BIG SHOT

Real Name: Unrevealed

Identity/Class: Human Cyborg (Earth 8162 circa 8162 AD)

Occupation: Assassin, Bounty Hunter

Affiliations: Undertaker, Pyra

Enemies: Death's Head (Freelance Peacekeeping Agent), Spratt

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Los Angeles Resettlement, Earth-5555 circa 8162 AD

First Appearance: Death's Head I#4 (March, 1989)

Powers/Abilities: Big Shot apparently has had one of his arms replaced with some sort of plasma or laser cannon. He seems to possess superhuman strength and durability.

History: (Death's Head I#4) - Big Shot was retained by the crimelord the Undertaker to slay Death's Head, in retaliation for the latter having killed members of the Undertaker's outfit.

(Death's Head I#7) - Big Shot blasted at Death's Head's flying vehicle, the DH II. However, another assassin named Short Fuse, working for another crimelord named Dead Cert, had also taken on a contract on Death's Head. Pursuing this aim, Short Fuse had placed an explosive in the cargo hold of the DH II. The badly placed explosive not only did not kill Death's Head, it inadverently saved him, as it lightened the craft enough for it to still land relatively safely despite the damage caused by Big Shot.

Big Shot met with the Undertaker in the Mortuary. Just before an operation, the Undertaker impressed on Big Shot the need to sanction Death's Head. Big Shot, realizing that without Death's Head around, the mechanoid's potential clients would have to come to him, set out to destroy Death's Head again.

Big Shot caught up with Death's Head at a TV studio where Death's Head had trailed the fugitive shape-shifter Photofit. However, once again, Short Fuse inadverently saved Death's Head, as an ill-timed explosion pushed Death's Head out of the way of Big Shot's blast. Big Shot, however, came after Death's Head. He blasted the mechanoid through a wall, to a set where a program was being filmed. However, Short Fuse laid another mistimed explosion, which knocked down Big Shot.

Big Shot then accidentally shot a performer in the program. Death's Head and Big Shot pummelled each other, and Short Fuse threw a bomb at them. Both survived, as the bomb missed. Death's Head and Big Shot knocked themselves onto the set of the game show Run to Rio, where Photofit had killed and replaced a contestant. Upon seeing Death's Head, Photofit fled, assuming Death's Head's form. Short Fuse, just arriving, mistook Photofit for Death's Head, and produced an explosive. Photofit, trying to prove his true identity, turned into his basic form. Unfortuneately, the bright flash he gave off dazzled Short Fuse, so that he held onto the bomb too long. It went off, killing both of them, and hurling Big Shot out of the building.

Big Shot survived and swore revenge on Death's Head.

(Strip#15) - Big Shot maintained his desire to destroy Death's Head, but Death's Head no longer lived in the year 8162. After an encounter with the Doctor, the famed Gallifreyan time traveller, Death's Head had been deposited in the era of the Fantastic Four, and from there to the year 2020.

Unaware of this turn of events, Big Shot still set out to find Death's Head. So, Big Shot tailed Death's Head's associate Spratt. Spratt was contacted by Pyra, a woman involved with Death's Head's creator, Lupex. Big Shot observed a rendez-vous between Spratt and Pyra at midnight on a pier. Pyra interrogated Spratt as to Death's Head's location, even choking him with animated shadows, but Spratt did not know where the mechanoid was. Pyra began to kill him, but Big Shot intervened, stating that he needed Spratt alive in order to discover Death's Head's whereabouts. This distracted Pyra, allowing Spratt to sneak away.

Initially, Pyra thought of killing Big Shot, but changed her mind. She alerted him to Spratt's escape attempt, as the young man activated the DH II, which he had kept hidden underneath the water. Spratt got inside and locked himself in. Big Shot caught hold of the craft as it started to fly away. Pyra, meanwhile, probed Spratt's mind. Discovering from his memories that Death's Head had been known to time travel, Pyra surmised that Death's Head was somewhere and somewhen else in the Omniverse. Pyra opened a portal that sent Big Shot and the DH II to Earth 2020.

(Death's Head I#10 (flashforward)/Strip#16) - Big Shot and the DH II arrived in the New York of Earth 2020. Death's Head observed their arrival. Big Shot soon attacked the mechanoid. He had gained the upperhand when the police interrupted the battle. Big Shot attacked the police, but Death's Head hit him from behind, knocking him down. Death's Head took out an axe, ready to use it on Big Shot.

(Strip#17) - Big Shot managed to roll out of the way of the axe just in time, and the two resumed grappling. Big Shot fired his weapon at point blank range against the side of his opponent's head, blowing his own arm off above the elbow in doing so. Death's Head was stunned, and in spite of his injury, the now berserk Big Shot attacked, digging the fingers of his remaining hand into the Freelance Peacekeeping Agent's eyes. But as Death's Head was about to die from brain damage, Big Shot was lifted off of him and pinned to a wall by an energy beam fired by Pyra. He angrily demanded to know why she had interfered just as he was about to do her bidding and kill Death's Head.

(Strip#20) - Sometime later, after Death's Head has been snatched away from the scene by Lupex, killed same and been returned by Pyra, we can see Big Shot lying face down in the street, either dead or unconscious, forgotten by all around in the wake of subsequent events.

Comments: Created by Simon Furman and Lee Sullivan.

Big Shot was one of the few characters from Earth 8162 that have made appearances in stories published subsequent to the original Death's Head series. When Death's Head was dropped off at the Four Freedoms Plaza of Earth-616 in Death's Head I#8 by the Doctor, the series became more closely tied to the regular Marvel Multiverse. In Death's Head I#9, Death's Head was sent to Earth 2020, where the focus of the series remained. In Death's Head II#1, Death's Head was destroyed by Minion, who subsequently became the new Death's Head. See clarifications below.

Big Shot's appearance in Death's Head I#10 was actually a flashforward to his appearance in The Body In Question storyline in Strip#13-20. And that's it. Everyone just walked off at the end of The Body in Question and left Big Shot there without checking on how he was. If he survived, he probably found out he was in a world thousands of years before he was born.....and possibly in another multiverse.

For, as discussed elsewhere on the site, Earth 8162 remains a little problematic in its placement with regards to the multiverse. The issues of Death's Head set in Earth 8162 contained no references to the usual characters such as the Fantastic Four, Captain America, the Avengers, etc. as having existed in Earth 8162's past. Not only that, but since characters such as Hob, Josiah W. Dogbolter, Keepsake, and so on, all of whom were introduced in Doctor Who Monthly and Doctor Who Magazine stories, were shown as natives of Earth 8162. Since the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) owns the Doctor, that seriously complicates any future references to those characters introduced in Doctor Who stories, and the ownership of characters by parties other than Marvel (with certain exceptions such as Conan, Godzilla, and Doctor Fu Manchu) would tend to place a world outside of the usual multiverse.
--Can't agree with this. How many characters from 6000+ years ago come up in casual conversation? I've yet to see evidence to put 8162 out of the Marvel Multiverse--Snood.

However, since Dragon's Claws, a team of Marvel owned characters which had their own series, were also shown as natives of Earth 8162, and thus could easily be referenced again, that would put Earth 8162 in the tertiary category of the megaverse, comprised of those worlds that stand outside of the usual multiverse but have still interacted with it or have counterparts of some characters from the usual multiverse. This applies to Earth-Shadowline, whose Shreck is a counterpart of Earth-616's Terror, Inc.; Earth-Nth Man, whose characters interacted with Earth-616 in Excalibur I#27; Earth-New Universe, whose characters have interacted with Earth-616 entities many times; Earth-Transformers US and Earth-Transformers UK, which both have counterparts of Spider-Man, S.H.I.E.L.D., the Savage Land, Reed Richards, and so on. (The placement of the Ultraverse in the megaverse is also possible, as it is Marvel-owned.)

Another issue of placement within the regular multiverse has to do with the presence of the usual cosmic beings such as Galactus, Eternity, Infinity, etc. in a universe. Since Earth-8162 has turned up only in a few Doctor Who Monthly/Magazine stories, the Dragon's Claws series, most of the issues of the first Death's Head series, Marvel Comics Presents#76, part of The Body in Question serial in Strip, and possibly some of the framing sequences of The Incomplete Death's Head, the existence of cosmic beings such as Galactus, Infinity, Eternity, etc. remains hard to confirm or deny.
--See above. This whole discussion has nothing to back it up and is entirely speculation--Snood.

Profile by Per Degaton and Loki

Death's Head

CLARIFICATIONS:  

• any other big character