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86-503: Edginton and D'Israeli's 2006 adaptation of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds is effectively a prequel to Scarlet Traces , as key characters of Scarlet Traces can be glimpsed therein and the same designs for the Martians and their technology are used. A fourth series, Scarlet Traces: Cold War , appeared in 2000 AD in 2016 and 2017. Scarlet Traces is based on the premise that Britain

172-421: A Dirty Harry -inspired tough cop called One-Eyed Jack for Valiant , saw that readers also responded to authority figures, and developed a character that took the concept to its logical extreme, imagining an ultra-violent lawman patrolling a future New York with the power to arrest, sentence, and if required execute criminals on the spot. This would allow the new comic to be as violent as Action had been –

258-402: A mutant bounty hunter created by Wagner and Ezquerra, and Ro-Busters , a robot disaster squad created by Mills. Ro-Busters gave O'Neill the chance to spread his artistic wings and led to the popular spin-off ABC Warriors . Strontium Dog and ABC Warriors continued to feature in 2000 AD for the next 40 years. (A third Starlord series, Timequake , only lasted for four episodes and

344-462: A police state . This would provide plotlines for years to come. In 1986 the comic reached its 500th issue. A new Sláine story, Sláine the King , began, entirely drawn by Fabry. Peter Milligan , a writer who had been contributing Future Shocks , began two series, the bleak future war story Bad Company and a strange, psychedelic series called The Dead . In 1986, 2000 AD was selling 150,000 copies

430-527: A teleport system. This led to a series, Nemesis the Warlock , in which it was revealed that Termight was Earth in the far future. Torquemada was changed from the Chief of Traffic Police to a despotic demagogue leading a campaign of genocide against all aliens, and Nemesis was the leader of the alien resistance. Mills and O'Neill were on a roll and produced a stream of bizarre and imaginative ideas, but ultimately O'Neill

516-547: A "Genetic Infantryman" engineered to be immune to chemical warfare hunting down the traitor general who had betrayed his regiment, who debuted in 1981. He was supported by bio-chips of the personalities of three dead comrades, which, slotted into his equipment, could talk to him. Gibbons left the strip early on and was replaced by Colin Wilson , Brett Ewins and Cam Kennedy . Rogue Trooper replaced Meltdown Man , which had recently ended its run. Another new strip in 1981, inspired by

602-635: A "rather fantastic" invention, saying that it was only slightly more scientific than the cannon shot in Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon (1865), but noting that the story itself focused more on realism than Verne's did. The book describes Cavorite as a convenient plot device that turned the reader's attention to "human questions" as soon as possible, comparing it to the shield of Achilles . It notes that while critics demanded realism in science fiction, Wells created

688-536: A Judda cloned from the same genetic material as Dredd, was captured by Justice Department, who had plans for him. Chopper also spun off into his own series, written by Wagner and drawn by Colin MacNeil . The ABC Warriors finally had their own series again in 1987 as a spin-off from Nemesis . This was written, as ever, by Pat Mills, and drawn by two artists in rotation, newcomer Simon Bisley and science fiction artist S.M.S. In 1988 Grant and artist Simon Harrison began

774-806: A Nubian slave in the Roman Empire which took a science-fictional turn in 2000 AD with him becoming a gladiator in an alien world; The Mind of Wolfie Smith , a coming of age/psychic story of a runaway teenager, and Captain Klep , a single-page superhero parody. These stories, unlike Starlord's , did not continue for very long. The last issue titled 2000 AD and Tornado was prog 177, dated 13 September 1980. 2000 AD featured an adaptation of Harry Harrison 's novel The Stainless Steel Rat , written by Gosnell and drawn by Ezquerra, beginning in November 1979. Adaptations of two of Harrison's sequels, The Stainless Steel Rat Saves

860-444: A comic which had generated much controversy – but without attracting criticism, because the violence would be committed by an officer of the law. As Sanders put it, "The formula was simple: violence on the side of justice ... Dredd could be as violent as hell, and no one could say a thing." Meanwhile, Mills had developed a horror strip, inspired by the novels of Dennis Wheatley , about a hanging judge , called Judge Dread (after

946-580: A freedom fighter called Nemesis battles the despotic Torquemada , chief of the Tube Police. All that was seen of Nemesis was the outside of his vehicle, the Blitzspear. The story was a reaction to an earlier tube chase sequence Mills and O'Neill had done in Ro-Busters , which management objected to. The only other Comic Rock story was a follow-up called "Killer Watt", in which Nemesis and Torquemada fought on

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1032-465: A future war story inspired by the Vietnam War , drawn by McMahon, Cam Kennedy , Garry Leach and John Richardson . A feature of the early years of 2000 AD was the opportunities it gave to young British comic artists: by the time the title celebrated its 100th issue Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons, Ian Gibson, Mike McMahon and Kevin O'Neil were all established as regulars. In 1980 Judge Dredd gained

1118-558: A giant killer robot charged with keeping demons from invading earth. Cavorite Cavorite is a fictional material first depicted by H. G. Wells in The First Men in the Moon , a 1901 scientific romance . Developed by Cavor, a reclusive physicist, it has the ability to negate the force of gravity, enabling him and a businessman named Bedford to travel to the Moon using a spherical spacecraft propelled by Cavorite blinds . The material

1204-460: A good introduction to the character, all of which meant that Dredd would not be ready for the first issue. The story chosen was one written by freelancer Peter Harris, extensively rewritten by Mills and including an idea suggested by Kelvin Gosnell, and drawn by newcomer Mike McMahon . The strip debuted in prog 2, dated 5 March 1977. IPC owned the rights to Dan Dare , and Mills decided to revive

1290-683: A less sentimental take on the same basic plot used in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , set in Birmingham and influenced by Alan Bleasdale 's Boys from the Blackstuff . The series was drawn by Jim Baikie . Moore wrote another series, D.R. and Quinch , spun off from a one-off Time Twister . Drawn by Alan Davis , the strip featured a pair of alien juvenile delinquents with a penchant for mindless thermonuclear destruction. He went on to create The Ballad of Halo Jones with artist Ian Gibson . Halo

1376-454: A local drunk, whose dog discovers them, to think that a vampire is on the loose. Emerging from comfortable retirement in fashionable Bedford Square , Major Robert Autumn DSO and his trusty manservant Colour Sergeant Arthur Currie search for the culprits after being informed that Currie's niece is most likely one of the missing girls. Autumn is represented as a classic Victorian hero: honourable, perceptive and brave but out of his depth in

1462-479: A multi-dimensional organisation that polices reality, whose most memorable story was "Killing Time", a time travel story featuring Jack the Ripper . Garth Ennis and Philip Bond contributed Time Flies , a time-travel comedy, and Hewlett was paired with writer Peter Milligan for the surreal Hewligan's Haircut . Writer John Tomlinson and artist Simon Jacob created Armoured Gideon , an action-comedy series about

1548-416: A new Strontium Dog story, "The Final Solution". It took nearly two years to complete, and ended with the death of Johnny Alpha, who sacrificed his life to save mutants from extermination. Original artist Carlos Ezquerra did not agree with the decision to kill the character off, and refused to draw it. The number of colour pages was increased, allowing for one complete strip per issue to be painted. Initially

1634-515: A new age of ruthless exploitation personified by the bullish, cynical government official Dr. Davenport Spry. After following the investigation across England and Scotland the pair, now accompanied by the drunk from London, discover that a single Martian has survived the bacteria by turning its own war machine into a hermetic chamber . In return for its life - and human blood to sustain it, the alien dubbed "Humpty", has been assisting British scientists in mastering advanced Martian technical skills. In

1720-455: A new character, Robo-Hunter , in 1978. The hero, Sam Slade, was a private detective -type character specialising in robot -related cases. José Ferrer was the original artist, but the editorial team were not happy with his work and quickly replaced him with Ian Gibson, who redrew parts of Ferrer's episodes before taking over himself. Gibson's imaginative, cartoony art helped drive the series' style from hard-boiled detective to surreal comedy. As

1806-577: A new enemy. Writer John Wagner realised that Dredd's habit of shooting just about everybody he came up against meant that it was difficult to create a recurring villain. The solution was Judge Death , an undead judge from another dimension where, since all crime was committed by the living, life itself was outlawed. The law had been thoroughly enforced on his own world, and now he had come to Mega-City One to continue his work. Judge Death first appeared in an atmospheric three-parter drawn by Brian Bolland which also introduced Judge Anderson and Psi Division ,

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1892-401: A nuclear explosion, the return of Strontium Dog and Dash Decent , a Flash Gordon parody . Pat Mills introduced Comic Rock , which was meant to be a format for short stories inspired by popular music. The first story, inspired by The Jam 's Going Underground , was drawn by Kevin O'Neill and featured a complicated underground travel network on a planet called "Termight", in which

1978-635: A reprint — thus giving us the funds to complete the story while retaining ownership. D'Israeli reworked Scarlet Traces as a traditional comic book story. This version was serialised in 2002 in the British anthology Judge Dredd Megazine (vol 4) issues 16 to 18. In 2003 it was collected in its own 4-issue limited series (with minor revisions) by US publisher Dark Horse Comics , and subsequently collected into one hardcover volume by Dark Horse Comics in August 2003 ( ISBN   1-56971-940-3 ). The Great Game

2064-410: A second science fiction comic which had been launched by IPC earlier that year. As Gosnell was editor of Starlord and 2000 AD at the same time, 2000 AD sub-editor Nick Landau largely edited the latter comic himself during this time. Starlord was cancelled after only 22 issues and merged into 2000 AD from prog 86. Two Starlord strips strengthened 2000 AD ' s line-up: Strontium Dog ,

2150-447: A small margin on a desultory turnout, and Dredd was satisfied. 2000 AD gained an influx of talent from other comics. Garth Ennis and John Smith had come to prominence writing for Crisis , a 2000 AD spin-off for older readers, while artists Jamie Hewlett and Philip Bond were the stars of Deadline , an independent comics and popular culture magazine founded by Steve Dillon and Brett Ewins . Smith created Indigo Prime ,

2236-526: A squad of judges with psychic powers. Dredd soon began another epic journey in " The Judge Child ". A dying Psi Division Judge had predicted disaster for Mega-City One unless it was ruled by a boy with a birthmark shaped like an eagle, so Dredd set off into the Cursed Earth, to Texas City , and into deep space in search of the boy, Owen Krysler, and his kidnappers, the Angel Gang. All of them were killed during

2322-533: A strip about time-travelling cowboys farming dinosaurs for their meat. After 16 issues, Mills quit as editor and handed the reins to Kelvin Gosnell , whose idea the comic had been in the first place. Gosnell also appeared as the fall guy in the Tharg the Mighty comedy photostrips that were a feature of the comic in its early years. Wagner returned to write Judge Dredd , starting in prog 9. His " Robot Wars " storyline

2408-517: A supporting character in Judge Dredd , Judge Anderson finally appeared in her own series, written by Wagner and Grant and initially drawn by Brett Ewins. New artist Glenn Fabry debuted on Sláine , but, due to his slowness, he was rotated with David Pugh . In the Judge Dredd story "Letter from a Democrat", Wagner and Grant introduced a pro-democracy movement in Mega-City One, which is after all

2494-544: A week. In 1987 IPC's comics division was hived off and sold to publishing magnate Robert Maxwell as Fleetway. 2000 AD was revamped, with a larger page size and full process colour on the covers and centre pages. Richard Burton became editor. Kevin O'Neill returned for a short Nemesis series called "Torquemada the God". Not long after came the debut of Zenith , 2000 AD' s first serious superhero strip, by new writer Grant Morrison and artist Steve Yeowell . The title character

2580-454: Is a cameo by Dan Dare and Digby. The War of the Worlds adaptation by Dark Horse Comics contains several references to Scarlet Traces . Autumn and Currie can be seen in a newspaper as having saved Emperor Menelik of Abyssinia from an assassin. Ned Penny can be seen on the Thunder Child . An Archie the dog look-alike appears in the ruins of London. An official figure supervising

2666-451: Is approached by officials of the new government who are worried she will expose the truth, which has been repressed. She assures them that she has no intention of upsetting the status quo, and returns to her garden - which contains several Triffids . A further sequel Scarlet Traces Volume 03 , set in 1968, was published in March 2022. In The Great Game , when Charlotte reaches the cavern with

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2752-483: Is delivered, and turns out to be modified Cavorite in capsule form, which sticks to anything it touches, and lifts it off the planet into the vacuum of space. Hemming is amongst those who survive, but they discover that humanoid Martians have taken control of the Lunar colony, and turned its mass driver into a weapon targeted on Earth. The bulk of the returning expeditionary force has been ambushed and destroyed. Ultimately

2838-401: Is seen reading Scarlet Traces . The original Scarlet Traces was conceived as a partially animated serial, intended for the now-defunct website Cool Beans World . In an interview for 2000AD Review, Edginton said "The Cool Beans version was to have been like a little movie in many ways. It had music, sound effects, zooms, pans and dissolves. There was even going to be some limited animation of

2924-472: The London Evening Standard about a wave of forthcoming science fiction films, and suggested that the company might get on the bandwagon by launching a science fiction comic. IPC publisher John Sanders asked Pat Mills , a freelance writer and editor who had created Battle Picture Weekly and Action , to develop it. Mills brought fellow freelancer John Wagner on board as script adviser and

3010-464: The Harlem Heroes sequel Inferno . When Gibbons took over Dan Dare in prog 28 the strip was refashioned as a Star Trek -style space opera. Mills had also created Harlem Heroes , about the future sport of aeroball, a futuristic, violent version of basketball with jet-packs. Similar future sport series had been a fixture of Action , and the similarly themed film Rollerball had been released

3096-426: The reggae and ska artist of the same name ). The idea was abandoned as unsuitable for the new comic, but the name, with a little modification, was adopted by Wagner for his ultimate lawman. The task of visualising the newly named Judge Dredd was given to Carlos Ezquerra , a Spanish artist who had previously worked with Mills on Battle , on a strip called Major Eazy . Wagner gave Ezquerra an advertisement for

3182-497: The Martian heat ray; the pigeons of Trafalgar Square are thinned out by miniature Martian war machines. In the sequel, Britain of the late 1930s is recreated along fairly recognisable lines but with an additional layer of alien derived technology. The story begins ten years after the abortive Martian invasion of Earth, with bodies being washed up on the banks of the river Thames. The bodies are all female and drained of blood, prompting

3268-400: The Martians are defeated when a Commonwealth space fleet, originally intended to evacuate their own troops, arrives and with the surviving British ships engage the Martians in a crossfire. Earth is saved, and the British government falls, with Spry being amongst those killed in the mass driver attacks which have devastated London and much of southern England. Some years later, a retired Hemming

3354-486: The Martians are not in fact native to Mars, but seem to have originated from a now-destroyed planet that became the asteroid belt. She theorises that a previous civilisation existed on Mars and was itself plunged into warfare by the arrival of the Asteroid "Martians", resulting in their extinction. Hemming also discovers that the Martians have been using genetic techniques to mimic humanity to an indistinguishable degree - but

3440-516: The Moon, he "borrowed freely from his predecessors". Beyond Reason states that a material such as Cavorite is impossible in the real world, as it contradicts the laws of conservation of energy . It would allow for the instant invention of a perpetual motion machine , such as a bicycle whose wheel, partly shielded from gravity, would spin at a faster and faster pace until it reached its mechanical limits. Natural Space in Literature calls Cavorite

3526-580: The Rovers , Battle and the relaunched Eagle in the United Kingdom, and a number of comics in America. With prog 178 all current stories, with the exception of Judge Dredd , were wound up, and a new set of stories was launched simultaneously, consisting of Mean Arena , set around a violent high-tech street football game, Meltdown Man , whose hero was transported to a genetically engineered far future by

Scarlet Traces - Misplaced Pages Continue

3612-469: The Russian city East-Meg One, and led directly to " The Apocalypse War ", another six-month epic and a hard-hitting satire on the concept of mutually assured destruction . East-Meg One, protected by a warp-shield, softened up Mega-City One with nuclear warheads before invading. Dredd spearheaded the resistance, leading a small team to East-Meg territory, hijacking their nuclear bunkers and blowing East-Meg One off

3698-541: The War Machines. A lot of the work was done and in the can when Cool Beans shut down production..." The website ceased operation after only a fraction of the serial had been published. D'Israeli wrote in his blog: ...when Cool Beans folded, we had a comic which was only 75% complete and which was still owned by the defunct publisher... Having retrieved the property, Ian (Edginton) then managed to license our previously-unpublished comic to Rebellion's Judge Dredd Megazine as

3784-420: The Warlock and Nikolai Dante . 2000 AD was initially published by IPC Magazines. IPC then shifted the title to its Fleetway comics subsidiary, which was sold to Robert Maxwell in 1987 and then to Egmont UK in 1991. Fleetway continued to produce the title until 2000, when it was bought by Rebellion Developments . In December 1975, Kelvin Gosnell , a sub-editor at IPC Magazines , read an article in

3870-617: The World and The Stainless Steel Rat for President , would follow later. The appearance of the main character, galactic thief "Slippery" Jim DiGriz, was based on James Coburn , evidently a favourite of Ezquerra's; Coburn was also the inspiration for Major Eazy , which Ezquerra drew in Battle, as well as Cursed Earth Koburn , a Dredd-universe reworking of the Major Eazy character, who first appeared in 2003. Gerry Finley-Day contributed The V.C.s ,

3956-419: The brief CB radio craze, was Ace Trucking Co. , a comedy about pointy-headed alien space trucker Ace Garp and his crew by Wagner, Grant and Belardinelli. In the Judge Dredd series, Mega-City One had grown too large and unwieldy: therefore authors Wagner and Grant they planned to cut it down to size. " Block Mania ", in which wars broke out between rival city-blocks, turned out to be a plot orchestrated by

4042-400: The character to add immediate public recognition for the title. Paul DeSavery, who owned Dare ' s film rights, offered to buy the new comic and give Mills and Wagner more creative control and a greater financial stake. The deal fell through, however. Dan Dare was extensively revamped to make it more futuristic. In the new stories he had been put into suspended animation and revived in

4128-406: The colour pages were reserved for Judge Dredd , but were later given over to a new Sláine story, "The Horned God", fully painted by Simon Bisley . The series was collected as a series of three graphic novels, then as a single volume, and has remained in print ever since. In 1989 the colour pages were increased again, allowing for three colour stories and two black and white in every issue. One of

4214-513: The colour series was Rogue Trooper: the War Machine , written by Dave Gibbons and painted by Will Simpson . The original Rogue Trooper series had run out of steam after the Traitor General had been dealt with, though continued with Rogue's adventures on Horst and the "Hit" series, so Gibbons revamped the concept, creating a different genetic infantryman, Friday , in a different war, albeit in

4300-480: The course of the story, however the Mean Machine was later resurrected by Krysler during "Destiny's Angels". "The Judge Child" was drawn by Bolland, Ron Smith and Mike McMahon in rotation, and the later episodes marked the beginning of Wagner's long-running writing partnership with Alan Grant . The pair would go on to write Strontium Dog , Robo-Hunter and many other stories for 2000 AD , as well as for Roy of

4386-425: The decision was made to make out that Dredd's face had been scarred and the panel had a "censored" banner slapped on it. After this, there were no further attempts to show Dredd's face again. A new story format was introduced in prog 25 – Tharg's Future Shocks , one-off twist-in-the-tale stories devised by writer Steve Moore . 2000 AD still uses this format as filler and to try out new talent. Wagner introduced

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4472-455: The encounter. This could mean only one thing: Judge Death was back. This set up the latest six-month epic, " Necropolis ". After Dredd had left, Justice Department had put Kraken through one final test, and given him Dredd's badge. But the Sisters of Death, spirit beings from Judge Death's dimension, were able to use Kraken's inner conflict to take control of him and use him to bring Judge Death and

4558-429: The events of Scarlet Traces , the counter-invasion of Mars is going badly, with the Martians successfully defending themselves using heat ray weapons against the invaders. Charlotte Hemming, an aristocratic young photojournalist , is saved by Robert Autumn from the thuggish agents of an increasingly repressive British Government - led by Spry, now Prime Minister. Autumn asks her to travel to Mars and investigate why out of

4644-426: The face of the earth. "The Apocalypse War" was drawn in its entirety by Carlos Ezquerra, making a return to the character he created. A new writer, Alan Moore , had started contributing Future Shocks in 1980. He wrote more than fifty one-off strips over the next three years, while also contributing to various Marvel UK titles and the independent magazine Warrior . In 1982 he gained his first series, Skizz ,

4730-466: The film Death Race 2000 , showing the character Frankenstein clad in black leather, as a suggestion for what the character should look like. Ezquerra elaborated on this greatly, adding body-armour, zips and chains, which Wagner originally thought over the top. Wagner's initial script was rewritten by Mills and drawn up by Ezquerra, but when the art came back a rethink was necessary. The hardware and cityscapes Ezquerra had drawn were far more futuristic than

4816-491: The finale Spry reveals that Britain, having come to dominate Earth using its newly acquired technology, now intends to invade Mars. In an ensuing fight Currie is killed, and Autumn loses an arm. Spry kills the captive Martian which has now served its purpose, and contemptuously dismisses Autumn as a "dusty relic". Later, a crippled and alcoholic Autumn witnesses the departure of Britain's Stellar Expeditionary Force to Mars, amid general scenes of patriotic fervor. Thirty years after

4902-517: The first issue dated 26 February. Since 2000 it has been published by Rebellion Developments . 2000 AD is most noted for its Judge Dredd stories, and has been contributed to by a number of artists and writers who became renowned in the field internationally, such as Alan Moore , Dave Gibbons , Grant Morrison , Brian Bolland , Mike McMahon , John Wagner , Alan Grant and Garth Ennis . Other series in 2000 AD include Rogue Trooper , Sláine , Strontium Dog , ABC Warriors , Nemesis

4988-471: The former Judda cloned from his bloodline, to replace him. Kraken was now ready for his final assessment, and Dredd himself was chosen to assess him. Although Kraken performed faultlessly, Dredd thought he perceived a hint of his former allegiance to the Judda in him, and failed him. He then resigned as a judge and took the ' Long Walk ' into the Cursed Earth. There he met the Sisters of Death, and only barely survived

5074-529: The future lawman out of the city on a humanitarian trek across the radioactive wasteland between the Mega-Cities. McMahon drew the bulk of the stories, with occasional episodes drawn by Brian Bolland . The story saw Dredd moved to the colour centre pages for the first time while Dan Dare was given the front page. Steve MacManus took over from Gosnell as editor in 1978, starting with prog 86, dated 14 October. In that issue 2000 AD merged with Starlord ,

5160-645: The glyphs, the original inhabitants of the Solar System are revealed to be: In The Great Game issue 1, Carl Kolchak makes a cameo appearance . In issue 2, Autumn's bookshelf includes a work entitled The Perils of Andrea , a reference to Perelandra . Both references were made by D'Israeli. The fictional Hobbs End underground station is a reference to Quatermass and the Pit . Captain Haddock, Tintin and Snowy (from The Adventures of Tintin ) can be spotted on page 42. There

5246-422: The government is already aware of this, and has been preventing any substantial return of veterans to Earth, in case they are in fact disguised Martians. Spry's government is about to deliver a coup de grace in some unknown form, and destroy all the remaining Martians - as well as an expendable rearguard left behind when the main body of the expeditionary force is secretly evacuated. The expected doomsday weapon

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5332-411: The near-future setting originally intended, and Mills decided to run with it and set the strip further into the future. By this stage, however, Wagner and Ezquerra had both quit. Mills was reluctant to lose Judge Dredd , and farmed the strip out to a variety of freelance writers, hoping to develop it further. Their scripts were given to a variety of artists as Mills tried to find a strip which would make

5418-455: The north pole had melted the polar ice-cap and flooded Britain. In 1977 2000 AD launched the annual 48-page Summer Special, including a full-length M.A.C.H. Zero story drawn by O'Neill. The yearly hardcover annual also started in 1977 (cover dated 1978) and would continue till 1990 (dated 1991). Pat Mills took over writing Dredd for a six-month "epic" called " The Cursed Earth ", inspired by Roger Zelazny 's Damnation Alley , which took

5504-506: The other Dark Judges back from the limbo dimension Dredd had exiled them to. The Sisters possessed all the city's judges and began to enforce Death's twisted law. Out in the Cursed Earth, Dredd had recovered his memory and returned to defeat the Dark Judges. He then tried to lance the democratic boil by holding a referendum on whether the Judges should continue to govern the city. The judges won, by

5590-472: The outback. This ending was apparently the cause of some dispute between Wagner and Grant, and was a contributing factor (it was The Last American , a mini series for Epic Comics which would mark the end) in ending their regular writing partnership. Wagner kept Dredd , while Grant continued Strontium Dog and Judge Anderson . However the pair would still come together for occasional collaborations. The "Oz" storyline had some lasting implications. Kraken ,

5676-416: The pair began to develop characters. The then-futuristic name 2000 AD was chosen by John Sanders, as no-one involved expected the comic to last that long. The original logo and overall look of the comic were designed by art assistant Doug Church. Mills' experiences with Battle and Action in particular had taught him that readers responded to his anti-authoritarian attitudes. Wagner, who had written

5762-420: The previous year. Wanting to give the new comic a distinctive look, Mills wanted to use European artists, but the work turned in on Harlem Heroes by Trigo was disappointing. Veteran British artists Ron Turner and Barrie Mitchell were tried out, but the newcomer Dave Gibbons won the editor over with his dynamic, American-influenced drawings and got the job. Mills wrote the first five episodes before handing

5848-506: The removal of Martian tripods after the end of the war resembles a young Dr. Spry, while the two army sergeants awaiting his orders reappear as Coughly and Dravott in Scarlet Traces . The adaptation ends with the narrator reflecting that it may be possible for humans to spread throughout the solar system also. In Kingdom of the Wicked , also by Edginton and D'Israeli, the main character's wife

5934-459: The same formula as Hook Jaw from Action but with less success) the story of a polar bear pursued by the Army because it had swallowed a secret capsule. M.A.C.H. 1 was killed off in 1978 but a spin-off, M.A.C.H. Zero , continued into the 1980s. Flesh had a sequel in 1978, set on the prehistoric oceans, and Bill Savage appeared again in a prequel, Disaster 1990 , in which a nuclear explosion at

6020-400: The same universe. One of the black and white stories, " The Dead Man ", was a low-key beginning for a major event. In the Cursed Earth, villagers come across a man, burnt from head to toe, with no memory of who he is or what happened to him. As he tries to piece his memories back together, he is being hunted by the evil beings who left him in that state. A creepy, atmospheric horror-western, it

6106-452: The series continued Sam was joined by an idiot kit-built robot assistant, Hoagy, and after a crack-down on smoking in IPC comics, a Cuban robot cigar , Stogie, designed to help him cut down on nicotine . Other ongoing strips included The Visible Man , detailing the misfortunes of Frank Hart, a man whose skin had been made transparent due to exposure to nuclear waste, and Shako , (which followed

6192-436: The strip to Roy of the Rovers writer Tom Tully . The other opening strips were M.A.C.H. 1 , a super-powered secret agent inspired by The Six Million Dollar Man ; Invasion! , about a "Volgan" (thinly disguised and originally billed as Soviet, but changed before printing to a "neutral" antagonist) invasion of the United Kingdom opposed by tough London lorry driver turned guerrilla fighter Bill Savage; and Flesh ,

6278-424: The thousands of soldiers sent, only three hundred and seventy two have returned from the war. At the same time, the government is shown to be under pressure from a Nationalistic Scottish breakaway faction; plus Canada, Australia and New Zealand who wish to remove their troops from the space combat. Hemming's spaceship is shot down as it enters Mars' atmosphere. She survives, but her cover is blown. She discovers that

6364-489: The year 2177. Several artists were tried out before Mills settled on Italian artist Massimo Belardinelli , whose imaginative, hallucinatory work was fantastic at visualising aliens, although perhaps less satisfying on the hero himself. The scripts were endlessly rewritten in an attempt to make the series work, but few Dan Dare fans remember this version of the character fondly. Belardinelli and Gibbons later switched strips, with Gibbons drawing Dan Dare and Belardinelli drawing

6450-409: Was a barbarian fantasy strip based on Celtic mythology . Kincaid was a children's book illustrator who had never worked in comics before, and her opening episode was drawn and redrawn several times before the editors were satisfied. Other stories were written for artists Massimo Belardinelli and Mike McMahon, but these could not see print until Kincaid's episode was ready. In 1985, after appearing as

6536-419: Was a shallow pop singer with superhuman powers, caught up in the intrigues of a 1960s generation of superhumans and the machinations of some Lovecraftian elder gods. Wagner and Grant began a new Dredd Epic, " Oz ", featuring Chopper , a popular supporting character. Chopper was a skysurfer who had been imprisoned for competing in an illegal surfing competition a few years previously. A legal "Supersurf" race

6622-546: Was able to reverse engineer alien technology, abandoned after the abortive Martian invasion of The War of the Worlds , to establish economic and political dominance over the remainder of the world. The artwork shows an imposition of futuristic devices on early 20th century society. In the first series, set in 1908, London cabbies and the Household Cavalry have swapped their horses for mechanical devices with spiderlike legs; homes are heated and lit by modified versions of

6708-496: Was an everywoman in the far future, born into mass unemployment on a floating housing estate, who escaped the earth and became involved in a terrible galactic war. Three books were published, and more were planned, but Moore's demands for creator's rights and his increasing commitments to American publishers meant they never materialised. A new character, Sláine , debuted in 1983, but had been in development since 1981. Created by Pat Mills and his then wife Angela Kincaid , Sláine

6794-507: Was being held in Oz, the future Australia, and Chopper escaped to compete. Dredd also went to Oz, partly to deal with Chopper, but mostly to investigate the Judda , a clone army created by Mega-City One's former chief genetic engineer. The Judda were defeated, and Chopper narrowly lost the race to Jug McKenzie. Dredd was waiting at the finish line, but McKenzie distracted him and allowed Chopper to escape into

6880-486: Was drawn by John Ridgway and written by "Keef Ripley", a pseudonym for John Wagner. By the end of the series the Dead Man had discovered his identity: he was Judge Dredd. As "The Dead Man" ended, a new Judge Dredd story, " Tale of the Dead Man ", explained how Dredd had ended up in that position. Dredd was getting older and the democratic movement was causing him to doubt his role, so Justice Department had groomed Kraken ,

6966-409: Was drawn by a rotating team of artists, including McMahon, Ezquerra, Turner and Ian Gibson , and marked the point where Dredd became the most popular character in the comic, a position he has rarely relinquished. Dredd's city, which now covered most of the east coast of North America, became known as Mega-City One . Dredd had also been unmasked in issue 8 in a story drawn by Massimo Belardinelli, but

7052-425: Was first published in a four-issue mini-series by Dark Horse Comics in 2006. The War of the Worlds was published in the same year. Cold War appeared in 2000 AD #1988–1999 in 2016. 2000 AD (comics) 2000 AD is a weekly British science fiction-oriented comic magazine. As a comics anthology it serialises stories in each issue (known as "progs") and was first published by IPC Magazines in 1977,

7138-472: Was later referenced in numerous works of science fiction media, and its theoretical implications have been discussed by critics. Into Other Worlds posits that Cavorite was based on a combination of lunarium, a fictional metal from A Voyage to the Moon (1827) by George Tucker , and apergy , from Across the Zodiac (1880) by Percy Greg , and that since Wells was unconcerned about the process of traveling to

7224-610: Was not renewed.) Dan Dare was suspended while "The Cursed Earth" was finished in time for the merger. Wagner returned to Dredd following the merger to write "The Day the Law Died", another six-month epic in which Mega-City One was taken over by the insane Chief Judge Cal , based on the Roman emperor Caligula . Another cancelled title, Tornado , was merged with 2000 AD a few months later from prog 127, contributing three stories to 2000 AD : Blackhawk , an historical adventure series about

7310-436: Was probably originally intended for Battle . Its hero was a German soldier who discovered that some of his Romanian allies were vampires. Later in the war, when Romania changed sides, he was the only one who knew their secret. A readers' poll revealed that future war was a popular topic, so Gerry Finley-Day was asked to come up with a new war story. He, editor Steve MacManus and artist Dave Gibbons devised Rogue Trooper ,

7396-469: Was unable to continue the level of work he was putting into it on 2000 AD pay. He left to work for DC Comics in America, and was replaced on Nemesis by first Jesus Redondo and then Bryan Talbot . 2000 AD would occasionally take a gamble on non-science fiction material. For example, Fiends of the Eastern Front was a World War II vampire story by Gerry Finley-Day and Carlos Ezquerra which

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