Death's Head to appear in the pages of Iron Man

Long time readers might remember that a couple of years back there was a Marvel series by the name of S.W.O.R.D. It was a spin-off from Joss Whedon's 'Astonishing X-Men' centring on the organisation of the same name from that run, kind of like a cosmic version of S.H.I.E.L.D. It was written by Kieron Gillen, with art from Steve Sanders, and I had a lot of time for it as a series.

For all 5 issues it lasted, anyway.

Yeah, it was during *that* period of Marvel.

It was a lot of fun. I'm a fan of Beast and Agent Brand, so it was a no brainier for me. But the real thing hitch sealed the deal for me was that it featured none other than Marvel UK's very own Death's Head.

And not just *any* version of Death's Head. This was a pre-Transformers appearance. The guy was still HUGE.

Well, since the days of SWORD Kieron Gillen has gone on to have a fair bit of success on higher profile titles at Marvel, with runs on Thor and Uncanny X-Men, and my particular favourite, his run writing Kid Loki in Journey into Mystery.

As of Marvel's big new relaunch 'Marvel NOW' he's taken the reigns on the relaunch of Iron Man, with Greg Land on art, which came out last week. I enjoyed the first issue a lot, and was looking forward to the book anyway. But then I saw this...

Well, I guess I'm doubly sold now!

Great to hear that Marvel's finest Freelance Peace-keeping agent will be appearing on such a high profile title, too. I mean that's not really happened since his appearance in Walt Simonson's Fantastic Four, back at the turn of the 90s.

Gillen had a really strong handle on Death's Head when writing SWORD. I reckon it'll be worth keeping an eye out for this one.