We’re back to 2000 AD with a year that finishes up a couple of the longer one-series stories: Return to Armageddon and Meltdown Man, as well as hitting the midpoint of Mean Arena. Judge Dredd’s getting more of a look at Mega-City One which I really like for fleshing out the weird dystopia. That said, this year was all about two debuts: Nemesis is finally seen outside of the Blitzspear, and fresh from the Quartz Zone Massacre, we have Rogue Trooper.

The issues covered here are: 2000 AD issues 193-244, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1981, Starlord Annual 1982, Judge Dredd Annual 1982, 2000 AD Annual 1982

JUDGE DREDD

Issues Covered: 193-244, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1981, 2000 AD Annual 1982, Judge Dredd Annual 1982

1981 starts with some repercussions to The Judge Child, with the arrival of another Angel Family member, Fink! He’s the freakiest of weird little freaks, with ‘pizins’ (poisons) which he’s using as a revenge plot against the Judges who killed his family. The Judge Dredd Annual shows the lasting appeal of the Angels, especially Mean Machine, as Pa sends him to rob a bank on his birthday. I’m assuming they’ll get resurrected somehow in the present day of the comic.

Pirates of the Black Atlantic has the embarrassingly-named Captain Skank whose mother is a sea monster attacking Mega City One. It turns out to be a Sov-Blok conspiracy, which sows some seeds for events later in the year.

Unamerican Graffiti shows the perspective of Chopper, a young graffiti artist, and it’s quite nice seeing MC1 from this perspective. Assault on I-Block-4 has ‘Gila Munjas’ from the Cursed Earth attacking the city.

The main story is short and comes at the end of the year, but it acts as a prelude to 1982’s event. Block Mania starts with a four-way battle of the blocks which suddenly takes off. Worse, it spreads. Some of the blocks are gassed, and it turns out to be a contamination in the water which is another Sov-Blok conspiracy! With so much of North Mega City One and some of the neighbouring areas affected, this is when Sov-Blok decide to strike!

It’s been fun seeing some smaller stories and a sense of the expanded Mega City One beyond just Dredd’s perspective. Unamerican Graffiti and the annuals’ Max Normal strips are good views at the weirdness of the comic world.

Collected in: Judge Dredd Complete Case Files 04, Judge Dredd Complete Case Files 05, Judge Dredd: The Restricted Files 01

STRONTIUM DOG

Issues Covered: 193-197, 200-206, 210-221, 224-233, Starlord Annual 1982

The main story of the year is Portrait of a Mutant, which goes into the origins of Johnny Alpha as he and Wulf hunt down a man who turns out to be his father!

Johnny’s mum was out in a strontium storm, imbuing her son with strange mutations which was unfortunate as his dad was the Farage of his day, a politician coasting off a wave of anti-mutant hate. Johnny’s locked away initially and breaks out, meeting mutants who he lies to about his origin. From here we see some incredible mutants, like Clackton Fuzz, Middenface McNulty and The Torso from Newcastle. Some truly amazing people, and the art by Ezquerra is so good.

Kreelman ends up having to quit when Johnny and the rebels threaten a parliamentary scandal. The Galactic Crime Commission hires the toughest mutants as ‘Search/Destroy Agents” or… Strontium Dogs. Eventually Alpha finds his dad and the two have a confrontation which leads to him trapping his dad in a time loop.

The art’s so good on this run, and the raw wound that is Johnny’s origin does a good job to differentiate him from the other stoic 2000 AD heroes. There are a couple of stories after this including some shenanigans with the Gronk and Kid Knee, but none of them are as strong as Portrait was.

Collected in: Strontium Dog Search and Destroy Volume 3

NEMESIS: THE WARLOCK BOOK ONE

Issues Covered: 222-223, 238-240, 243-244, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1981

Originally created by Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill

Not that the other stories are bad, but now we’re onto some good shit. I remember reading a little of this as a kid and not being entirely sure what to make of it.

We saw a little bit of this world in Comic Rock, Terror Tube and Killer Watt. There’s an interstellar empire which has gone all in on puritanical witch-hunting and is zealously anti-alien. Termight is overseen by Torquemada, who died in Killer Watt, but don’t worry, he’ll do that a lot.

The first stories don’t even feature Nemesis, but have Torquemada’s return, possessing a loyal acolyte. Nemesis’ Blitzspear from the earlier stories crashes and Nemesis is dragged out by superstitious locals. He’s strung up by them, but uses his dark magic to torment them until he can get free. In this story, all the kind of dark witchcraft and demonic behaviour you’d expect from a horror movie monster are used for freedom and stopping the oppression of aliens. There’s something gleeful to the horror of it. 

Of course, Torquemada’s no slouch when it comes to the hellish imagery, even going so far as to have a horde of sacrifices above a fiery pit flanked by demonic statues. Luckily he’s pranked by Nemesis who ruins his plans and dispatches host body after host body for Torquemada until there’s nothing left but a spirit, and that’s what Nemesis is strongest against.

Collected in: Nemesis: The Warlock – The Definitive Edition Volume One

RPG Ideas: The Resistance Engine would provide some fun places to have these sorts of moments, whether it’s the abstract hell of Heart or the bad people fighting worse ones of the Drow resistance forces in Spire.

MEAN ARENA

Issues Covered: 193, 197-202, 218-221, 226-227 (13-38 of 77)

We’re at the long mid-point of Mean Arena. Matt Tallon’s still trying to avenge his brother’s death and has a laundry list of people to take down. All while he’s also trying to play for Slater’s Slayers.

They continue where they left off, with the Southampton Sharks, in a version of Southampton I really wish was real. Their star player Jaws Jenson ends up killed by a newsagent who refused to move from the arena.

Next up, Matt gets trapped by the seven murderers, all eager to kill him before they’re taken down. Even backed into a corner he’s deadly, taking down most of them before it’s time to get back to the sports. The Slayers end up fighting the Edinburgh Executioners, a team with a knight theme. Between matches, Matt dresses up oddly like a superhero for a bit, takes on murderbots and pulls a switcheroo by giving a dodgy doctor a facelift to look like him, then briefly ‘dying’.

Like Harlem Heroes, it’s good having a wider plot than just the sports. In this case the vengeance angle. The rival teams all have fun designs, but there’s still something lacking in Slater’s Slayers, who don’t really have a theme other than, “the team the protagonist is in”.

Collected in: Mean Arena Vol 1 – All to Slay For

MELTDOWN MAN

Issues Covered: 193-227 (16-50 of 50)

The shitty man version of Kamandi continues with Nick Stone helping the Yujees against the corrupt humans of the distant future, specifically Leeshar, who’s trying to engineer a new weird chimera version of Yujees as his own army.

Liana’s made a bit more human-looking but gets sidelined for a few stories, while King Seth goes from villain to treacherous ally. A nuke from human times is found and an obvious existential threat to everyone. Nick pretends to surrender to Leeshar and ends up using the nuke to travel back in time with him, which I’m pretty sure isn’t how that works.

Once in the present, Nick resolves to warm humankind about the asteroid that will cause the weird animal future and Leeshar immediately vanishes, along with everyone from his adventures who he hopes to remember. He’d better remember to get on with it.

While not the best story, it’s still entertaining seeing this weird kind of British take on a Kamandi situation. Belladinelli draws some magnificent freaks.

Collected in: Meltdown Man

RETURN TO ARMAGEDDON

Issues Covered: 193-218 (7-32 of 32)

Another story that started last year and ends here. 

Last time, a devil-looking creature was brought on board a spaceship and two babies were created: The Destroyer and Amtrak. They both aged up rapidly, with one flying off to do evil and the other mutated into an unfortunate freak.

Here, Amtrak’s sold to a circus, meets his namesake, “the creator of the stones of eternity”. His immortality is used as a sideshow act until jealous performers bury him in a big hole. He’s gets rescued by a robot, gets turned into a Luke Skywalker-looking guy and meets a woman called Eve when he finds the mess that Earth’s become.

Eventually he defeats The Destroyer, only to find out this and the battle between good and evil was a fight between giant cosmic beings who are ultimately children. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this, but they’re called away by parents, stranding the pair on a planet where Amtrak takes the name “Adam”.

This was another bizarre comic and feels like there wasn’t a long term plan to it, or maybe it was intentionally this much of a mess. A lot is simply Amtrak suffering, but it’s compelling simply to see where it’s going to go next. 

Collected in: Return to Armageddon

ROGUE TROOPER

Issues Covered: 228-232, 234-243

Originally created by Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons

I’m not a big military fiction person, I’m the one Etheridge who’s not a big World War II buff. That said, there’s something about the horror of World War I which is compelling, and putting it into a weirder setting is even more interesting to me.

Rogue Trooper is about a rogue trooper literally called Rogue, and his three dead friends he installed into his equipment. They’re the fortuitously-named Gunnar (in his gun), Bagman (in his bag) and Helm (in his hat). 

Nu-Earth is a blighted wasteland torn between the Southers and Norts, both of whom have ended up turning to weirder methods to get one up on each other. The Southers created Genetic Infantrymen like Rogue, but they were wiped out in the Quartz Zone Massacre, an event we hear about but don’t see yet. That’s where Rogue’s buddies were killed and he went off the grid. He’s still helping the Southers, but he knows there was a traitor who led to the massacre and wants revenge.

This world is… it’s a mess. Even if it’s something people are fighting for, it’s gone beyond being worth it and just fighting for the sake of fighting now. There are literal rains of arrows, Nort decapitation machines and even the land works against Rogue, paralysing him with his mates having to shout an avalanche to stop enemies. It’s a grim world and it feels like it’ll only get grimmer.

Collected in: The just released Rogue Trooper: The Complete Collection: Book One

RPG Ideas: The Yellow King RPG has multiple campaigns, one of which is The Wars. This is a kind of Carcosan combination of World War I and II, which we visit decades into a conflict. The sides are decided by the GM and players because ultimately it doesn’t matter, the game’s telling stories about surviving the horrors of war.

ACE TRUCKING CO

Issues Covered: 232-236, 239-244

Originally created by Alan Grant & John Wagner

I love an anthology, but as neat as they are as an idea, sometimes there are concepts which just don’t gel with a person. I was one year old when these stories came out and the trucking craze was something which I think was over by this point.

Ace Garp is a wacky alien with a more interesting crew on The Speedo Ghost. GBH is a giant alien with hair which swishes around like he’s in water and he believes he’s already dead. Feek the Freak is exactly the kind of little freak like Ro-Jaws, who I approve of whole-heartedly.

The trio have to deal with a rival space trucker at first and even fight The Kleggs, from Judge Dredd. Then they’re tricked into entering Hell’s Pocket, a kind of abstract Jim Steranko cover art area of space, where they’re going to get sacrificed in The Great City of Yaag.

It’s not too bad, it just doesn’t capture my interest and the space trucker jargon doesn’t help.

Collected in: The Complete Ace Trucking Volume 1

RPG Ideas: This is tricky, there are some space trucker-style RPGs, but they’re mostly grim like Alien, Mothership and Orbital Blues. I’d suggest just playing the Galaxy Trucker board game, but maybe an old trad favourite of mine, Alternity, might work. The Star*Drive campaign setting is full of strange things and some of the campaigns I ran could go tonally like this.

ABELARD SNAZZ

Issues Covered: 237-238

The Double Decker Dome Strikes Back! Alan Moore’s self-assured ‘genius’ who seems to fail forwards through his stories is back. 

This time he tries to use a time tunnel to rig gambling and gets teleported out of a moving spaceship. Oops. This is followed up by him being found, thawed out and thought to be a deity because of his four eyes. Unfortunately even that doesn’t go well as this means he’s due to get sacrificed.

Collected in: Complete Future Shocks Vol 2

RO-BUSTERS

Issues Covered: 2000 AD Annual 1982

There’s a brief treat as we revisit the Ro-Busters, before their series ended, I’m guessing. Bax the Burner is a pyrokinetic who’s fixated on a nurse who’s a friend of the Ro-Busters. It’s not much of a story, but it’s just nice to see the lads again. 

Collected in: Ro-Busters Vol 2

CONCLUSION

I enjoyed the last parts of Return to Armageddon and Meltdown Man, but two more of the mainstays of 2000 AD canon appeared with Nemesis and Rogue Trooper (and I guess Ace Trucking Co). Nemesis is so gloriously weird that I was instantly in love with it, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Rogue Trooper.

The low point was Ace Trucking, even if I liked the supporting cast. The lingo just doesn’t do it for me. Or Ace Garp.