DIE-CUT
DIE-CUT
Real Name: Czorn Yson
Identity/Class: Extraterrestrial (Ganalonian) mutant
Occupation: Adventurer;
former soldier and scientist
Group Membership: Former member of Manmaker and the soldiers of Ganalon;
formerly one of the
Death's Head's assimilated personalities
(Minion)
Affiliations:
Death's Head (Minion),
Diana of the Warheads, G-Force, Id-Sister, Santa the hood,
Tuck
formerly the Kull Squad, M'Lish, Veneer, X-Beast
Enemies: Black Curator, Chrone, Cyberdrones,
an unnamed cyborg race, cyborgs of Matricca Scoppio, Mys-Tech (especially
Rathcoole), Red Skull (allegedly Shmidt), Sister S'Veer, S'Reeb, Warheads
(Travers), Veneer, X-Beast;
formerly Death's Head (Minion). G-Force, Id-Sister
Known Relatives: Unidentified mother
Aliases: Subject 37;
Salba of Hskelos referred to him as "the Berserker"
Base of Operations: mobile (last seen on Earth);
formerly the mind of Death's Head
formerly the planet Ganalus;
First Appearance: Death's Head & the Origin of Die-Cut#1 (August, 1993)
Powers/Abilities: Die-Cut has a blade, his pscythe,
connected to the back of his left wrist; it can slice through virtual all forms
of matter and/or energy. It can even be used to open portals through space, into
other dimensions, and possibly through time, as well. The Pscythe can also be
used to excise memories or other such intangibles.
He is a savage, violent warrior, and is just a little bit off from being sane.
He possesses a pathological hatred of all things mechanical or computerized. He refers to cyborgs as the "Living Death." He also uses the term GNATs, an acronym for Group 1 NATurals, referring to the dominant natives of any planet.
History:
(Death's Head II & the Origin of Die-Cut#2 (fb) - BTS) - Czorn Yson is a mutant
Ganalonian, born with the special ability to cut. He trained himself to maximize
this skill.
(Death's Head II & the Origin of Die-Cut#2 (fb)) - Yson served as a soldier, participating in what had been a centuries long war against a race of cyborgs. Because of this struggle, he, like most of his race, developed a pathological hatred of all things mechanical or computerized.
(Death's Head II & the Origin of Die-Cut#1 (fb) -
BTS) - Yson learned about the planet Matricca Scoppio (possibly the
place of origin of the cyborgs assaulting Ganalus) from memories stolen
from corpses as well as from stories his mother told him as a child. He
retained the memories as they plagued his nightmares.
(Death's Head II & the Origin of Die-Cut#2 (fb)) - One day Yson was captured by the cyborg race, who sought to use his mind to help elevate themselves from a period of stagnation. Taken to their homeworld, he was put into an inhibitor suit, and the cyborgs began to probe his mind. Knowing that if the cyborgs could learn how his mind worked they would learn how to control him, he faked a schizophrenic personality. Similarly, knowing that any weakness he showed would be exploited, he turned himself into a monster, laughing as they tortured his comrades. He never behaved in his normal manner, teaching himself how not to be himself, how to be insane.
At the same time, he studied the cyborgs' sciences, producing in his head the theory on how to create the ultimate blade, his pscythe.
(Death's Head II & the Origin of Die-Cut#2 (fb)) - Eventually, Yson began to give up all hope, succumbing to true madness. When the Minion cyborg showed up to assimilate him, Yson offered no resistance, welcoming death to end his tortured existence. Minion penetrated his skull with his cranial siphon, and Yson became the 37th such being whose personality and skills were assimilated into the future Death's Head.
(Death's Head II & the Origin of Die-Cut#1) - Death's Head and his partner Tuck were sent to Matricca Scoppio to search for a cure for the disease known as Perfection. While there, Death's Head was infected with a purging program that began allowing some of his assimilated personalities to resurface. When he and Tuck were on the verge of being overwhelmed by the cyborgs, Death's Head was convinced to allow the personality of Yson (who was familiar with the layout of Matricca Scoppio) to temporarily take over. Yson's personality led them to the Black Museum of Cyborgs in Orgolhuin, where it recreated it's body and weapons, created the pscythe it had mentally perfected long before, and then downloaded/purged itself from Death's Head. Renaming himself Die-Cut, he was temporarily overcome with madness from his cyber-phobia and his experiences and attacked Death's Head, slicing him in half.
(Death's Head II & the Origin of Die-Cut#2) - As Death's
Head survived that assault and began to repair himself, Die-Cut continued his
attack. When the Black Curator of the Museum and its cyborg armies attacked
them, Die-Cut regained his sanity, and created a weapon to destroy the cyborgs
of the Black Museum. Die-Cut then led them on a quest that showed that the Black
Museum could not cure Perfection or any other diseases, but rather it could just
grant immortality to those who remained within a certain chamber, but only as
long as they remained there.
After revealing the failure of their mission to Lady Anula, Death's Head and
Die-Cut went their separate ways.
(Die-Cut vs G-Force#1) - Following a beacon from the Activator of the Primary Artifact, Die-Cut traveled to the planet Hskelos.
(Die-Cut vs G-Force#1) - Hskelos was under attack by a cyborg
race known as the Cyberdrones. Finding them to be similar to the cyborgs his
people had fought, Die-Cut attacked the Cyberdrones until he came upon the
Activator. As soon as he grabbed it, it tried to take control of him, and he
opened a warp, leaving Hskelos behind. Nevertheless, the Activator managed to take
control of Die-Cut's mind, revealing its purpose of using his ability to
navigate space-time to assist in the Cyberdrones' conquest. The Activator
directed Die-Cut to bring it to the remainder of the Primary Artifact.
Accessing a super-string space-time corridor of the
organization Mys-Tech, Die-Cut sliced his way inside the corridor, encountering
scientist Daniel Jones, who was exploring the super-string. The Activator
instructed Die-Cut to slay Jones, a potential threat to its programming, and
Die-Cut, unable to resist, struck Jones, knocking him out of the rent in the
corridor and into No-Space, from which he was shunted into a newly created
dimension. Jones was mutated by the energies there, and he returned to the
super-string corridor as G-Force, striking back at his attacker. As they
struggled, Die-Cut tore another large rent into the wall of the corridor. The
danger distracted the Activator, allowing Die-Cut to free himself from its
control. However, the super-string corridor then collapsed from the damage done
to it, and Die-Cut and G-Force were cast into the same newly created dimension.
There they were attacked by the Cyberdrones and a group of Mys-Tech's Warheads,
who were under the control of the Primary Artifact and had also been shunted to
the new dimension by the destruction of the super-string corridor.
(Die-Cut vs G-Force#2) - Die-Cut and G-Force, though greatly outnumbered, overpowered their attackers. One of the Warheads, Diana, freed herself from the Artifact's control. She revealed the Artifact to actually be the Gestalt Bomb, and if linked to the Activator its power would be amplified one thousand fold, and it could enslave an entire world to serve the Cyberdrones. Diana also revealed that the Cyberdrones had now targeted Earth. Just then another Warhead, Travers, still under the Activator's control, revived and attacked Die-Cut, Diana, and G-Force. Travers slew Diana, and Die-Cut sliced off Travers left arm. However, new Cyberdrones arrived, repaired Travers, and attacked the two remaining warriors. G-Force fell before a weapon designed to neutralize his power, leaving Die-Cut to fight alone. G-Force was restored by the Time Guardian, but the two warriors were captured by the Cyberdrones, who then initiated the assimilation process. However, the two men's minds linked during the process, gaining strength from one another--in particular from Die-Cut's previous assimilation experience--and they broke free from the Cyberdrones. When Mys-Tech opened a wormhole into the new dimension, Die-Cut traveled to Earth, but G-Force stayed behind, closing the wormhole and destroying the Cyberdrones and the Gestalt Bomb itself.
On Earth, Die-Cut thought that G-Force had been killed and considered trying to kill Mys-Tech's Rathcoole, whom he blamed. However, as Rathcoole had an involuntary time-stopping power that prevented his death, Die-Cut saw that this effort was pointless. Instead, he opened a warp and left Mys-Tech Central.
(Die-Cut#1) - In New York, Die-Cut met up with a hood nicknamed Santa, who possessed a mysterious box allegedly containing a human head; the box had been stolen by Santa from the group Manmaker. Die-Cut saved Santa from Manmaker's armored Kull squad by phasing him just out of synch with reality so that they couldn't see him. Manmaker agent Veneer, impressed with Die-Cut's defeat of their agents, directed another agent, Id-Sister, to incapacitate Die-Cut and he was brought to their Mobile Swarmcenter (headquarters), where they began to program their mission and goals into his subconscious. Upon reviving, Die-Cut joined with another Kull Squad in harvesting a group of divergent?/potential? versions of the Beast (Henry McCoy, whom they had also captured). Die-Cut rebelled against the Kull squad when they tried to kill the various versions. However, one of these variants, the highly evolved, yet savage X-Beast, slashed Die-Cut from behind, telling him he didn't want his help..
(Die-Cut#2) - After the X-Beast escaped to Earth, Die-Cut used his pscythe to cut out the original Beast's memories of his time at Manmaker so he could be released without consequence. He then accompanied Veneer as they located the X-Beast and convinced him to accompany them to Cyclaedea, the secret Greek Isle sanctuary of Manmaker. Upon arriving they were attacked by "Angels of Death," sent by the power-maddened Id-Sister, but Die-Cut, X-Beast, and the Kulls made short work of them. They were then assaulted by Id-Sister herself, who nearly drove them all mad before collapsing from her own power overload. Die-Cut leached off some of her power into a negatively charged dimension so that she could be again contained by Manmaker. However, he was then ambushed and bound by the X-Beast and the Kull squadleader M'Lish, who each had aspirations of taking over Manmaker.
(Die-Cut#3) - M'Lish took Die-Cut to the Dump, where all of Manmaker's failures were kept. He put a Skullsucker device on Die-Cut, draining his will, while at the same time they hypnotized him into believing they had surgically removed his pscythe. Collapsing, Die-Cut was recovered by another Beast variant, Cerebro-Beast, AKA S'Reeb, and he then remembered Santa and returned him (and his box) to reality. Santa revealed to Die-Cut that he still had his pscythe, breaking the illusion that it had been removed. Die-Cut opened a portal and returned to the Mobile Swarmcenter, where Santa was able to remove the Skullsucker. Returning to the Dump, Die-Cut slaughtered M'Lish, but was then attacked by Sister S'Veer, the Dump variant of Id-Sister. Santa saved Die-Cut from Sister S'Veer by shooting her, and he then opened the box, revealing the head of the Red Skull, which slaughtered everyone else in the Dump and then pronounced itself Die-Cut's master.
(Die-Cut#4) - The real Red Skull (see comments) then appeared, revealed the head to just be a robot, and commanded Die-Cut and Santa to follow him as he retook command of Manmaker, with which he intended to create a race of gods to takeover the world. Die-Cut played along, but when the Red Skull tried to kill Id-Sister, he turned on him. However, suddenly the Crone, the aftermath of godhood, appeared, attacking everyone present. She caused Die-Cut to believe he was being confronted by his past self, which condemned his current existence as a cyborg. Die-Cut broke free from the illusion, only to be confronted by the X-Beast. However, while they fought, the Red Skull was rejected by his creations, and he destroyed the Manmaker equipment. After the X-Beast and the rest of the creations vanished, Die-Cut took Santa back to New York, and then they parted ways.
Comments: Created by Glenn Dakin and John Royle under the Marvel UK imprint.
I'm not convinced that this was the classic Red Skull (Shmidt) in this story, but no other thoughts were offered on the subject.
Technically, Die-Cut would be behind the scenes for every appearance of Minion/Death's Head between assimilation of Subject#37 and the Death's Head vs Die-Cut#1. Since he is not actively seen anywhere else, you can just check that profile for those appearances.
The cyborg enemies of the Ganalonians were described as being related to the cyborgs of Matricca Scoppio.
Die-Cut was created as part of the Marvel UK's "Pumping Iron" promotion, which didn't seem to accomplish too much.
CLARIFICATIONS:
No known connection to:
Appearances:
Death's Head & the Origin of Die-Cut#1 (August-September, 1993) -
Glenn Dakin (writer), John Royle (artist), Jacqui Papp (editor)
Die-Cut vs G-Force#1-2 (November-December, 1993) - John Freeman
(writer), John Royle (pencils), Tim Perkins (inks), Stuart Bartlett
(editor)
Die-Cut#1 (November, 1993 - February, 1994) - Glenn Dakin (writer), Bernard Custodio (artist), Jacqui Papp (editor)
First posted: 04/10/2004
Last updated: 09/10/2023
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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