loki wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 4:11 pmAnd having just written that, I can't help but wonder if the REVWAR writers actually did intend to have Tuck's actions create a divergent version of DH who didn't get absorbed into Minion, thus allowing them to use both versions as contemporaries in future.
Mebbe, but we haven't seen any follow-up to that, so
loki wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 4:11 pmIn terms of placing the other appearances:
DWHOMAG 173 - human-size, classic design
He also had his TVA time cycle - it's visible outside the bar in IDH:
http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix8/maruthea.htm#tva
So that would place the DH inside the bar from around the same time as FF338.
Well, in FF 338, he's riding the time bike and working for the TVA. He gets knocked out of the time when his bike gets hit by one of the Kangs and doesn't appear again in the arc. In SENSH 24, he has a damaged time bike he stole from the TVA. The implicit conclusion is that he doesn't go back to the TVA after FF 338, but just keeps the bike-as is. If we accept this (which I think we should *unless* another story forces otherwise), he shouldn't work for the TVA after FF 338.
Okay, so basic principles here from the 80s/90s stories:
1) Per DH 1 and IDH, Scarvix was his first memories "learning the basic tricks of the business". In other words, nothing where he's Death's Head can go before DH 1-FB & HNT, yes?
2) The archive in IDH is thankfully vague about what happens between the above and Transformers - it at least implies that he went straight from Scarvix to the TRUK universe and was enlarged
there, but (partly because of rights issues, I expect) it skims over most of that. The Doctor claims responsiblity at the end for sending him into "the robot universe", but not the rest (incidentally, it looks a lot like he does that, for him, AFTER he first meets him at the Crossroads of Time, but luckily we don't need to bother with that, huh?).
3) The whole sequence between the Crossroads of Time and Body in Question (taking in Dragon's Claws & his ten-issue series, and the epilogue L&TDH-VO) is tight enough that we shouldn't put stories in there unless they actually and explicitly take place during that time, not least since we don't need to - there's a big, open gap after that.
4) Sensational She-Hulk #24 is after he last works with the TVA, and steals a time bike on the way out. It's also "one of his last visits to Earth" before he's killed and absorbed by Minion in DHII, so it should stay close to DHII 1 regardless of what else we do.
Also, Avenging Spider-Man 17 (AVENGSM 17). Oh boy. First, within the parameters of artist variations, he's in his classic look and wearing the costume he got back in DH 1, so after that. [Side-note: This is Spider-Ock, but he recognises Death's Head based on a previous encounter Parker had with him?] He's been hired by the TVA, no time bike. Spider-Ock then knocks DH's head off. Unlike when IM2020 did the same thing [apparently he does not retain control of his body?). Oborus (the TVA guy) immediately shouts "pull Death's Head from an earlier point in the timestream... minus 425.37" and the earlier DH notes that this is "another bounty for the TVA", so he's worked for them before. Spider-Ock then knocks the earlier version out of the window. After everything is resolved, both DHs remain in the timeframe, but the TVA "assume a correction was made" and he's gone - the earlier one picks himself up off the street, the later head complains about being left lying on the floor when everyone left.
I mean, the simplest resolution to this is "assume the 'young' DH fixes up the 'older' model, then immediately gets grabbed by the TVA to become the older model and get his head knocked off." And then the "older" one sticks around in the present-day to appear in UX SPEC, BB 3, ICDWN:DHAWK, the 2019 DH mini, etc?