Warheads (comics)
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Warheads was a Marvel UK comic book which ran for 14 issues in the early 1990s and was followed by the two-issue miniseries Warheads: Black Dawn. The stories contained in the comic were also serialised in the UK comics anthology Overkill. The Warheads were mercenaries employed by the nefarious and Faustian Mys-Tech organisation to capture advanced technology from alien worlds.
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[edit] Warheads Kether Troop
[edit] Colonel Tigon Liger
The comic focused on the Kether Troop led by Colonel Tigon Liger whose most notable features were prominent facial scarring and a very large semi-intelligent gun named Clementine. The creators of Warheads named Colonel Liger after two hybrid animals; a tigon is a male tiger, female lion crossbreed, a liger being its reverse. This name implies strength and aggression, but also perhaps confusion about the character's origins.
[edit] Other Members
The membership varied over the course of the series, with frequent inclusion of trainee characters, new recruits, or "loaner" members from other Troops, who usually died in the course of action (like redshirts on Star Trek). In rough sequential order, the Kether Troop included:
Issue 1:
- Stacy Arnheim (in charge of troop defence and who was normally depicted wearing a large exoskeleton of combat armour)
- Cale (a retriever and expert at scavenging, Col. Liger's lover, killed in the first story)
- Corey (technician, killed in the first story)
- Draft (described as a hit-man, killed in the first story)
- Misha (a Psi-Scout, with pre-cognitive abilities)
- Perez (the troop medic, killed in issue 10)
- Gregory (hit-man, replacement for Draft)
- Johnny Heaven (technician, replacement for Corey, killed by Leona in issue 2)
- Leona McBride (retriever, replacement for Cale, turned into a vampire at the end of Warheads: Black Dawn #2)
Issue 3:
- Chalmers (new recruit, killed)
- Grierson (technician, on loan from Ubu troop)
- Peters (new recruit, killed)
- Samuels (new recruit, female retriever, killed)
Issue 6:
- Athena (killed)
- Che (martial artist, sole survivor of Malkuth troop, re-assigned to Kether)
- Desmond (killed)
Issue 9:
- Bell (on loan from another troop)
- Jenna (troop defence, on loan from another troop)
- Moxham (technician, on loan from another troop)
- Ross (killed)
Issue 12:
- Connor (trainee, killed)
- Dreyfus
- MacManus (trainee, killed)
- Martinez (new recruit, killed)
- O'Leary (new recruit, killed)
- Sapperstein (new recruit, killed)
Issue 13:
- DeCosta (medic, killed in Warheads: Black Dawn #1)
- Duncan (new recruit, technician)
Other series:
- Desdemona
- Evone
- Prizzi
The Kether Troops cover story was that they were travelling performers, The Cirque de Chaos. Eventually Misha discovered the means to open wormholes without Mys-Tech, and the Kether Troop rebelled against their evil masters.
[edit] Other Warheads Troops
The following is a list of other Warheads Troops employed by Mys-Tech and mentioned in either Warheads, Overkill or other Marvel titles:
- Bina Troop
- leader: Colonel Matt Travers
- cover: Archeological Expedition
- membership: Diana Rogers (deceased), Matt Travers (deceased)
- Cesad Troop
- leader: Colonel Jane Sumner
- cover: The Cirque de Chaos
- Gebu Troop
- leader: Colonel James Cleveland
- cover: Film Crew
- Hesod Troop
- leader: Colonel Mary Kidd
- cover: Search and Rescue Squad
- Hod Troop
- leader: Colonel Henry Morgan
- cover: Satellite Recovery
- Kockmar Troop
- leader: Colonel James Sands
- cover: The Cirque de Chaos
- Malkuth Troop
- membership: Boot, Che
- Net Troop
- leader: Colonel Arthur Drake
- cover: Survey Team
- Tifaret Troop
- leader: Colonel Bonnie Reid
- cover: Fairground
- Ubu Troop
- leader: Colonel Bonnie Reid
- cover: Fairground
- membership: Grierson
The names of the Warheads troops are a direct reference to the names of the 10 Sefiroth emanations of God in the Kabbalah. We can tell it is a direct reference as the Warheads were originally depicted as entering wormholes on a model of the cabalistic Tree of Life, and they entered the wormhole where the Sephirah Kether is situated. Significantly "Kether" is the Sefirah at the top of the tree of life and "Kether" means "crown". We can assume from this that the Kether Troop is the elite Warhead troop. "Kether" also is the Sefirah closet to God and represents ultimate goodness. The Kether troop eventually showed their goodness by turning on the evil Mys-Tech organisation. The Ubu Troop is not named after a Sefirah. It is possible that "Ubu" is a reference to Pere Ubu the central figure of Ubu Roi (English: Ubu The King, King Turd) and Ubu cocu (Ubu Cuckolded), Ubu enchaíné (Ubu Bound), plays by the Frenchman Alfred Jarry, which were pre-cursors to Dadaesque theatre. Or perhaps it was simply a writer who had no idea of the signifigance of the troops' names.
[edit] Headquarters
The Warheads base of operations was Mys-Tech's subterranean headquarters deep beneath the Museum of Pagan Antiquities, Canary Wharf, London, England and they travelled to other planets by means of unstable wormholes opened by Mys-Tech's techno-wizards.
[edit] Creators
The characters in Warheads were first visualised by artist Gary Erskine with the first scripts for the strips provided by Nick Vince. Other Warheads artists included Simon Coleby, Stuart Jennett and Charlie Adlard. Mark Harrison painted an unpublished spin-off, called Loose Cannons [1]
