Think about it... Three bad-ass bounty hunters, one galaxy not big enough for the three of them... Who would win, why and how?

 

Uh...

 

Death's Head, because he can hold his own against Galvatron's strongest incarnation.

 

Hell, he single handedly did well against Unicron too and with help he even beat the chaos bringer. Don't know if his insanely high power level was kept up in his solo comics with out killing the suspense in them.

 

He was shrunk and flung into the far future, where he was blown up and rebuilt into an upgraded body. DH's ongoing was an action comedy. He didn't get too bashed up until he fought Lupex in his series finale.

 

Action comedy sounds like a good route to take him in, as it seems like they made life difficult for themselves in writing overly serious stories by making the central character so powerful. Maybe I will get round to reading them one day.

 

I found it kind of annoying as a child that this character, Death´s Head, would come out of nowhere, be given such a central role and completely dominate the whole Transformers cast. He basically made them all, even Unicron, look like wimps. I got especially annoyed when he killed Shockwave seemingly without breaking sweat. Who was this character who didn´t have a toy or wasn´t even a Transformer to best the very characters the comic was supposed to be about? Having that said, I still enjoyed the comics, though...

 

Death's Head. He went toe-to-toe with some of TF's biggest hitters and came away alive. Even Unicron was surprised at his skills. His business is besting others in various ways and he knows his business inside and out.

Lockdown would be the closest to DH in all-round threat, but then Lockdown was based on DH so that's no suprise. Lockdown is Death's Head lite.

It would depend on the fight though. If DH was hired to kill the other guys he would do it no problem. If it's not worth his financial effort though DH would probably just skip the fight if possible. He wouldn't bother going at it just for a worthless matter of pride, unless perhaps it might damage his business image to prospective customers. At the very least he'd just sit back and let the other guys beat each other down and then come in and finish them both off just to remove any competition to his business.

 

Hmm... According to this (second paragraph)...

Lockdown (Animated) - Transformers Wiki

...Lockdown is NOT based on Death´s Head? Although the name of his ship is a clear homage  

 

Nowadays, I think of Death's Head as a kind of proto-Deadpool: a spoofy, parodic figure who embodied a reader's wish-fulfillment. He was ahead of his time.

Anyway, the answer to the original question is clearly Boba Fett.

 

That's probably what I was thinking about. But despite what Wyatt says I honestly can't believe Lockdown (his look at the very least) wasn't based on or inspired by Death's Head. Maybe Wyatt was worried Marvel would come sniffing around for cash if he said it was based off Death's Head in any way.
Conspiracy nut, moi? Perhaps. Just my personal opinion? Yusly.

 

Come to think of it, it doesn´t sound all too far-fetched...

 

I think the idea of a "morally ambiguous" bounty hunter, who is generally more often an enemy than an ally, is what's got you comparing the two, since other than Devcon (and if we simplify the criteria to just "mercenary" we can include E-hobby Detritus) there aren't really many bounty hunting professionals in the TF pantheon of characters.

That said, I am with you that Lockdown does have more than a passing resemblance to DH, especially the face being a somewhat deformed skull-like countenance and of course the spikes all over them.

However, I don't think he was meant to actually BE another Death's Head, since Hasbro didn't (and AFAIK still doesn't) have the rights to him at all, as Marvel still has those, and as Lockdown's backstory has him being an Autobot traitor the more traditional "compound noun" name pattern would be a better fit (both for the character and on the toy packaging). This is also supported by the early alpha-stage concept art, where Lockdown was much more of an abomination in appearance with Hulk-like size and his body being much more non-symmetrical (with a pair of extra abdomen arms!), only for that to be refined significantly as to make the 'Frankenstein' aspect of his self-modifications much more subtle and of course actually be a toy put through mass production.

 

There are just too many similarities between them... not just the "amoral bounty-hunter" archetype, but certain aspects of their design as well. Lockdown has clearly become his own character with his own quirks, but nothing is going to convince me that he didn't start out as an homage to Death's Head... no matter what stories are maintained for legal protection reasons.  

zmog

 

I don't know. The similarities between the characters have been brought up multiple times (even the Animated Allspark Almanac retroactively gave Lockdown's ship the name 'Death's Head' with the creators agreeing), but the initial character description asked for 'a bounty hunter who adds parts/upgrades to his own body', resulting in this original concept:

http://www.oafe.net/yo/art/tfan_ld4.png


I'd say that's actually more removed from Death's Head than the final Lockdown design - although I'd love it if they were intentionally homaging Death's Head from the get-go.  

 

Link ain't working...  

Even that description for the bounty hunter sounds potentially like Death's Head (particularly his optional arm units). Then there's the skull-motif, the heavy triangluar jaw, stuff like that... I mean, for anyone who knows Transformers, it's hard not to nod to Death's Head in that context.

zmog

 

I'll say Death's Head. He looks to be the scariest

 

How about this one? Straight from the (design) source, not sure why I didn't think of it before:
A Delightful Tedium: The Evolution of Lockdown

Again, whether the comparison to Death's Head is intentional or not, it's still sort of fricking awesome   But it does sound unintended.

or maybe somebody should give Marty Isenberg a call? (or the person who came up with the concept, maybe it's from Transformers: Heroes?)



Agh, Marvel should just give the rights to the character to Hasbro/IDW (haha if only). Let Simon Furman get his hands on his creation again...or even better: James Roberts! Surely there's room for multiple bounty hunters, yes?

 

Oh yeah, I've seen that one before. The cynic in me still suspects that stepping around directly speaking of Death's Head is legal consideration. The fact that Wyatt started with a Frankenstein, but was then asked to scale it back into a more refined bounty hunter type makes me think that DH was on their minds when they dreamed up Lockdown.

Well yeah. They occupy more or less the same role, though Lockdown has gotten a lot more integration, and will probably continue to be developed now that he's appearing in TF4.

Totally. As much as I get a kick from seeing him appear in the Marvel Universe as a 30ft tall space mechanoid, I'd still like to see him pop up in Transformers again.

I totally want Marvel to give us a more retro, 7" Marvel Legends Death's Head... we need that for our collections!  

zmog

 

Cybertron Crosswise.  

But in all honesty, I'd root for Lockdown.