Keepsake (Doctor / Death's Head (FPA) character)

Keepsake

Real Name: Unknown

Identity/Class: Extra-Temporal (Earth 8162) Human, Technology User

Occupation: Salvage Expert

Affiliations: Bahlia, The Doctor, Colt, Death's Head, Thea

Enemies: Thea, Colt, Ryosians

Known Relatives: Thea (wife)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Los Angeles Resettlement, Earth 8162

First Appearance: Doctor Who Magazine#140 (September 1988)

Powers: Keepsake has no metahuman powers, but relies on 8162 technology.

History: Keepsake was a scavenger in the far future of a timeline in the Doctor's multiverse. At some point, he married a woman named Thea. He also acquired a pesky vulture which he begrudgingly accepted as a pet.

(Death's Head#5 (fb, bts)- At some point, Keepsake, Thea, and a man named Colt stumbled across a bullion shipment sunk inside the wreck of an old cruiser. No trust existing between anyone involved, Colt demanded that Keepsake split up the map to the treasure, one part to each man. Keepsake agreed. However, later, Colt was placed in prison--keeping Keepsake from getting the treasure. Keepsake continued as a salvage expert, and eventually ran away from Thea.

(Doctor Who Magazine#140)- Keepsake landed on the decrepit planet Ryos. The ship of a woman named Bahlia had broadcast a mayday from there. Keepsake only came to Ryos to plunder anything he could from the wreckage of Bahlia's ship--he had no intention of saving Bahlia. However, the Doctor, who had also heard the SOS, did.

Keepsake saw the Ryos natives hunting the Doctor down. The Doctor just made it to Keepsake's craft. Keepsake had to go along with the Doctor's plan to save Bahlia, as if Keepsake did not try to help a person who had sent an SOS, the Doctor could shop him to galactic authorities. Keepsake and the Doctor flew to the huts of the Ryos natives. They succeeded in saving Bahlia. The Doctor left in his TARDIS.

(Death's Head#5)- Keepsake and Bahlia traveled to Earth, particularly the L.A. Resettlement. Unfortunately, they crashed in the desert. Meanwhile, Thea retained Death's Head's services to track down Keepsake.

Bahlia and Keepsake made it to the bar Huggy's. Keepsake met with the just-released from prison Colt. Keepsake and Colt produced their maps. Colt made his move; he drew out a blaster and demanded Keepsake's map, and had cronies take Bahlia hostage. He warned Keepsake not to follow as he set out to find the gold.

Immediately after this, Death's Head arrived at Huggy's. Thea arrived at Huggy's after Death's Head had roughed up Keepsake. The three decided to get Colt. Arriving at the pier from which Colt had launched a boat to get the gold, Thea distracted some of Colt's men, kicking one of them in his private parts, as Death's Head defeated two others. Keepsake arrived in a flying vehicle. Bahlia took the oppurtunity afforded by the distraction to bludgeon Lorne, another Colt minion. Thea climbed into Keepsake's vehicle thanks to a rope ladder, Death's Head ruptured Colt's boat, and Bahlia placed a hook from Keepsake's vehicle onto the top of the box holding the gold. She traveled along with it as Keepsake hoisted it in.

As the flying vehicle left Colt behind, Keepsake offered Death's Head half of the gold to push Thea into the water. Death's Head did. However, later, Death's Head pointed out that, since Thea had earlier offered him half of the gold to find Keepsake, all of the gold now belonged to Death's Head! Keepsake could not stand up to Death's Head, and let him go. On the plus side, Keepsake still had Bahlia, and the vulture flew away, following Death's Head to become his pet.

Comments: Created by Simon Furman and John Higgins.

An entry that entails much comment:

The placement of Keepsake in the Gallifreyan Multiverse, the 8162 that serves as a future for the Doctor Who series, has to do with the fact that he first appeared in a Doctor Who story. Generally, the Doctor mostly travels to eras within his own universe or multiverse, not other universes or multiverses. He has to take special measures to travel to other universes or multiverses. (The Doctor's universe is presumed to be outside of the Marvel Multiverse due to his generally not encountering counterparts of Marvel characters in his adventures, and most importantly, because he is owned by the BBC.)
Other characters seen in this 8162 from the Doctor Who stories include Josiah W. Dogbolter, from Doctor Who Monthly#84, 86-87, and #88-89. Dogbolter, a humanoid who resembled a frog, also appeared in Death's Head#8, where he hired Death's Head to kill the Doctor. Death's Head himself was sent to 8162 by the Doctor in Doctor Who Magazine#135, arriving there in Dragon's Claws#5, where he fought the government law enforcement group Dragon's Claws. (As noted under the Circuit Breaker entry, Death's Head immediately previous to his encounter with the Doctor had just escaped a confrontation with Unicron, Scourge and Cyclonus-in the Transformers-UK universe. Due to the presence of counterparts of Spider-Man, Nick Fury, the Savage Land, etc., the Transformers-UK universe is considered possibly part of the Marvel Multiverse. On the other hand, due to the fact that the hierarchy of cosmic characters of both Transformers universes [Unicron, Primus] does not mesh with the usual Marvel assortment of cosmic beings [Eternity, Death, Galactus, Lord Chaos, Master Order, etc.] one could place them in the Marvel Megaverse along with such tertiary realms as Earth-Shadowline. In any event, Death's Head encountered the Doctor at the Crossroads of Time, a point of intersection, a buffer zone between the Doctor Who Multiverse and the Marvel Multiverse/Megaverse.)
Since Dogbolter had only just developed very crude time-travel technology in the story in Death's Head#8, and thus could not have had the capability to cross multiverses, while Keepsake certainly had no time or dimensional travel capabilities, we can conclude that they were natives of this time and dimension of 8162. This raises an interesting point that Loki has made much of-namely, that would indicate that, although Dragon's Claws was not introduced in a Doctor Who story and is completely owned by Marvel, they are in fact from the Doctor Who multiverse. This has to do with the fact that, after his encounter with the Doctor in Doctor Who Magazine#135, Death's Head had no access to time and dimension travel technology until Dogbolter provided him with a prototype of the Dogbolter Temporal Rocket in Death's Head#8. Thus, all of his adventures took place in the location that the Doctor sent him, and since the Doctor usually travels to realms within his own universe/multiverse, we can presume that he sent Death's Head within such points. Since in their appearances with Death's Head the members of Dragon's Claws were shown as natives of that 8162, by extension, they are denizens of the Gallifreyan Multiverse.
An interesting sidepoint involves Death's Head's partner Spratt, introduced in Death's Head#1. Spratt became Death's Head's partner soon after Death's Head's initial encounters with Dragon's Claws. In fact, Spratt even followed Death's Head to the Marvel Multiverse, where Death's Head was displaced by the Doctor to again after the events of Death's Head#8 (the Doctor left him on top of Four Freedoms Plaza). Spratt even followed Death's Head to the 2020 that serves as the home of the Arno Stark Iron Man. In fact, Spratt died in this 2020 in Death's Head II I#3. Spratt is interesting, in that he encountered all of these characters from a separate multiverse, and did not seem surprised that they were not fictional characters!
Let me explain. Past stories have established that characters that are generally unique to certain multiverses are fictional to characters from other multiverses. (Of course, the reason that they tend to be unique to a certain multiverse has to do with the fact that they are strictly copyrighted and trademarked.) Somehow, a sort of "bleeding through" occurs by which certain people become subconsciously aware of events in other multiverses, and these people tend to be comic book artists and writers who use these visions for their work. For concrete examples of this phenomenon, in the New Universe (which, although owned by Marvel completely, to preserve a distinctive feel, has been designated as outside of the multiverse), the X-Men are only fictional characters-see Starbrand#11-12 for confirmation. The X-Men do not have counterparts in the New Universe. Superman/Fantastic Four established that Superman, of the DC Multiverse/Hypertimelines, is known on Earth-616 as only a fictional character. Superman does not have an Earth-616 counterpart. (Incidentally, Thor and other characters based on folklore and mythology--which are of course, public domain--are exceptions to this rule.)
Based on these examples, one would guess that Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, etc. should have been known to Spratt as fictional characters. Spratt, though, does not seem to have ever remarked either way as to whether Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, etc. were either known as real, historical personages or fictional characters in his home era and planet. This may have to do with the fact that 8162 C.E. represents such a long time from the 20th and 21st centuries that much knowledge had been lost. Records and literature from those eras would not have been available to him due to the catastrophes that had rocked Earth in the intervening centuries. Thus, had the Arno Stark Iron Man had a countepart on his Earth, Spratt would have had no way of knowing.

All in all, a nice little summary. A few points.

Earth-616, the mainstream Marvel world, exists within a single Universe. A collection of similar, but divergent worlds, such as Earth X, Earth-MC2, and the What If? worlds, which have a similar universal power structure exist within the same Multiverse. An Earth that does not appear to have any similarities to the universal structure and hierarchy of Earth-616 or similar worlds, and thus it would be outside of the mainstream Multiverse, but within the greater Omniverse. It has been suggested that there may be one more division present between Multiverse and Omniverse, to link asociated worlds, such as those linked to Marvel, and to keep distinct from other such groupings, such as those associated with DC or other titles. Thus worlds like the New Universe or the Shadowline might be contained within the Marvel Megaverse.
The fact that the Doctor usually does not travel to another time zone does not make him from 8162, nor part of any particular Multiverse. He is certainly within the greater Omniverse, but since he is owned by another group, he may inherently exists outside of the Marvel Megaverse.
This is not the case with other licensed characters, who are definitively within the Marvel Universe. For example, Godzilla exists within Earth-616. Marvel can no longer refer to him by name. Same with Fu Manchu, who is now going by St. Germaine, as of the last Shang-Chi (MAX) limited series. Conan the Barbarian has--sigh--also been lost and is now licensed to...Dark Horse, I think. However, his adventures--and all of the Hyborian era--as published by Marvel did occur in the past on Earth-616--just the Robert E. Howard and other Conan Properties stuff can't be mentioned by name.
Earth 8162 is a future world. It should be part of the Marvel Megaverse, if not actually the Multiverse. Why doesn't Spratt remember anyone? Easy. How many people do you remember from 4000 BC?
Is Earth 8162 the future of Earth-616? Maybe. Until a major point of divergence is shown, it it a possiblity. Does the Doctor (Who) originate or exist in Earth 8162? Maybe--as long as BBC would allow it. I don't think we can pin him down any better than that. He does exist in the same continuum as the Special Executive--I'd agree to that much, as long as it's allowed.
Transformers and GI. Joe will only be a part of the Marvel Multiverse once they run into Galactus, the Watcher, Eternity, etc. Is there a place in the Marvel Multiverse where this is the case? Maybe. We just can't refer to them by name. These worlds are Marvel Megaverse possibly, and Omniverse definitely. Everyone's Omniverse--Including you, me, Popeye, and Rocky Balboa.
Want more confusion? What about Earth-Amalgam? That's like an overlap of Megaverses. And then there's Earth-Crossover, where every single fictional character exists in the same world/timeline/universe. This world would be the home of such crossovers as Spider-Man vs. Super-Man, X-Men/Teen Titans, etc.

By Per Degaton

CLARIFICATIONS:
Keepsake has no known connection to:

any other "Keep"characters

Colt has no known connection to:

Kid Colt of the Old West, Blaine Colt, @ All Western Winners#2, Kid Colt#1
Kid Colt of Counter Earth-Franklin, Elric Freedom, of the Young Allies, @ Heroes Reborn: Young Allies#1
Jeff Colt, a yuppie who tapped into the Omegatron power, @ Defenders I#69

Lorne is probably named after, but otherwise unconnected to:

Death's Head

Last updated: 01/03/04

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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