shoots him through the chest. To his surprise, the woman is horrified at the sight of Rogan's corpse, and berates Death's Head for "hunting him for sport like an animal", instead of thanking him for potentially saving her. Death's Head is perturbed by the accusations. Already walking off, the "freelance peacekeeping agent" fails to see the police arresting the woman as well, having identified her as Acid Alice, a former accomplice of Rogan's.

Left behind in 8162 in the Los Angeles Resettlement, Death's Head self-declared partner Spratt — whom the robot is most certainly not missing in the 21st century — is waiting on a pier at midnight to meet a mysterious woman who called on the phone, asking to see her "lover", Death's Head. Not even knowing where Death's Head has disappeared to, Spratt elected to act as if nothing was amiss, hoping to explain the problem to her in person when she shows up. His tense waiting is interrupted by the appearance of Keepsake's vulture, ever eager to upstage his humanoid rival as Death's Head official partner. Just then, the expected woman arrives, declaring herself to be the wife of Death's Head and angrily demanding to know where he is. She introduces herself as the Nightweaver an the Shadowsiren, controlling shadows to bind Spratt as she explains that she has come to vengeance and demands that he lead her to Death's Head — or, as she better knows him, Ty Rejutka Lupex. Reading his mind, she finds that he really doesn't know anything, and is ready to let her shadows kill him when he is unexpectedly rescued by Big Shot, one of Death's Head's rival mercenaries, who has been shadowing Spratt, intent on using him to find Death's Head.

While the two fight, Spratt remote-controls the DHII, his and Death's Head spacecraft, to rise out of the water where he' concealed it. As he makes his escape, Spratt curses Death's Head for his absence, exclaiming: "So help me, if you've skipped out through time again, I'll kill you myself!". The Nightweaver overhears this, and realises Spratt must be right: her quarry must be in another timezone. As Spratt's ship takes off with a flying Big Shot in pursuit, the alien woman uses her magic to create a time portal for both to fly through, hoping Big Shot will find Death's Head and kill him for her.

Book Two: Mirror

Spratt and the vulture stare in shock as Big Shot apparently fells Death's Head.

In a nightmarish pocket universe, the Death's Head-like figure of Ty Rejutka Lupex is remotely observing the woman, whom he identifies as Pyra. It becomes clear that he is the true target of her revenge, and is well aware of her plot against him — but he is letting her act because he too wishes for the real Death's Head to be located, so that he can steal his body.

In 2020 New York, Spratt, the DHII and Big Shot all crash-land in front of a baffled Death's Head. As soon as he gets a handle on the situation, the irritated mechanoid complains that it's "not fair", and acts judgemental of Big Shot's revenge-based motivation, which he thinks gives bounty hunters a bad name. Battle soon ensues, with Spratt and the vulture urging Death's Head to vengeance from the sidelines, but as the fight progresses between the two bounty hunters, Death's Head gets increasingly angry at Big Shot's declarations that they are the same and Death's Head is as motivated by personal emotions and bloodlust as he is. Big Shot also lets slip that he is now working for a certain woman; unfortunately, his confusion is precisely the opening Big Shot needed to get a hit in, and the human mercenary manages to land a devastating blow to Death's Head face, damaging his circuitry. On the edge of death, Death's Head suddenly has a flashback to a repressed memory of his creation, and remembers that the woman was present as he was assembled.

Before he can deliver the killing blow, Big Shot is stopped by Pyra herself, who hesitates when asked why she stopped him from killing her supposed husband, replying after a moment that she simply wishes to enjoy his "death-moment" herself. She addresses him as Lupex, but before she can kill him or he can clarify, he finds himself transducted into the pocket universe by Lupex, who reveals his identity to him. Without even knowing why, a baffled Death's Head addresses him as "dad".

Book Three: Hunted

Death's Head is hunted by his dark double and forebear, Ty Rejutka Lupex.

In a flash-forward, Death's Head is being hunted across Lupex's world like the man was at the beginning, with Lupex rejoicing in the exceptional hunt, but also eager to succeed so as to transfer his essence into Death's Head's body. One of the unpredictable changes in the nature of the world, which switches a zone from running on "techno" to running on "majik", buys him a reprieve as Lupex's technological weapon stops working mid-attack, but the mad hunter gleefully declares himself a "master of both" and quickly switches gears to a magical attack. Having managed to escape for now, Death's Head reflects on his predicament, reassuring himself that Lupex is the kind of hunter he must not let himself become — and "if this is [his] dark side, then [he] must crush it".

Trying to act more intelligently than his opponent, Death's Head thinks back to what Lupex explained to him before the hunt began. He explains that he became the uncontested master of this world, Styrakos, and its strange, inimical energies of techno and majik. As his mortal body decayed from the strain of holding so much power, Lupex learned to transfer his essence into new vessels, but as his power grew, his mortal vessels burnt out faster and faster, until he decided to craft himself an indestructible robotic body patterned afte rhis distinctive armour: Death's Head. Lupex previously believed that Pyra, his deceitful lover, against whom he had already taken revenge for a past offence, was the one who had given the android body a mind of its own and helped it escape into another dimension as Death's Head — although Pyra's apparent belief that Lupex had indeed transplanted his mind into the robot, and himself adopted the identity of the bounty hunter Death's Head, leads him to revise this theory, and wonder who really stole the android all those years ago.

Their discussion ended when Death's Head tried to attack his "father" from behind — only for Death's Head gun to fail, revealing to him the peculiar nature of the Styrakan Zones, where the powers of technology and sorcery alternate at random, with the two never "working" at once in a given Zone. Thinking back to Lupex's claim that even he could not predict the switches, however, Death's Head realises that his high-tech body, completely rebuilt in 8162 based on principles Lupex cannot even understand, might be capable of uncovering patterns which eluded his creator. Though at the end of his rope, Death's Head manages to lure Lupex into a zone which his onboard computer calculates is about to switch from "majik" to "techno", and, when Lupex fails to effect the transfer, fatally stabs him. Though he considers drawing out the wounded man's death, Death's Head decides against it, feeling that he would be giving up to the very instincts he loathes within his "father"; instead, he grants him a quick death, though not without a final quip. His "wicked sense of humour" is congratulated by a suddenly-appearing Pyra, who commends him for having "turned out better than [even she] dared hope".

Returning the two of them to 2020, where he finds Big Shot downed, and his companions Spratt and the vulture mesmerised but unharmed, Pyra elects to tell Death's Head the full story of his creation. As Lupex had told him, Pyra became his consort purely to steal his secrets, studying magic with his pet spirits the Vukils in his absence. However, she found it "necessary" to take a handsome lover, Klu, to distract herself from her repulsive husband of convenience. After discovering the affair, Lupex not only killed Klu but, wishing to "teach [Pyra] a lesson", possessed his body. To get revenge on him, she reprogrammed the robot body he was constructing, giving it a "highly independent" personality and a "a clinical, business-like approach to death" which she hoped would drive him to rebel against his creator and kill him when Lupex tried to effect the transfer. However, before this could occur, he was stolen — and even Pyra never found out by whom or why. Her ruse of pretending to believe the transfer had already happened was the only means she found of engineering the delayed confrontation without arousing Lupex's suspicion.

Having finished her tale, Pyra leaves, telling Death's Head to enjoy his freedom, which he has earned fair and square. Spratt is surprised that Death's Head isn't moved to fight her in anger at being used as the instrument of her revenge, but Death's Head replies mildly that there would be "no profit" in killing her — then adds that he rather likes her, acknowledging her as his mother in earnest to Spratt's surprise.

Characters

Mentioned only

Worldbuilding

  • Elo Rogan tries to call Death's Head a "sick, mother-loving son of a bit—" but fails to finish the expletive due to his body being flung against the nearest available car by the object of the insult.
  • The Nightweaver refers to Spratt and Keepsake's vulture as lesser lifeforms.
  • Ty Rejutka Lupex's world is described as one of many "worlds a stilled heart-beat from our own; dark places that breed the stuff of nightmares". The narration further claims that "we touch them every day — the dark shape glimpsed from the corner an eye the involuntary shiver" but that most "close [their] minds" rather than face their reality.
  • As Lupex begins to disintegrate, Death's Head quips: "Rest in pieces, yes? Or a farewell to arms, perhaps?", then, as Lupex fails to reply, scoffs: "Tsk — no literary appreciation, some people!".

Notes

Cover of the The Body in Question graphic novel, depicting Death's Head, Pyra and Ty Rejutka Lupex in Styrakos.

Continuity

Continuity to non-covered sources

External links

v • e
Death's Head stories
Doctor Who Magazine
Death's Head (1988)
The Incomplete
Death's Head
Other
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