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.

Warheads Kether Troop

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.

Other Members

The membership varied but, at one time or another, the Kether Troop included:

• Stacy Arnheim (in charge of troop defence and who was normally depicted wearing a large exoskeleton of combat armour)
• Athena
• Bell
• Cale (a retriever and expert at scavenging)
• Che
• Corey
• DaCosta
• Draft (described as a hit-man)
• Desdemona
• Dreyfuss
• Duncan
• Evone
• Gregory
• Grierson
• Johnny Heaven
• MacManus
• Martinez
• Leona McBride
• Misha (a Psi-Scout, with pre-cognitive abilities)
• Moxham
• Perez (the troop medic)
• Prizzi
• Ross
• Sapperstein

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.

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 orginally depicted as entering wormholes on a model of the qabalistic 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.

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.

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 .