Hornhead was a male Yautja warrior and the champion of the Tartarus Clan in the Dark Horse Life and Death saga by Dan Abnett and Brian Albert Thies. He hunted Colonial Marines in the rainforest of the moon Tartarus in Predator: Life and Death, then followed the humans to LV-223, where the Marines watching through binoculars nicknamed him the Champion. In Alien vs. Predator: Life and Death he met the outcast Elder Ahab in ritual single combat to settle who would lead the clan, and he died on Ahab's wristblades in front of the hunters who had followed him.
Biography
The Tartarus Clan
Hornhead belonged to a large hunting clan that the Marines came to call the Tartarus Clan, after the moon also catalogued as LV-797 where the humans first met it. He stood out among his brothers through sheer size and a silver bio-mask with a ridged crest and short horns, a design that places him among the horned Yautja. Beneath the mask he wore heavy plate over net mesh, and his maroon skin and long dreadlocks marked him in every crowd of hunters on the page. Within the clan he held the role of champion, the warrior sent forward when a matter had to be settled by combat rather than by the clan leader himself.
Forest Ambush On Tartarus
The clan had claimed a vast horseshoe-shaped Engineer ship buried in the rainforest of Tartarus, and it killed the Seegson claim jumpers who tried to strip the site. When Captain Paget brought the Marines of the combat ship Hasdrubal down to secure the derelict, the hunters turned on them as well, picking off patrols under cloak and fighting at arm's length among the trunks. Hornhead was among the hunters waiting in the canopy when Paget's column pushed through the forest toward the ship.
The ambush cost the Marines heavily, but massed pulse rifle fire, motion trackers and heat sweeps kept the column moving, and the clan eventually broke contact rather than lose more warriors in the open. The humans managed to lift the horseshoe ship off the moon, so the hunt on Tartarus ended with the clan robbed of its prize. Hornhead survived those battles and stayed with the clan as it set off after the stolen vessel.
Arrival On LV-223
The clan tracked the Hasdrubal and the derelict it was following, slaughtered the crew left aboard the combat ship, and landed on LV-223, where Paget's survivors were holding an Engineer pyramid. Ahab, who had been stranded on the moon alongside the human survivor Galgo Helder, walked out to meet the newcomers on the open ground before the temple. Galgo suspected that the old hunter was warning his kin about the Xenomorph threat on the moon, and the Marines watched the standoff through their scopes.
Ahab and the clan leader faced each other in front of the assembled hunters, and the rest of the clan held back from the outcast. Then Hornhead strode forward, swinging his weapon and roaring, and Galgo marked him at once as the clan's chosen fighter, which is how he came to be called the Champion.
The Challenge
The two hunters squared off in a growling crouch, and the Marines quickly understood that they were watching a ritual rather than an ambush. No pack rushed Ahab, and the rest of the clan gathered on the open ground and waited while the champion and the outcast settled the matter one against one. Whatever the outcome, it would decide whether Ahab was taken back into the tribe and whether the clan would stand with the humans at the pyramid.
Paget's people argued over what the duel meant. Some read it as the price of Ahab's return after years living among humans, a test he had to pass to prove he was still one of them, while others thought it was simply about who would be top dog. Either way, Hornhead carried the clan's claim into the fight, and the Marines' survival depended on how it ended.
Ritual Combat
The Predator duel began with fists. Hornhead was the larger fighter, and the two hunters collided in the dust, trading blows that cracked armor and drew green blood. They grappled across the open ground in front of the watching clan, neither giving way, while the Marines at the temple could do nothing but watch. A brutal punch from the champion bloodied Ahab's face and drove the old hunter to his hands and knees. For a moment the duel looked decided, with Ahab bleeding on the ground and Hornhead looming over him.
Wristblades Drawn
The contest turned deadly when the wristblades came out. The two hunters launched at each other again across the dust, and this time the fight was no longer about who could stay standing. Hornhead struck first with the blades, driving them into Ahab's shoulder in a show of the skill expected of a clan champion. Ahab bellowed in pain but stayed on his feet, and the wound did not stop him from bringing his own blades into play. At that point the champion had the advantage of size, strength and first blood, and the watching clan had every reason to expect him to finish the job.
Death Of The Champion
Ahab answered with a single sweep of his blades that cut Hornhead's hand off at the gauntlet. Hornhead reeled back roaring as green blood sprayed from the stump, and before he could recover, Ahab drove his remaining blades through the champion's torso. The strongest warrior of the Tartarus Clan fell dead in the dust in front of the hunters who had followed him from Tartarus. Ahab stood over the body with his arms raised and roared his victory to the gathered clan, while the champion's horned mask lay in the dirt beside him. Hornhead's face was never shown in the comic, either in life or in death.
Aftermath
With their champion dead, the clan accepted the outcome and took Ahab back as one of their own. Instead of claiming the pyramid, the hunters stood with the Marines when a vast Xenomorph swarm came over the ridge, a team-up that would have been impossible had the duel gone the other way. Ahab later left LV-223 aboard the clan's ship, his place in the tribe paid for with Hornhead's life.
Weapons And Armor
Hornhead fought his last duel with fists and wristblades, and in the Tartarus fighting he hunted alongside a clan that struck from cloak and closed to blade range among the trees. His silver mask was ridged down the middle and armed with small horns above the eyes, and his chest and shoulders were covered in heavy plate over the net mesh common to Yautja hunters. His NECA figure adds a sword carried in a sheath on his back, a detail that matches the hilt visible over his shoulder in David Palumbo's cover painting.
Behind The Scenes
Hornhead was created for the 2016 Life and Death crossover saga, written by Dan Abnett and drawn by Brian Albert Thies for Dark Horse Comics. The four-part saga ran through Predator, Prometheus, Aliens and Alien vs. Predator miniseries, and Hornhead appears in the first and last of them. He is a background hunter in Predator: Life and Death, and his big moment comes in the second issue of Alien vs. Predator: Life and Death, where his duel with Ahab decides the fate of the Marines on LV-223.
Despite his small role in the Predator miniseries, he takes the spotlight on David Palumbo's painted cover for Predator: Life and Death #3, published in May 2016. His look follows the tradition of horned Predator designs, and he was drawn alongside other Tartarus Clan hunters later nicknamed after toy and comic designs, such as the Hive Wars Predator. The name Hornhead is not spoken in the story itself, and the Marines only ever refer to him as the clan's Champion.
Merchandise
NECA released Hornhead in 2017 as part of its 7-inch scale Predator line, in Series 18, a wave dedicated to Dark Horse Comics Predators alongside Broken Tusk and Machiko Noguchi. Built on NECA's Ultimate Predator body, the figure stands about 8 inches tall and has between 25 and 30 points of articulation. It comes in blister card packaging under item number 51545, and NECA presented it as a companion piece to its Ultimate Ahab figure.
The figure includes a removable mask and a sword that fits into a sheath on his back, so collectors can see an unmasked face that the comic never revealed. Its silver armor, red mesh and blood-splattered blades follow the comic look closely, in line with NECA's aim of making the Series 18 figures as accurate to the comics as possible.
Conclusion
Hornhead was the champion of the Tartarus Clan, a hunter who fought Paget's Marines in the rainforest of Tartarus and followed them to LV-223 to reclaim what the clan had lost. His ritual duel with Ahab was the turning point of the Life and Death saga: he drew first blood with his wristblades, lost his hand, and died in front of his clan, and his death brought Ahab home and turned the hunters into allies of the Marines against the swarm. His face was never seen in the comics, but the NECA figure has made him one of the better-known named Predators from the series.
Appearances
- Predator: Life and Death (2016 comic) - Tartarus Clan hunter in the forest ambush on Tartarus; cover of issue #3
- Alien vs. Predator: Life and Death (2016 comic) - clan champion; ritual duel with Ahab and death on LV-223
Tag Categories: Individual Predators | Predators From The Comics | Predator Lore
