In 2016 A.D. on Earth-8410, Advanced Idea Mechanics' Precognitive Data Collection unit predicted an unknown threat would obliterate the agency in the near future. A.I.M. funded Dr. Evelyn Necker's Minion Project to create a perfect warrior cyborg to fight this threat. After working the bugs out on a prototype (Death Wreck), she finished her Minion cyborg in 2020 A.D.; to obtain the best experience, he was sent out through time and space to kill 106 of the deadliest individuals in the multiverse and assimilate their instincts; however, as the cyborg absorbed more and more victims, he began to display personality characteristics not programmed into him, worrying Necker. While slaying target 103, Tyler Wilson, Minion encountered a future target, the bounty hunter "Freelance Peacekeeping Agent" Death's Head, who had been seeking to claim the price on Tyler's head; angered at being beaten to his prey, Death's Head pursued Minion. Next Minion eliminated the barbarian Lehdrox K’Vant and freed the precog Phaedra, who called him "Death's Head" as she departed. Moments after he returned to 2020, Minion was attacked by Death's Head; however the peacekeeping agent was outmatched and swiftly assimilated. Since Death's Head was mechanical rather than organic, Minion absorbed his victim's entire mind, not just the instincts. Ignoring Necker's orders to wait for system checks, Minion teleported after the final target, Reed Richards of Earth-616. Necker followed, warning Richards in time for him to evade Minion's initial assault. Minion pursued Richards to Four Freedoms Plaza, where Richards used a neuron scrambler to allow Death's Head personality to come to the fore. Seeing a programming loophole, the cyborg absorbed the data in Richard's computer, completing his mission without harming Richards, then departed, free of A.I.M. control. Meanwhile, back in 2020, the previous Death's Head body was bonded magically to necromancer Baron Strucker the Fifth, ironically creating the very threat A.I.M. had foreseen, Charnel.
Death's Head time-jumped to the planet Lionheart, 3442 A.D., a world where artificial sentients were forbidden, where he spent twelve months under the alias Hood leading an outlaw band of cyborgs and robots, the Merry Men. Shortly after the replicated organic Tuck joined the outlaws, the Merry Men were slain by the mutant Major Oak; Necker, who had caught up with Death's Head, stunned Oak before he could kill Death's Head. They returned to 2020 to find A.I.M. decimated by Charnel, who had now fled back in time to destroy A.I.M. at an earlier point, intending to wipe out this timeline altogether. Pursuing him to the modern day Earth-616, Death's Head, Tuck and Necker allied themselves with another group of time-travelers, the Avengers from the devastated future timeline Charnel was destined to create. Charnel arrived seconds later, slaying most of the Avengers before Death's Head used two time devices to send Charnel simultaneously into both future and past, ripping him apart. Deciding to stay in the present day, Tuck and Death's Head stole a truck and headed into Manhattan.
Before long, they encountered the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Vorin of the Shadow Riders, Rick Jones and Black Axe. Death's Head was summoned to the alternate future of Earth-9939 — in which Charnel had conquered Earth — to meet his "brothers", Death Wreck and Death Metal. Unfortunately, Death Metal, designed by Necker as a replacement for Death's Head, was sympathetic to Charnel's cause, informing him that Death's Head's actions had negated this timeline and that a temporal wave would soon wipe it out. Before Charnel could travel back in time to prevent this, the three cyborg brothers united to destroy him, with Ghost Rider's Penance Stare having caused Death Metal to switch sides.
During a mission to Matricca Scorpio to locate a cure for the Perfection virus for Lady Anula of Lionheart, one of Death's Head personalities, Die-Cut, freed himself from the Minion body and recreated his physical form. Death's Head and Die-Cut worked together for the mission, then parted ways. Later, hired by the people of Numeropolis to reclaim an intelligent gun stolen from them by Tigon Liger, one of Mys-Tech's dimension-hopping Warheads, Death's Head and Tuck battled Liger's Kether Troop while they were trying to steal the powerful Sapphire Lotus. Though the pair failed to retrieve the gun, they did escape with the Lotus. Returning to Earth-616, Death's Head and Tuck found the Lotus' energies drawing numerous superhumans to them, including the X-Men and Wrathchilde. Empowered by the Lotus, and alongside a possessed Tuck, Wrathchilde fought a series of battles with the X-Men and Death's Head, until defeated with the aid of Phaedra, who also sent Tuck home through the dimensions to recover. Realizing home meant Lionheart, a concerned Death's Head swiftly followed, but was detoured to Un-Earth, a voodoo copy of Earth created by Mys-Tech, where he fought both demonic doppelgangers and Kether Troop. As Mys-Tech used Un-Earth to unleash unparalleled carnage across the globe, many of Earth's heroes rallied to stop them; most died, but the survivors, including Death's Head, used the Un-Earth to take time back a day to restore normality. Trying once more to reach Lionheart, a disorientated Death's Head instead ended up in the pocket realm of Inner Space, battling Mys-Tech and the Anti-Being — the collective evil of the Mys-Tech Techno-Wizards' millennia of malevolence — with the assistance of Dark Angel (Shevaun Haldane). Finally reaching Lionheart, he was reunited with Tuck and battled Major Oak and the technological wizard Methinx.
Death's Head returned to 2020 A.D., seeking to discover whom Necker had killed to procure his organic components. The Light Brigade, dedicated to preventing paradox, stopped him from interfering in his own creation, and sent him back to Earth-616, to seek answers from Necker in that time zone. Though briefly diverted from his mission twice to fight alongside Killpower and other Earth heroes against the demonic gestalt known as the Battletide, Death's Head finally located Necker's mother, Stealth of the armored mercenary Requiem Sharks, whom he convinced to assist him. They found Necker having ensconced herself in present-day A.I.M., working on yet another Minion cyborg; unfortunately, the human component of this Minion proved to be the past half of the time-split Charnel, who used A.I.M. technology to reunite his scattered parts and threaten the world anew. Working together, Necker, the Sharks, Tuck and Death's Head just barely destroyed Charnel before he grew too powerful to stop. Subsequently, Death's Head fought the Metamorph alongside Motormouth and Killpower; the Lemurians of Earth-313 hired him to capture the Knights of Pendragon; and the Time Guardian recruited him to join the Dark Guard and prevent Mys-Tech from spreading their influence across the universe. On an alternate future Mars colony circa 2026 A.D., Tuck and Death's Head fought android duplicates created by the Alkemist, then—learning Major Oak had decimated their cyborg allies back on Lionheart with technology supplied by Noon and General Cicatrice — they tracked the latter pair down to exact revenge, aided once more by Phaedra. Death's Head was snatched through time by Chronozone, who tried to dupe him into destroying humanity in the past, then later was transported to the interdimensional time port Maruthea by the Time Lord known as the Doctor to assist his Freelance Peacekeeping predecessor against the robot Hob. Time traveling once more, he stopped off in 2099 A.D. to hunt down a man called Burgen. Death's Head has also been seen amongst the many Avengers gathered for the interdimensional, transtemporal Destiny War, apparently indicating that he or a dimensional counterpart will someday join the Avengers, though in which reality remains to be seen.
Phaedra has foreseen at least two probable futures for Death's Head; she claims he will one day rule a galaxy, bringing about a millennium of peace, and also that he will become the godlike Psyphon, whom Death's Head once met in the Bewilderness, the Khiasmos of the Universe. At odds with these futures, in the Earth-811 (Days of Future Past) reality, Death's Head was slain by Sentinels while fighting alongside the Resistance Coordination Executive, while in Chronozone's timeline, Death's Head died defending humanity. Given Death's Head's dimension and time-hopping proclivities, it is impossible to say which, if any, of these futures is the "true" destiny of Death's Head, and which belong to his dimensional counterparts across the multiverse.
