This blog update’s a little later than intended, but here we go!
2WITCH
My brother and dad are all about the skeleton fish, but we all know the most popular character is Cow.
I’m an easy mark for Nintendo and have been since childhood. I got very excited about the announcement of the Switch 2 and of course I preordered it. I’ve let my dad and brother know about Mario Kart World and I’m sure they’ll both fight over who gets to be the skeleton of a fish the next time we play.
SUPER MARIO QUEST
I spent way too long getting my bloody hat back.
I’ve hit a bit of a wall. I started Mario 64 on the N64 app on the Switch and changed over to the Super Mario 3D All Stars version as it feels a little better. The Switch N64 controller works beautifully, but the 3D itself has often been my downfall. As of writing I’m just at 38 stars out of the 70 needed to complete it. Given how far through the year we are, I’ll be finishing this one and moving on, hopefully coming back when I’m done with the others as it’s been good fun, even when it’s been frustrating.
SHARING THE EXPERIENCE OF CYBERPUNK 2077
While Emma and I were away in Glasgow, I saw that Cyberpunk 2077 was on sale. Emma was almost done with Dragon Age: Veilguard which seemed to mostly be a game of watching her shout at the screen about bad character actions and ideas. I downloaded Cyberpunk 2077 and when she had finished Veilguard, we both started Cyberpunk. It’s been interesting alternating who’s playing the game as we both have different styles to our “V”. The open world is lovely, especially as someone who’s been reading a ton of 2000 AD. Seeing Emma’s brain-burning netrunning and sniping has been interesting and helped with my ‘sneak up close, then knife & shotgun’ approach. She’s been going through fixer contracts and getting money to buy each car for the platinum trophy, while I’ve ploughed into the DLC and started stealing cars for El Capitane.
While we’re going to be completing the game a bit slower than usual, it’s been a fun time doing it this way. I’m curious to see if this informs how we do involved single player games in the future.
As a quick addition, I’ll probably talk about this later but I’ve started The Blue Prince, which Emma and I are treating in the same way. We’re not copying off each others’ notes, not really, but sharing some information with each other about it all.
I’ve mentioned previously about giving up on my attempt to read all of Cyberpunk Red, mainly as it feels painfully trad and like there are a lot more subsystems, skills and so on. Despite that, I’ve backed the physical version of Hard Wired Island as I loved reading that and Cyberpunk 2077’s making me want to try that game now.
THE NEW 52
This issue will always make me cry.
I subscribe to a number of comic apps and read a ton of comics. After neglecting the DC one and inspired by the Polygon oral history, I started reading all of The New 52. I know, I know. Don’t worry, I’m also reading good comics!
I’m using a timeline of it, so I had to get through a lot of 0 issues. Grant Morrison’s Action Comics is still great, as was Demon Knights. I was in good hands with Animal Man, but knew that would be the case. There are so many series which are aggressively mid, filing down the USPs to make people like Green Arrow into a fairly generic guy. As much as I enjoyed the original Justice League International and I’m sure I’ve read good Dan Jurgens comics, the New 52 version felt like the most flavourless version of superhero comics I’ve experienced in a long time. Similarly, Men of War wasn’t even good war comics.
ARKHAM HORROR
The investigators at the grand finale of Dream-Eaters. We saved the world, but not ourselves.
I play Arkham Horror every fortnight with a group of people at the Dice Saloon. We’ve just hit the end of the Dream-Eaters cycle and as we’re preparing a new season, I’ve volunteered to run a test session of Cosmic Dark, an upcoming horror RPG. I’ve also been working on an abridged version of The Scarlet Keys’ campaign guide, as it doesn’t quite fit our play sessions in its current style. If it goes well, I’ll upload it to BGG.
A LONG WAY TO A SMALL ANGRY PLANET
I’m terrible at reading prose, especially as someone who wants to write it. I’ve finally had a break from my King marathon to finish off reading Anthony & Askhy Burch’s small book on Metal Gear Solid and to finally take my beloved’s advice and read some Becky Chambers. I’m about a third of the way through A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and it’s been a good read. It’s a very weird science fiction universe, but also a familiar and very human-seeming one, even if the species involved aren’t. At first I was a little concerned that there wasn’t going to be much drama, and I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I’ve been going along with the flow and seeing what it brings.
SPRINGS & KINDLING
I’ve hopefully not bitten off more than I can chew by volunteering a number of written works for the Sprigs & Kindling zine projects and the Public Access Double Feature contest. I’ve got until the end of May for the contest, the start of June for a Public Access aide which I’m most of the way through. I’ve also got a Trophy incursion which I need to write up for their Halloween issue.
To make things worse, I’ve had ideas for a Between scenario set in Devil’s Dyke and a location guide for the as-yet-unpublished Arkham Herald. I don’t know what it is with the CfB games, but they’ve been firing up my inspiration.
That’s it for this month, next time I’m sure I’ll have some words about CabinCon and hopefully will actually be prepared for UK Games Expo!
This era of 2000 AD closes off just a couple of stories and adds a few more to its roster, some of which will simply end and others will keep going for some time. There are also some noteworthy additions to Dredd canon.
The issues covered here are: 2000 AD issues 146-192, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1980, Judge Dredd Annual 1981, 2000 AD Annual 1981.
JUDGE DREDD
Issues Covered: 146-192
The law is Death!
Early in this era we get Judge Cassandra Anderson and Judge Death both appearing for the first time in a surprisingly short story. A monster looking like a Judge is murdering people and seems unbeatable until a Psi-Judge is called in and sacrifices herself to contain him. Anderson and Death both feel fully realised already, with the story feeling like it’s over before it’s begun. Luckily they’ll both be back.
The Blood of Satanus is a fun story about a science nerd who experiments with the blood of Satanus, Old-One Eye’s descendant. It transforms people into weird dinosaur-like monsters and of course leads to tragedy.
The long story of the year is The Judge Child, which feels a lot less coordinated than Cursed Earth or The Day the Law Died. Dredd’s hunting for a precognitive child with a Judge eagle logo as a birthmark on his forehead.
The search goes to the Cursed Earth and some Mad Max style shenanigans, then to space on Justice One, where it turns out the worlds are bizarre. In one moment Dredd and his judges are righting a rig-turned-serial killer, then they’re shrunk down, eaten by a planet and so on. The story also adds Judge Hershey who assists Dredd the most out of his crew, and The Angel Gang, who are bizarre freaks trying to escape with The Judge Child.
The Angels, like Judge Death before them, die surprisingly quickly. Like him, fortunately they’ll be back.
Once Dredd’s home, he deals with a block turned into monkeys and a craze for ugliness. You know, the normal Mega City One shenanigans.
“The Final Days” brings back M.A.C.H. Zero for one last story. He’s working as a porter and trying to keep things subtle when an unseen prime minister (but obviously Thatcher) demands him a menace and calls down the law on him. Of course she would do that.
M.A.C.H. Zero’s got worries of his own as he thinks he’s seen his son and starts looking for him. The kid, Tommy, doesn’t believe they’re related until he hears the authorities talking about it. He chases after M.A.C.H. Zero who’s busy fending off attackers, gets shot and a berserk M.A.C.H. Zero goes berserk, eventually dying.
It feels a bit late for this short story, but it closes off the M.A.C.H. stories.
This year brings The Day of the Droids as the main arc, introducing Slade’s assistants Hoagy and Stogie. There’s a robot rebellion on the horizon, led by The God-Droid.
This all starts with a councillor who has realised he’s been replaced by a robot and needs Slade’s help to find his original self. The mission sees Slade coming up against an army of tiny Pac Mans, robot dinosaurs and more people who have been replaced.
The robot rebellion is stopped thanks to Slade, his assistants and a union run by a robotic Molotov Cocktail. By the end, even the goon-bots are rebelling against the God-Droid. The story ends with them off to Brit-Cit. Given the name, I don’t know if this is the same as Dredd’s Brit-Cit, but I guess we’ll see.
Killing fascists is good at any point in the timeline.
Johnny Alpha’s marked for death in the first story, thanks to a grim prediction. His prey, Willy Blanko, looks like he might be the end of him, but luckily Johnny manages to turn it round. Also Blanko ends up being a weird skin thing, then a skeleton, then a maggot?
The main arc from this year is The Schicklgruber Grab, where Johnny and Wulf are hired to go back in time and abduct Hitler so that he can suffer appropriately for everything he did. It’s handy, as he’s looking to escape and use a subordinate faking his death as cover.
Adolf ‘Schicklgruber’ gets all the bullying and belittling necessary to him and even when he tries to escape in the present of the series, things go badly for him. Good.
The final arc of the year doesn’t conclude here, but sees Johnny and Wulf hunting Doc Quince. Johnny quickly turns around from, “I’m just doing my job” to “I’m done with this bullshit” and I like this kind of thing with Johnny. He’ll take a job, but if it’s rubbish, he’ll be fine wrecking it.
The story’s only three issues, but it looks like people are trying to do some time travel tourism, leading Blocker and Suzi Cho to take it down.
Collected in: Not currently active, but Hibernia have done collections of TimeQuake.
THE MIND OF WOLFIE SMITH
Issues Covered: 162-175, 177
His nut’s overloading!
That Wolfie’s up to trouble again. He starts off pestering a woman and trying a bit of theft before he’s taken in by a Mr Rumbelo, who sets him up with a monstrous gangster called “The Bogeyman”.
The Bogeyman has higher aspirations than just simple crimes though, fitting Wolfie up with a bomb collar and sending him off to get Britain’s nuclear codes. He stumbles upon something equally bad and a lot more immediately deadly, then tries to figure out a way to leave The Bogeyman’s control.
Then Wolfie wins at the bingo and gets chased by rats. It’s a mixed life for Wolfie Smith.
We’re in the back half of Black Hawk’s story, he’s no longer a gladiator and has a couple of alien friends: Ursa and Zog. Black Hawk’s feeling the hand of death getting closer, and wants to get his soul back before he goes.
Black Hawk fights a horrific giant dragon thing and eventually meets the Soul Sucker who has one last trick: it can control Black Hawk! Luckily he’s dedicated to his quest, gets his soul back and then is sucked into a black hole. Oh. That felt like an abrupt end, but at least he got his soul back.
There are some smart dinosaurs in this run, and some more Superman-themed hijinks. He’s not making more meta-jokes about having been taken over by 2000 AD, although he will pop up briefly in his replacement, Dash Decent.
Collected in: Cosmic Comics is occasionally in print in Hibernia, collecting Captain Klep and more.
STAINLESS STEEL RAT
Issues Covered: 146-151, 166-177
Sometimes you just fancy a criminal enough to drive yourself mad enough to get to her level.
We get two helpings of Stainless Steel here, starting with the titular Stainless Steel Rat.
Slippery Jim tries to infiltrate Angelina’s posse and is found out almost immediately. Apparently she’s an unrepentant murderer as she used to be ugly before getting a lot of work done. Eventually, she gets a bit of brain surgery to be a bit less wantonly murderous, but she’s still a bit into the murder. She and Jim get married.
Next up is Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World, where people are vanishing from history thanks to some time travel phenomena going on. There’s a guy called He who’s messing around with time and by messing around, I’ve seen time travel stories and this time it’s a real mess. He’s brought so many things back and forward through time in order to make his own empire.
Luckily he’s eventually put in a time loop and Jim returns, only to find his and Angelina’s kids have aged up a bit.
Issues Covered: 146-164, 171-175 (parts 6-31 of 31)
The lads… mostly won’t survive this series.
The bulk of The V.C.’s is in this year, with Steve Smith still getting given shit by his colleagues. That said, they manage to stop a surprise attack at Phobos Harbour when peace talks go awry.
Jupe gets blinded and the gang are sent on a suicide mission to infiltrate the Geeks and end up going undercover only to find out that’s what the Geeks are planning on doing! With most of the cast dead, injured or mad (and then dead), Smith quickly incapacitates the Geek version of himself and manages to wreck things from the inside.
It’s all pretty brutal and one day I won’t be surprised when 2000 AD has a story which kills most of its cast. I think they’ll be back, even if it’s just Smith and a blinded Jupe that remain at the end. At the very least, they cameo in the 2024 summer event crossover.
Originally created by Gerry Finley-Day and Carlos Ezquerra
This was an odd one, perspective-wise. In the present, Colonel Grant and Inspector Brandt are exhuming an old basement cell with the body of a Hans Schmitt inside. He was a German soldier in World War II, whose forces were ‘aided’ by some suspicious Rumanian soldiers who all look at least a little like Draculas. Sure enough, they’re vampires, led by Captain Costanza. It’s hard to see them feeding on Nazis as a bad thing, and Schmitt ends up fleeing from them, leading to a fun twisty ending in the present. It’s an Ezquerra joint, so he draws some great freaks and Costanza is suitably sinister during the whole thing.
RPG Ideas: If you want to have an RPG of people who are drawn in and/or trying to escape from a monster then there’s Annalise. Alternatively, Paint the Town Red could have you playing the messy vampires having their fun in history.
COMIC ROCK (NEMESIS)
Issues Covered: 178-179
Our first appearance (kind of) of Nemesis.
Originally created by Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill
Comic Rock was an attempt at telling science fiction stories based on music, specifically “Going Underground” by The Jam and “Killer Watts” which I think was a compilation.
Terror Tube shows us Termight for the first time, but mainly a swarm of traffic policed by Torquemada. For a science fiction world, there’s also a bit of the mystic and comedic to it. Nemesis vexes Torquemada from his Blitzspear and is never actually seen.
Killer Watts continues the story and shows attempts to electrocute Nemesis in his Blitzspear going awry, leading to Torquemada being destroyed as he’s stuck on hold trying to transport down a phone line. His ghost assures us he’ll be back and oh boy, will he!
There’s not much here, especially not enough to know what’s coming with Nemesis.
RPG Ideas: I don’t know, maybe Car Wars or Torq, but with a religious science fiction angle. I’ll cover Nemesis on its own at a future point.
DASH DECENT
Issues Covered: 178-192
Dash and Klep
Originally created by Kevin O’Neill & Dave Angus
This is a series of one-page stories in the spirit of Captain Klep, but with a Flash Gordon type character, including Dale Ardent, Doctor Dellamy and Pong the Perilous from planet Pongo.
The first strip even has Captain Klep relegated to the background and weirdly enough, pretty early in the strip Dash loses all his skin after being attacked by piranhas. That said, even that doesn’t stop him. I still have little time for this.
Collected in: Like Captain Klep, these are found in Cosmic Comics when it’s in print.
MEAN ARENA
Issues Covered: 178-187, 191-193, 197-202
We’re in the Mean Arena of Wakeford.
Originally created by Tom Tully & John Richardson
We’re going back to the well of sports comics, but in another weird science fiction way. Unlike Inferno, it’s a more modern setting, in the ruins of 2021. A self-proclaimed mash-up of rugby, American football and non-American football, all in arenas made from abandoned parts of British towns. You’ve got teams with garish uniforms and weird gimmicks, and also Slater’s Slayers.
The Slayers are the protagonist team, with a new arrival in the American Matt Tallon. Matt’s “The Shadow of St Louis” who steps in when a team member dies, then we get a lengthy flashback sequence to how Matt’s here to avenge his kid brother. Also to play Mean Arena.
A highlight here are the Southampton Sharks, combining my beloved sharks with a fairly local town in real life. I wish they had a shark-themed Mean Arena team in real life.
RPG Ideas: If this was a board game recommendation, I’d say Blood Bowl. Unfortunately it isn’t, so I’m probably going to end up saying to hack Fight With Spirit again. You have the on and off pitch drama, rivalries in the team and with your opponents. Both the game and this comic have shark-themed teams.
MELTDOWN MAN
Issues Covered: 178-192 (parts 1-15 of 50)
I’m pretty sure this isn’t how time travel works.
Originally created by Alan Hebden and Massimo Belardinelli
This is basically Kamandi but with some very 2000 AD twists. Our protagonist Nick Stone is caught in a nuclear blast in the first page and ends up in a weird future filled with animal people called Yujees (short for Eugenic Bioforms), like Gruff and Liana. Liana’s a cat person who has links to Kinata, some kind of rebel. After Stone meets the humans who are elitist dickheads, he tries to get Liana to help him.
There are some grim things like ‘The Vats’, where Yujees are sent pretty pragmatically to their deaths to become slop for others, and a snake called King Seth who’s a real piece of shit. He’s going to be more of a factor later.
RPG Ideas: This is a bit trad, but Gamma World would work very well for this. When I last ran it, the whole group all decided to be animal-people, all apart from one player who made a human called, “Bob: The Man That Is”, which isn’t a million miles away from this setup.
RETURN TO ARMAGEDDON
Issues Covered: 187-192 (1-6 of 32)
Buckle up, it’s about to get wild!
Originally created by Malcolm Shaw & Jesús Redondo
Man, this story’s such a mess. Not necessarily in a bad way, it’s fascinating. The Prairie Drifter is a spaceship who find a kind of hell planet and what looks like a suspended devil. Of course they bring it on board for a scientist to examine and things get weird from there.
The scientist manages to create a couple of babies, but also suddenly there are zombies and the ship’s populace is killed, all while the dark-haired baby has a real shit-eating grin. Some pirates show up, looking for easy pickings, only to get torn apart by zombies too. One of them’s been given a prediction about the babies, so he escapes with them, all while the zombies move aside. Nothing suspicious here. It’s going to take some weirder turns as the series goes on.
RPG Ideas: Just from these stories, probably Our Last Best Hope to play as the crew trying to stop a zombie invasion, or Dread. As this game goes on, possibly a hack of Lady Blackbird, but I might get into that a little more next time.
CONCLUSION
RIP Judge Anderson… for maybe a year.
There are some short but noteworthy runs here, with The VC’s and Fiends from the Eastern Front. The comics still very much like to kill off their protagonists. The Tornado strips, The Mind of Wolfie Smith, Black Hawk and Captain Klep all close out this year, too.
Meltdown Man and Return to Armageddon start differently but have a slight tonal similarity at times in the next year, but they’re still entertaining.
I think my favourite strips were Strontium Dog, Fiends from the Eastern Front and The VCs. It was difficult finding a favourite as there wasn’t anything I was hooting and hollering for like Flesh, but some fairly solid stories.
A glimpse of America’s future. I mean… Mega City One’s future.
This year still feels like we’re in the ‘early years’ of 2000 AD, even if we’re nearly 150 issues in. Judge Dredd’s got a second massive story and Mega-City One feels like it’s growing into the bizarre place it’ll become. Dan Dare’s still… here. We’ve got a questionably-canon Bill Savage story and some new arrivals.
2000 AD was calling itself “2000 AD and Star Lord”, featuring both Tharg and the titular Star Lord. In the letters page there were reassurances about how they were both going to be a thing, but soon enough another science fiction comic came along and got folded in. Tornado was trickier to track down. I have literally one issue of it, so I’ve not read any of the strips leading up to their integration into 2000 AD. Like the core series, I’ll be trying to track back issues down. Those stories are Blackhawk, The Mind of Wolfie Smith and Captain Klep.
The one issue of Tornado I own.
The issues covered here are: 2000 AD issues 94-145, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1979, Tornado Summer Special 1979, Dan Dare Annual 1980, 2000 AD Annual 1980
JUDGE DREDD
Issues Covered: 94-108, 110-145
The true casualty of Judge Cal’s reign.
The Day the Law Died continues through the start of 1979, with Chief Judge Cal and Deputy Chief Judge Fish in charge of the judges and therefore Mega City One. His despotic reign is hilariously awful and thankfully put down before too long. There’s also a fun story in this year called Father Earth, which feels like it’s a point where the weirdness of Mega City One and the surrounding areas gets dialled up a little more. It’s a big of a daft story, but good fun. There’s a fun early look at East-Sov as one of their anti-pollution ships crashes into Mega City One and one of Dredd’s more ambitious arrests, quantity-wise. There’s also The Black Plague, which is actually spiders! A swarm overrun a town in the Cursed Earth and end up threatening Mega City One. It’s entertainingly tense, especially as someone who isn’t arachnophobic.
Dan Dare, working for the Mekon? A shock, but he’s being controlled in Servant of Evil which feels like it goes on for quite a while. He takes a bit of time asking, “Are we the baddies?” before realising that yes, The Mekon totally is one of the baddies. He then gets a cool new glove called The Cosmic Claw, and is expected to master it in order to take on the Mekon. He doesn’t get much time to clear his name, though, as the series ends with a promise of more that doesn’t seem to happen.
We’re back to book two of Flesh and the horrors of Big Hungry taking his revenge on humanity and on Claw Carver. Once again the generic hero of the piece ends up dying, but the book keeps going for a little longer without him.
Carver finally gets what he deserves and some time travel problems mean that the Trans Time sea base moves forward enough to be mistaken for Atlantis and Big Hungry ends up in Loch Ness. It’s not quite as fun as Old One-Eye’s epilogue, but it’s still entertaining.
Originally created by Gerry Finley-Day and Carlos Pino
Bill Savage is back! This story’s a weird kind-of prequel to Invasion, albeit one of dubious canonicity with it. This time, Bill’s fighting the elements themselves!
After a nuclear disaster, England’s flooded which leads to massive amounts of evacuation, destruction and of course… disaster! (1990!). As a trucker originally, Bill’s out of his northern home and having to do what he can not only to survive, but save others. There are military men, raiders and oddly enough even Oxford academics who prove threats at different points. Oh, and geese.
It doesn’t necessarily add or take anything from Invasion if this exists, although I guess the UK of Invasion would be a bit more wrecked.
RPG Ideas: Perseverant is an RPG about surviving a disaster, albeit normally a more lonely one than this, so that’s one suggestion. If you want to try and make this a potentially solvable threat, then there’s Our Last Best Hope. You could even use Apocalypse World (sans psychic maelstrom) to show what happens if the disaster keeps going.
ROBO-HUNTER
Issues Covered: 100-112
Sam and his entourage
Sam Slade’s on Verdus, having been youthened thanks to space phenomena, with his colleague Kidd changed into an angry baby. The pair and an entourage of robots have to deal with a community of robots who have gone rogue and would obey humans if they actually believed Sam and Kidd were human. It’s daft and Slade’s frustrated by the whole situation. Anything can be a robot here, including a pair of helpful legs and an even more horrific version of Monopoly.
Originally created by Conrad Frost & Bill Lacey (this story’s by Steve Moore & Ron Turner)
A 1950’s space hero in the same vein as Dan Dare, Rick was more of a space cop seeming character. He’d appeared in 2000 AD in reprints in the annuals, scaled down so you could cut and fold them into your own little comics. This time he gets a larger story, even if it doesn’t last long.
Baron Odana dies at some space peace talks and the mystery ends up going through a few twists even in the short run that it gets. Ultimately we don’t see much of what could make Rick Random interesting.
RPG Ideas: Having recently tested out Star Trek Adventures, you could probably hack that to accomplish what you need here, or just play Star Trek Adventures.
RO-BUSTERS
Issues Covered: 94-101, 103-115
I love these idiots.
The lads get up to some mischief, starting with the end of a Terra-Meks story, ending in an oddly tragic celebration of the life of a giant Mek. Then we get The Fall & Rise of Ro-Jaws and Hammer-Stein, where they’re due to be killed as part of an insurance scam from their employer. The pair and several other robots try to flee to a robot sanctuary, which involves bad attempts at disguises and all manner of daft shenanigames. As much as this and Robo Hunter feel tonally similar with the robotics and humour, the antics of Ro-Jaws and Hammer-Stein end up appealing to me more than Slade’s.
Johnny Alpha’s a dedicated bounty hunter, so much so that he goes to literal hell with Wulf and The Gronk in order to hunt down Bug Eyes. Carlos Ezquerra draws a magnificent hell, including a literal devil. The story goes on for some time, but it keeps varying up the landscape and challenges Johnny has to face. Even once he’s got his man, he sends him out and has to figure out how to get out of hell himself.
Originally created by Chris Stevens and Carlos Pino
What if a man, but with a plane’s computer brain? This feels like a callback to stories like M.A.C.H. One with a shouty protagonist running around trying to solve problems with a machine in his brain. There are some odd moments where the human and the plan computer feel like they clash a bit, and he’s not really the best spy. His main story is trying to save the President of the United States, and his flying skills make him the best person for the case.
RPG Ideas: We’re back to Outgunned for this one. I’m sure I’ve run some of these kinds of aerial action scenes using the system.
ABC WARRIORS
Issues Covered: 119-139
The Meknificent Seven
Originally created by Pat Mills, Kevin O’Neill, Mike McMahon & Brendan McCarthy
I loved the Ro-Busters and at first was a little disappointed that we were getting another war comic with ABC Warriors, moving back in time to Hammer-Stein’s military history. That said, it’s had a lot of fun with the cast of unreliable weird robots.
The Mek-Nificent Seven start off as Hammerstein, Joe Pineapples and Happy Shrapnel. They get Mongrel, the villainous General Blackblood and Deadlock, a robot who’s also a wizard. The team are rounded out by a melted robot called The Mass. They’re all a bunch of weirdos fighting in a war where sending people would have been inhumane. The problem is they’re individuals with thoughts and feelings of their own (and occasional bouts of megalomania for Blackwood & Deadlock, who of course are my favourites).
You know what? If you wanted your weird attempt at doing a Guardians of the Galaxy or The Suicide Squad, you could do a lot worse than to do ABC Warriors.
RPG Ideas: You’ve got a couple of fun options here. You could build something with the Paragon System from Agon, where people are powerful heroes competitively heroing. There’s 3-16: Carnage Among the Stars if you want the war side of it all. You could even use hack Threadbare if you want to emphasise the ability for the cast to fall apart and rebuild themselves.
PROJECT OVERKILL
Issues Covered: 119-126
Kenny realises his head might have been hacked!
Originally created by Kelvin Gosnell, Ian Gibson & Jesús Redondo
I love a good mystery box and when Kenny Harris is on a plane whose passengers all disappeared I thought I was onto a fun one. Unfortunately it’s not great. There’s a conspiracy about a CIA hacking project which is actually intended to have machines take over. Kenny’s yet another ‘running about, shouting and punching man’ but he’s not as fun as MACH One or Bill Savage. Hell, he’s no Angel.
Collected in: 2000 AD Extreme Edition 18, which I’ve not found for sale
RPG Ideas: Outgunned is an easy one here, but given the competence of Harris and the enemies he’s facing, let’s say Operators. It’s an action game which has characters as hyper-competent, emphasising moment-by-moment action.
THE MIND OF WOLFIE SMITH
Issues Covered: 127-145, Tornado Summer Special
Despite all the madness that goes on, the film does still get released.
Originally created by Tom Tully & Vano
This is the first Tornado strip which I’ve only read in 2000 AD (aside from that one issue). Wolfe Smith’s a teenage runaway who looks very mod-coded and is in the possession of telepathic powers, making him, “The Boy with the Mind Power”. He’s a bit of a shit at times, a lot of which feels like it can be chalked up to people trying to take advantage of his powers.
Wolfie’s entrance into 2000 AD has him meet a malevolent psychic and then join a film production as an extra, only to find things getting a little too real.
RPG Ideas: Psi*Run is the best match to this, where the players are amnesiac psychic youths on the run and getting into trouble.
BLACK HAWK
Issues Covered: 127-145 (1-18 of 39)
Silver Age Legion of Super-Heroes-arse looking monster.
Originally created by Gerry Finley-Day & Alfonso Azpiri
The Tornado version of Black Hawk was a historical drama about a Nubian gladiator in Ancient Rome. 2000 AD takes that concept and smashes it to pieces almost immediately. It’s pretty odd reading this and then going back to the Tornado issue I have where he’s in a historical story without aliens.
Black Hawk is freed from his life as an enslaved gladiator when he’s abducted by aliens. Sadly, they ALSO want him to fight in gladiatorial arenas, but this time against weird aliens. Things get out of hand when a giant tentacled alien is brought in to fight Black Hawk and rampages through the crowd. It also steals Black Hawk’s soul. While he’s got his freedom, he wants his soul back before he dies.
RPG Ideas: Agon feels like a good match, even though it’s Ancient Greek heroes. Travelling from place to place, heroing at things and the competitive nature of space gladiators feels like it could be fit into this structure fairly easily.
CAPTAIN KLEP
Issues Covered: 127-145 (1-10 of 21)
Klep joins 2000 AD
Originally created by Dave Angus & Kevin O’Neill
Another comedy series, I’m not as much of a fan of it as the other stories which were running at this time. This time it’s a Superman parody. At one point, he loses his skin and is a skeleton for quite a while. Even so, he’s no Superman, he’s not even a Bananaman.
Collected in: There was a collection called Cosmic Comics, which has had a couple of printings. Keep an eye out for that if you want to read some of Kevin O’Neill’s work including this.
THE STAINLESS STEEL RAT
Issues Covered: 140-145 (1-6 of 12)
You want to get nuts? Let’s get nuts.
Originally created by Harry Harrison (novel), Kevin Gosnell & Carlos Ezquerra (comic)
I’ve not read the Harry Harrison novels, and it feels weird that we’re getting an adaptation here. Slippery Jim DiGriz is a crook who gets nicked by the space filth pretty early. He’s sent after Angelina, a remorseless murderer who he actually quite fancies. This is only the first half of the story, and knowing how things go, it gets a bit odd.
RPG Ideas: This feels like an opportunity to play with Scum & Villainy, with Slippery Jim doing crimes, working for the space filth and then doing more crimes.
THE V.C.’s
Issues Covered: 140-143, 145
Look at those bonkers helmets!
Originally created by Gerry Finley-Day & Mike McMahon
Let’s vape some Geeks!
When I first saw that phrase I had to share it with my good buddy Miles. It’s aged very oddly.
Steve Smith is a new recruit to the Vacuum Cleaners or VCs. The rest of the team are Jupe, Ringer, Dwarf Star, Hen-Sho and Loon. There’s not too much about them yet as this is early days, but they’re evidently an established group who have been fighting the alien ‘Geeks’ and aren’t too keen on Steve yet. He’ll have to do some work to win them round.
There’s only a little taste of them and they look weird in their space suits with kind of wing mirror helmets. Still, it shows promise
RPG Ideas: If you had space rules in Dark Heresy then maybe something like that. Alternatively the Modiphius 2d20 system is used for Star Trek Adventures and imminently is going to have a Space 1999 version. I could see that system working for this.
CONCLUSIONS
Flooded London
1978 felt like it was still growing into what it would become. We’re not entirely there in 1979, but it’s got a good anarchic feeling to several of the strips. Judge Dredd’s Day the Law Died is fantastic and the shorter stories like Father Earth and Black Plague are fun, too. Strontium Dog’s Journey into Hell was enjoyable, as was Black Hawk.
The disappointments were Angel which could have been longer and more interesting, Project: Overkill and Rick Random which didn’t really do much to get my interest.
I think 2000 AD’s absorbed all the comic titles it’s going to and now we’ll see how it evolves from there.
Sometimes I like to reply to things on BlueSky. Best Enterprise crew, wrong answers only, top five TTRPGs and so on. Yesterday I saw one about people who wouldn’t have been vaccinated, specifically not villains. After thinking about a few different shows I knew the disappointing truth.
My BlueSky post
Now, there was a little pushback and some correct takes about other Gilmore Girls characters. This got me thinking about the characters from Gilmore Girls and which ones would have been vaccinated, so here’s a definitive list. If you disagree, I’m that you’re wrong, but I can’t help you.
Lorelai Gilmore, whose coffee addiction encouraged my own.
Lorelai Gilmore
Lorelai got vaccinated. She’s in a place of business with a lot of foot traffic and more importantly, she wouldn’t be able to haunt Rory. Or to begrudgingly take part in Friday Night Dinner.
Lorelai ‘Rory’ Gilmore, Avatar of Eventual Disappointment
Rory Gilmore
Of course she did. Rory’s clever and has a sense of responsibility even if she’s prone to some poor life choices later on in the show.
The elder Gilmores, looking down on the poor.
Emily and Richard Gilmore
They both got that rich person super-vaccine from Glass Onion.
I love Luke, I have a Luke’s mug, but he would probably shrug off a vaccine.
Luke Danes
The one that kicked this off. Inundated with antivax ranting from Liz and Taylor, Luke didn’t want to close the diner anyway and would only get vaccinated if Lorelai bullied him into it.
This is partially inspired by a friend who came so close to going all antivax as he couldn’t be bothered actually going and getting it. Luckily he was bullied into action.
An ‘eclectic’ band.
Lane Kim & Hep Alien
Lane would have got vaccinated as she’s sensible and Mrs Kim would have given her hell. At the same time, she would have driven Zack to the clinic to get vaccinated, but he got distracted by a vending machine or something and didn’t get round to it. He’s not told anyone this.
Brian got vaccinated as soon as possible given his laundry list of medical issues, Gil went from hair metal to wellness to conspiracy theories.
Joel is currently an unqualified person in charge of a government agency, along with his mate ‘Big Balls’.
Muppet-turned-human Sean Gunn as Kirk Gleason
Kirk Gleason
You can’t get a job administering vaccines if you’re not already vaccinated.
Taylor definitely wore this to Jan 6th.
Taylor Doose
I can’t confirm or deny whether Taylor was vaccinated but I’m guessing he wasn’t. He’s laying low as he’s wanted for questioning in connection to his whereabouts on January 6th 2020.
No ladies, knitted masks aren’t as good as regular ones!
Babette & Miss Patty
Didn’t last until a vaccine happened. Sorry.
The wonderful and terrifying Paris Geller.
Paris Geller
She’s a fertility doctor, but might have found a way to have a hand in the vaccine. I choose to believe this, because it’s this or she’s gone all in on some Elizabeth Holmes madness.
I approve of his work ethic. Less so his dogs.
Michel Gerard
Yes, but he’s not told Lorelai and lied about having Covid in order to get out of work.
Terrible.
Christopher Hayden
Christopher was part of a start-up for Covid-based gadgets like smart-masks which didn’t actually work. If he was in the UK he’d have got a ton of contracts just by bunging the Tories a tenner. Sadly he was in the US and got scammed with what he thought was a cheap supply of vaccines. One day the side effects might go down.
They may disagree on vaccines, but they still love each other.
Sookie St James
Yes, both for work and because that way she’d be able to get out of the house, away from her chaotic children and to see Lorelai.
Jackson Belleville
Rune showed him too many conspiracy videos and doesn’t feel like anyone’s truly explained to him what’s in the vaccine.
Life was unkind to him ever since they transplanted his book smarts to Jess.
Dean Forester
Okay, the love interests.
I regret to inform you that ‘man of the people’ Dean has been listening to too much Rogan. He’s probably been an early Ivermectin victim.
Yes, it’s Peter Petrelli.
Jess Mariano
He moaned about it, but still took it and made some very strained literary comparisons. He and Liz still fight about this decision. A younger Jess would have cut all ties, a current Jess is trying to work out a way to spike Liz with the vaccine at one of the Ren Faires she works at, for her own safety.
This smug dickhead.
Logan Huntzberger
Logan broke lockdown early on for a party and tragically died. Not even of the ‘Rona, but some Life & Death Brigade stunt which went wrong as they didn’t invite anyone with first aid skills.
Colin and Finn launched an NFT based on Logan later on which was, of course, a scam.
A pre-feral troubadour.
The Troubadours
They survived and ran rampant through Star’s Hollow with no one on the streets for months. They went feral and have since had to be put down.
Thank you to Miles for sharing his choice of antivaxxer (Fox Mulder), which inspired me and Dweller in Darkness, for his comments on Taylor Doose.
The marathon continues! Like the last one, some elements here will be harvested from my original pieces on the first hundred issues, but I’ll be adding more where necessary.
The big difference between here and 1977 is that towards the end of the year another comic called Star Lord gets merged with 2000 AD, incorporating a couple of their stories. I discussed them in their own article, before this one.
The issues covered here are: 2000 AD issues 46-93, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1978, 2000 AD Annual 1979, Dan Dare Annual 1979
JUDGE DREDD
I am the law!
Issues Covered: 46-93
This is some of the good stuff right here. First of all, Dredd’s dealing with some more plots on the moon, but soon enough he’s back on Earth dealing with a killer car, then the big story of the year.
The Cursed Earth sees Dredd travelling between Mega Cities to provide medical help. This is our first big look at what’s happened to post-apocalyptic America with a long road trip, several friends, a lot of enemies and a lot of weirdness. This took up a lot of the year’s stories and was definitely worth it. Judge Dredd’s out of his comfort zone and doing his best, knowing that a Mega-City’s life is on the line.
We also get the first quarter of The Day the Law Died, where a blond tyrant is elevated to a level of power he really shouldn’t have and starts making insane executive orders which will end up with a lot of dead people on his hands.
Dan Dare’s middle reboot continues in this run with the last part of the Star Slayer, then doppelgängers, big monsters in a water world (not Kevin Costner’s) and even a mutiny. It was better than I thought, but still the strip I was least excited to see in this era.
It probably helps that you’ve got people like Bear and Hitman making a weird ensemble which helps with someone as painfully ready salted crisps as Dan Dare.
I know! What an idea! The thing is, Flesh was a great story which ran all the way to its conclusion, it didn’t feel like there was more to tell, but I guess there was. It’s still good fun, especially as time-travelling piece of shit Claw Carver is back again. He’s offended another giant dinosaur in the Nothosaur, Big Hungry. Big’s not quite as fun as Old One-Eye, but he gets a good go of it.
There’s a lot of Claw Carver being a bastard and Big Hungry ripping its way through time travellers. Eventually Carver gets what’s due to him and Big Hungry ends up travelling to Loch Ness. I gather there’ll be some more Flesh in the future, and I know there are some descendents of Old One-Eye in other 2000 AD stories.
This story closes things out for Bill Savage. It’s pretty much a continuation of what I said in the last review, although most of it is the “Escape from Liverpool” story where King Charles III has fled to Canada to escape the Volgs and his son Prince John needs rescuing. Of course, Bill Savage is here to help!
We’ll see Bill again in 1979’s Disaster 1990 and then apparently he’ll be back much later.
The majority of Inferno is in this run, but most of what I said in the previous review counts here. Things end a bit grimly for the crew, with a lot of casualties in their final arc. There will be a Judge Giant in the Dredd strips, linked to this Giant, but as far as I’m aware that’s it.
Issues Covered: M.A.C.H. One 46, 53-64, M.A.C.H. Zero 65-72, The Suit 73-75
UFOs? M.A.C.H. One goes off the rails in its last arc as John Probe sacrifices his life to save a UFO. Then we get a follow-up story featuring the hulking M.A.C.H. Zero. This is a lot more Incredible Hulk TV show, but Zero can’t really turn back into a person. He’s on the run, getting into scrapes and trying to live his life while being hunted. There’s something kind of charming about this hulking ogre-like being stumbling through very English scenes like tiny train stations in the middle of nowhere.
There’s also one final story for M.A.C.H. One, set before his unfortunate end.
The continued adventures of a giant monster eating people. It’s a cartoon strip and not really aged well. It’s fine, but not great.
Collected in: Possibly nowhere?
THE VISIBLE MAN
He does learn to cover up his transparent skin with make-up, but it’s not much better.
Issues Covered: 47-52
Originally created by Pat Mills, Montero, Carlos Trigo
You know that kind of Hulk dynamic? The one where someone’s experimented on, given weird powers and on the run? Yeah, this is kind of that but with one fundamental difference. What if the person had translucent skin and absolutely no positive abilities.
The Visible Man has some problems with trying to apply make-up so it’s like he’s got proper skin, or with a scientist who wants to inject him with diseases in order to see how they work through his transparent skin.
The story ends with him going up into space and deciding he doesn’t want to come back. Fair enough.
RPG Ideas: I’m realising the rod I made for my own back here. Add in a game show element and Hell for Leather could do well for this. You play folks who are on the run constantly and roll dice at (but not into) a tower of dice on the table.
WALTER THE WOBOT
A cwassy wobot.
Issues Covered: 52-61, 67, 68, 84, 85
A kind of extension to Judge Dredd, some stories featuring his hapless servant, Walter the Wobot. When he first appeared, I thought Walter would be annoying and he is, but in a way that broke through to me.
Collected in: I’m not actually sure at first look, Possibly some case files, I’d have to find mine in my graphic novel shelves to check.
COLONY EARTH
Issues Covered: 52-61
Originally created by Jim Watson
Aliens invade and hijinks ensue. I had a few stories which took some time for me to get invested. This is only ten parts, and it never quite got my attention. The aliens have incredible technology, but once unmasked they’re actually weird gnome-looking guys. It’s kind of underwhelming.
RPG Ideas: Our Last Best Hope by Magpie Games is a fun way to run a one-shot where players are trying to stop the end of the world. There are several end of the world scenarios and an alien invasion would work well here. I say that, having never succeeded at saving the world in that game. The way 2000AD’s been, I’m sure this won’t be the last recommendation for this game.
DEATH PLANET
What is this, some kind of Death Planet?
Issues Covered: 62-70
Originally created by Alan Hebden & Lopez
This story’s for the first female lead character in 2000AD. A shame it’s not good. It’s one issue shorter than Colony Earth and the crashed survivors of a colony ship try to make their way through a deadly world in theory led by Lorna. Unfortunately she’s often reduced to a slightly more proactive damsel.
RPG Ideas: Perseverance is a game about surviving after a disaster, a crash, anything like that. It’s generally more of a wildernesss thing, but you all establish the elements and could easily make a science fiction version.
ANT WARS
So problematic…
Issues Covered: 71-85
Originally created by Gerry Finley-Day, José Luis Ferrer, Lozano, Peña and Azpiri
I really wanted to like Ant Wars, I really did. You’ve got giant ants invading Brazil and South America. What could be more fun than giant ants?
Unfortunately as entertaining as the ants are, the lead character’s constant racism, especially towards “Anteater”, are not. He’s constantly treating this kid like crap, even if he’ll still run back and rescue him. Still, it’s so persistent I hoped that Anteater would turn out to know English and leave our hero to his doom. Sadly instead they both die. The ants however, persist.
RPG Ideas: With this it depends on what you want to do with giant ants. My first thought is Savage Worlds for some pulp fun, but you could easily run a Dread game of trying to escape one of the many cities overrun by ants.
ROBO-HUNTER
That joke about his name will never get old (it will).
Issues Covered: 76-85
Originally created by John Wagner, Ian Gibson, José Luis Ferrer
Sam Slade is an old, ornery hunter of robots in a future society where they’re everywhere and in theory should be behaving nicely. Unfortunately that’s not always the case. He’s an odd hero and fairly early on gets de-aged (along with his colleague who’s younger and gets turned into a very irate baby). They get stuck on a robot planet where all of the robots have been convinced any humans are fakes and therefore not to obey them. It’s a bit of a problem for Sam. Luckily he gets some help on his journey, including from a pair of robotic legs. I thought I wouldn’t enjoy an old guy hating on robots, and luckily it was more than that.
RPG Ideas: I think this might be another one for Mothership, especially as you can play androids and there are plenty of scenarios involving robots going wrong.
RO-BUSTERS & STRONTIUM DOG
Issues Covered: 86-93
These two stories started in Star Lord, so I covered their first 2000 AD arcs in my piece on them. This one has run pretty long, after all.
CONCLUSION
Through radioactive hell, can even the Judge survive… The Cursed Earth?
2000 AD feels like it’s still learning what it is, especially with all of the stories which start and end in this run. Colony Earth, Death Planet and Ant Wars all feel similar to each other and The Visible Man is a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ story. There’s also a Rick Random story in the Dan Dare Annual which I didn’t really care for. There are a surprising amount of protagonist deaths in this run, too.
Judge Dredd was the clear winner of this year for me, with The Cursed Earth as a standout and the start of The Day the Law Died. Bonjo wasn’t great and Ant Wars was a bit of a disappointment given the promising name.
Mario facing Wario in his castle, like me facing a blank page. Also a disco ball, which I don’t currently have.
I’d originally meant to do a bit of an update in February, so this is a little late, but here’s some media I’ve been enjoying and writing I’ve been up to.
I’m a few weeks into changing my hours at work. This massively helped with editing Casual Trek in the first couple of weeks and practicing with Affinity. I’ve yet to use it on any of my prose projects, but for RPGs, reviews and comics it’s been good.
The Living Dead Series
Nature Trail to Hell! (They finally changed their logo from Leprechaun!)
I listen to Jordan D White and Stefan Lawrence’s Nature Trail to Hell, and as a horror fan with a lot of blind spots, it’s been a good reasons to catch up with series. It got me to finish watching the varied Purge and Saw movies. I bought the Leprechaun movie boxed set and sent it to a charity shop the second I was finished. Their new season is the Romero movies which I have seen, but was happy for an excuse to go back to them.
Night of the Living Dead had an interesting legal status, so I was surprised when it wasn’t on any streaming service. Feeling too lazy to find my DVDs, I ended up finding a copy on YouTube which meant dealing with ads. I’ve since found my “Trilogy of the Dead” boxed set and DVDs of Land & Diary.
Night of the Living Dead still holds up, it’s such a good movie, especially for its time. While Dawn expands the concept, there’s something great about the locked box of the house and watching people losing their minds inside.
I’ve seen Dawn twice and while it does meander, I’ve come to appreciate the pace and the quiet moments in with the madness.
Super Mario Quest 2025
I touched fuzzy and sure enough, got dizzy.
I was concerned that I wasn’t keeping good pace with how long Super Mario Bros II was taking, so once I finished it, I blitzed through Super Mario Bros III. The level design was fantastic and you could see the evolutionary steps which would lead to Super Mario World.
Before diving into Super Mario World itself though, I had Super Mario Land on the Game Boy to finish. It’s an incredibly short game and while it looks a little off compared to the other Mario games, it’s still a worthy part of the saga.
Once I got to Super Mario World, I was stoked. It’s such a joy to play. When I was a kid, my dad would rent a SNES before we could afford one of our own. My brother and I would take turns going through levels, using save slot C in order to lessen the likelihood of other people going over it. This meant I had an intricate memory of about 50% of the levels and while I’ve started it numerous times on different consoles, this was the first time I’d finished it without my brother.
After that I played Super Mario Land II: Six Golden Coins which was another joyous experience, albeit an incredibly short one. I’m currently working my way through Super Mario World II: Yoshi’s Island. I was a little dubious about adding it to my list, but it’s been fun so far. I’m about halfway through as of writing, and hopefully I’ll be through it soon, then onto the world of 3D Mario games.
Conclave
Conclave wasn’t quite this, but it wasn’t NOT this. Also watch Young Pope you fools.
It’s nice going to the cinema and just watching a very good film. Not part of a franchise or a spectacle, but a good story that’s one and done. The pope is dead and Ralph Fiennes has to organise the conclave where the new pope will be decided. You’ve got a couple of extremist popes in the running, John Lithgow as the obviously dodgy candidate and The Tuch, who doesn’t want the role but knows he’ll be better than the alternatives.
The environment of being locked down to some places which are simultaneously gorgeously old and bleakly modern creates a space for drama to get heightened. Fiennes keeps wanting to avoid drama, but acts as a magnet for it, uncovering surprise cardinals, affairs and more. As all of this is happening, there’s unrest outside, just out of view. While it’s no Young Pope, it was a very good watch.
Comics
I went there with my brother last year!
I’d stalled out on reading 2000 AD as I’d read the issues I was trying to write about in a blitz about a year ago. I decided that as I wasn’t going to move further until I’d written something, I’ve been going back and rereading those issues. It’s been good fun revisiting them and having a bit more time to ponder the stories there.
Taking a meeting under the giant god bum.
My X-Men marathon’s up to X-Necrosha, an event I only read one part of back in the day as I wasn’t quite getting everything X-related back then. I think I was in more of a DC place. Selene, former Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, wants good hood and her thematically-powered entourage help raise a massive techno-zombie army. Unlike a lot of events it’s actually split between three distinct stories. New Mutants has Warlock show up just in time to get betrayed by his BFF, the reanimated Doug Ramsey. X-Men Legacy moves over to Muir Island and has a returned Proteus & Destiny causing havoc. The ‘main’ story of Necrosha happens in X-Force as that’s where Selene builds her ‘Necrosha’ and the team have to figure out how to stop her. It’s also where you get the giant god bum.
Charlie Makes Words
These two are having a lovely time, I assure you.
Sprigs & Kindling issue two has been released. It’s a Carved from Brindlewood fan zine and issue two’s dedicated to The Between. I’ve contributed a little Unscene about the building of the London Underground and have put my name down for two more issues in July and October.
Past Futuremann’s almost completed, with only covers and lettering left to do. I think I may have found a home for the initial printing of it, which is exciting. I’m also in talks with an artist about Amnesiac City and need to start looking for an artist for the action-packed Let’s All Kill Mark Larkin.
Upcoming I’m going to be looking at Embers which I might be benching until November, Lightning which I’ve got some big thoughts about messing with and a few RPG reviews I want to publish.
Starlord was a comic which ran from May to October 1978 before being merged with 2000AD. Leading up to and during its run there were adverts for it in 2000AD, met with letters from people who weren’t convinced about the need for another comic. It was a little pricier (still a matter of pence, admittedly) and Starlord was not as fun as Tharg as far as fictional editors go.
There was still a lot to love and when the comics merged, there was some fun in most of the stories and they pretty quickly were accepted. There were even people asking to see the titular Starlord.
When I go through these, I’ll cover both the Starlord issues from the 12th of May 1978 to 7 October 1978 and any of the strips that came over to 2000AD between issue 86 and issue 100, from 14th October 1978 to 17th February 1979.
Just in case you read this the first time, this is republished with no changes from the first time I released it, as it fits as-is with my current write-up of my encounters with 2000 AD year by year.
The stories were:
PLANET OF THE DAMNED
“Guys, where are we?” [Lost doomf noise]
It’s a Lost! A plane goes missing when it flies through the Bermuda Triangle and lands in a mysterious place full of deadly threats! There are all kinds of strange things including people stranded from the past. Jake Flint has been trapped there for over a hundred years and leads the survivors on their way to a sanctuary, although several of them die thanks to the wildlife and from time-lost travellers who are also trapped there. It ends a bit early, but is still very good fun.
RPG Recommendation: Ben Robbins’ Follow puts a group of people on a quest and has you play through the mission, using tokens drawn in a bag to see whether you succeed or not. Using the ‘harder quests’ mechanics and possibly making extra minor characters to run people through the quest for survival might help.
I realised last issue that I’m a big fan of the freaky monsters in 2000AD and these robots aren’t much different. Apparently inspired by Thunderbirds, but replacing a dedicated family of planet-solving problem-solvers with defective robots makes it instantly endearing. Ro-Jaws is a sewer robot with horrendously jagged teeth, while Hammer-Stein is a traumatised robot soldier. The pair are joined by other robots such as Mek-Quake, a lover of ‘big jobs’ (not a euphemism!).
The pair work for Mr Ten Percent, a boss who has that much human left in him and a ton of telephones in his chest so he can take on any jobs to squeeze a bit more money out of the pair. They’re downtrodden but eager to do their jobs, they even have tax discs attached.
Once they move over to 2000AD, we get the sometimes funny, sometimes tragic origin stories as some of the longer story arcs. We also get “The Terra-Meks” storyline where giant robots are enlisted to solve problems and end up wrecking things. It’s not their fault they’re too big, but it’s a problem the Ro-Busters have to sort out.
RPG Recommendation: This one’s difficult, I’ve got a few things which might work a bit for gigging robots helping but often causing chaos. Fiasco could make for a good engine to make Ro-Busters style stories. Mothership would capture the futility but it’d a bit too much on the horror and doesn’t really have a robot class in this style. I think Nice Marines would capture the chaos of accidentally horrifying or smashing apart anything around you either as an ex-warbot, a snappy sewer bot or a machine too giant to interact easily with anything else.
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a massive X-Men fan. I’ve been reading everything from the start since August 2020 and posting my experience online on Facebook.
I’m saying this as I know a little about mutants. Strontium Dog presents a different view of mutated beings. People born under the shadow of Strontium 90 have mutations; some helpful, some really not. Luckily for Johnny Alpha, he has a suite of interesting powers and technology. The one job open for mutants is being a bounty hunter and Johnny’s very good at that role.
Johnny’s joined by time-lost Viking Wulf Sternhammer. What’s a Viking doing here? I’m not actually sure but I’ve learnt to go with it. That’s that weird puppet-looking creature called Gronk? Again, just go with it.
Johnny’s a good hunter, but the job doesn’t always make him popular. While he’ll complete the mission, that doesn’t always mean he’ll like it. The Starlord issues present a number of different cases, but there’s not a massive amount to go on here. I admit I was left wanting with the early strips, wanting to know more about what made this story unique. Sure there’s a Viking and the protagonist has odd powers as well as technology, but I wasn’t feeling it in this early incarnation. Luckily later on that would change.
RPG Recommendation: Ironsworn: Starforged presents a Mandalorian-style game about bounty hunting and questing in a starfaring future. Primarily a solo game, but able to be run with multiple players whether they have a GM or not, the game has a robust system for managing missions and for creating settlements.
James Blocker accidentally causes nuclear devastation, which is a great way to introduce us to our protagonist. He survives after being pulled out of the timestream by Time Control. They’re made up of people from all over time and have recruited him to their cause. The nuclear apocalypse was manufactured by the Droon, some aliens who will be defeated by humanity in the 21st century, so they’re going to try and win it early.
With the help of Time Control, especially the shapeshifter Suzi Cho, Blocker manages to stop them but is stick working for the organisation as he’s stuck travelling or he’ll deteriorate.
The next story has Nazis taking over the world after a rogue member of Time Control changes history. Then the Aztecs gained alien technology, left the Earth and have come back to take over.
The stories are brief and good fun, with Blocker starting out as a bit of a rubbish protagonist but getting a lot more skilled as he goes on.
RPG Recommendation: It’s going to have to be Timewatch, a game I’ve read but not played or run yet. A Gumshoe system, it focuses on investigation but adds time travel and allows for people from different eras. It also has a bit more depth of combat than the QuickShock versions of the system which I’ve used before.
Collected in: TimeQuake: Fleetway Files Vol 5 – Not currently in print
MIND WARS
Arlen quickly goes from damsel to cosmic horror.
Get ready for some really Star Wars stories, but with the Starlord treatment. The Jugla Empire has been warring against humanity and the tide’s about to turn. The Jugla have made the psychic twins Arlen and Ardeni who have devastating powers which will be used to destroy the Earth.
The twins aren’t so keen on this plan and try to resist their fate. They’re taken up by rebels but things are a bit tricky with strange alien planets and the psychic pull of the Jugla trying to force their hand.
Things end pretty tragically for one twin and the other goes from helpless to utterly vengeful. It’s a fun tilt as the series goes on. While it feels very Star Warsy, there’s something fun about making the young prodigies utterly terrifying.
RPG Recommendation: If you want to play a game with the tone of Star Wars, one of the best things you could do is download the free RPG, Lady Blackbird. The system brilliantly bounces pressure and downtime scenes to get some backstory or character interaction. There’s a little magic, especially from the titular Lady Blackbird who is often terrifying in how she’s presented. If you want to make a Mind Wars game, there are tools online to help make your own set of pregens and locations to fly through.
A late addition to Starlord, this was possibly the one that least appealed. I don’t know if a longer run would have helped it.
Carl Hunter tries to stop an alien conspiracy with all manner of horrors put in his way. CIA training and a metal plate in his head helps him on his way, as does the revelation that the conspiracy was perpetrated by telepathic rats. Luckily rats are pretty easy to defeat if you’re a person.
RPG Recommendation: I almost said ‘nothing’, but thinking about the protagonist and enemy, I think Savage Worlds could probably handle this sort of thing well. It skews pulpy, but could do this kind of action conspiracy game well enough.
Collected in: I’ve not been able to find a collection.
I’ve been a terrible British Nerd. Aside from Red Dwarf and a few things like Iain M Banks and Ultraviolet, I didn’t really consume much British genre media. I didn’t even bother with Dr Who until the Matt Smith era.
I started making up for that when I started watching the old series of Doctor Who (I’m up to the Third Doctor). My 2024 involved getting (back) into manga with Berserk, Dragon Ball, Assassination Classroom and a few others. I also started getting into reading 2000 AD from the start. I attempted this once before and made it to about 80 issues but fell off. This time I’m older, wiser and was prepared for a slow start.
As of writing I’m almost done with 1984 and it’s been going well. I’ve subscribed to 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine, I’m getting collections and once I get rid of my ‘to sell’ boxes I’ll probably make a quest of trying to track down physical copies of individual issues. As I’ve told my Casual Trek co host, Miles, I don’t do ‘getting into things’ by halves. What we’re doing with Star Trek is casual, for me.
I’m going to try and go through the various series, things which stood out to me, that I liked or didn’t, and a few other bits of information. I tried this once before by doing a hundred issues at a time. A year at a time feels easier to manage, so there will be some recycled material for the first couple of years, but I think this will be better in the long run.
The issues covered here are: 2000 AD issues 1-45, 2000 AD Summer Special 1977, 2000 AD Annual 1978
DAN DARE
Another great line, and Dan Dare won’t be wearing this costume for too long
Issues Covered: 1-24, 28-45
Originally created by Frank Hampson
A 1950’s space hero who sounded quite like he was a kind of Biggles in Space ended up being a flagship character for 2000 AD. I think it was to help sell the comic to money folks, as he was an established hero. Then they changed things.
Dan Dare undergoes a few reboots in its time, including twice in the first year.
The first two stories are, “The Biogs” (just labelled Dan Dare in most places) and Hollow World.
The next set of stories makes Dan Dare more of a military space hero, with an ensemble cast, even if some of them get brainwashed and die.
Legion has Dan investigating some Lost Worlds and introduces a new ensemble including my favourite, Hitman, a man with a gun permanently glued onto his hand. Greenworld has a planet of sentient trees and Star Slayer is a long story with a giant spaceship and a Dark Lord (that’s literally his name) presenting a good nemesis to Dare who isn’t a floating green maniac.
I found myself loving most of the 2000AD stories from this era but Dan Dare never quite inspired me. The reboot improved it, but it felt pretty flavourless compared to some of the insanity we’d see later.
RPG Ideas: I’ve not read or run Death in Space, but that sounds like it’d fit. Keeping to what I know, I’d say Mothership’s like a darker version of the stories we get here. Make it a bit more classic sci-fi instead of rusty Alien-style sci-fi and it’d work.
FLESH
Yes! Give the hag beast what she wants!
Issues Covered: 1-19
Created by Pat Mills and Boix
I like a good dinosaur story and this one has a ludicrous premise I can’t help but admire.
In the future, sources of meat are scarce so using time travel technology, Wild West-looking ranchers went back to dinosaur times to harvest them.
While we get a hero in Earl Reagan, he’s nowhere near as much of a focus as Claw, an arsehole with a deinocychus claw for a hand who’s in it for himself and leads a lot of people to their deaths.
Then there’s the real main character… Old One-Eye. The hag-beast Tyrannosaurus Rex who is out to ruin the day of the time travellers. Even without humans she’s a fucking maniac, she butchers one of her kids without thinking and eagerly destroys any dinosaur in her way.
Old One-Eye is a brilliant force of nature and the first 2000AD monster who I fell in love with. The first ‘book’ of Flesh doesn’t last long, but has people fighting dinosaurs and even giant spiders at one point. It even has a fun epilogue showing that even past extinction, Old One-Eye can still get a kill in.
Collected in: Flesh: The Dino Files (reprint it in physical media, you cowards!)
RPG Ideas: This will require a very small amount of modification, but Escape from Dino Island is a Jurassic Park style game where players are in a dinosaur park trying to escape to safety after it all went wrong. You could easily change this into a Transtime farming facility.
INVASION!
100% should be played by Jason Statham or any hard nut from EastEnders.
Issues Covered: 1-45 (continuing to 51)
Created by Mat Mills & Gerry Finley-Day
The Volgan Empire has invaded the UK and managed to take it all over. All, apart from Bill Savage and a team of plucky resistance fighters. Bill’s apparently from the midlands but talks like he’s in a Guy Ritchie film. He’s great. He’ll run around, firing his shotgun at any problems, sabotaging things and being a general nuisance to the invading force. On his way, he meets other fighters who sadly don’t all make it.
The final long arc (most of which is covered in this run) involves a prince who got into the UK and needs to be shipped back to Canada where the royals are hiding. It makes for a tense change as Bill’s not just attacking anything, he’s trying to get somewhere and protect folks.
RPG Ideas: I’ve not read or played Twilight 2000, but it sounds like a game that could do this sort of game. One option you could choose for this is Comrades by WM Akers. It’s about a revolutionary group carrying out an uprising through different methods, often leading to bloody rebellion or vicious coups. The default mode isn’t quite as violent as Bill Savage, but there are enough playbooks that you could curate a set to do this sort of game.
HARLEM HEROES & INFERNO!
Artie’s a dick, but he does make Harlem Heroes more fun.
Issues Covered: Harlem Heroes 1-27, Inferno! 36-45 (continuing to 75)
Created by Pat Mills & Tom Tully
I never read sports comics like Roy of the Rovers as a kid, so Harlem Heroes was a hard sell, even with the science fiction twist on sports. Luckily the plight of the Heroes and their attempt to win at Aeroball quickly gets replaced by a vengeful cyborg antagonist, Artie Gruber. After he’s nearly killed by Giant from the Heroes, he does his best to take vengeance out on the team.
There’s also a teammate who’s a brain after being mostly destroyed. He eventually gets a body, which is good for him, but he’s kind of more fun as a brain.
The series pivots to Inferno, changing sports from Aeroball to something far more incomprehensible and violent. This was a bit of an uptick for me, interest-wise. I don’t think I ever learnt the rules of the game, but it’s the kind of thing where the outlandishness of the teams and who they’re up against help make this a good time.
RPG Ideas: Storybrewers Games has a sports drama RPG called Fight with Spirit. It focuses on the team’s relationships and the personal drama on and off the pitch. Even better, you can pick the sport and you don’t even know the rules. As you face adversity, you built up Fight and Spirit points, to better win the dramatic rounds when you’re playing a sport.
M.A.C.H. ONE
There are too many good panels of M.A.C.H. One like this.
Issues Covered: 1-45 (continuing to 46)
Created by Pat Mills and Enid
In my first attempt to read 2000AD, M.A.C.H. ONE was a strip I didn’t quite care for. Revisiting it, I’ve found John Probe a lot of fun. He’s a secret agent, but he’s also been enhanced which seems to mostly involve a computer in his head, a willingness to use vehicles as weapons on many occasions and a lot of shouting.
The series changes a bit as M.A.C.H. ONE goes on, briefly showing M.A.C.H. Zero, a Hulk or Frankenstein’s Monster like figure, and turns some of Probe’s attention towards the people that made him. I like that there’s questioning of this shady organisation and
RPG Ideas: If it was just shouting, I’d say to hack AGON, as that’s a key part of making rolls. Eat the Reich has vampires instead of robots, but the wanton destruction is about the level of Probe. For spy action though, I’d recommend Outgunned. It handles the kind of action John Probe does easily and with fun ‘push your luck’ mechanics that make you feel like a badass.
JUDGE DREDD
The toughest lawman of them all!
Issues Covered: 2-45
Created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra
Here’s the big one. Judge Dredd is the most iconic character from 2000AD. We may never see his face, but his scowling jaw is often more than enough for folks. Mega-City One is a police state and Judge Dredd is one of the best enforcers of the law. Crimes big and small are fought by him, from littering to murder, and his career takes him all over. I actually read a number of these from the Complete Case Files, which I bought the first four of. It’s been long enough, I remember very few of the stories.
There are some great villains like Frankenstein 2, who the comic says makes the original look like a jelly baby. Frankenstein 2 as it turns out, is a reference to the doctor, not the monster.
What a quote!
The Robot Wars is his first big story, taking up eight whole issues, as he fights a rebellion from the brilliantly-named, “Call-Me-Kenneth”. His brother Rico shows up for a single issue before being killed which is a surprise given how core he seemed in the old Judge Dredd movie (I get my knowledge where I can).
This first year ends with Dredd assigned to the moon, which I remember not liking as a story, but so far it’ been alright
RPG Ideas: There have been a few RPGs with Judge Dredd. I played “Judge Liefeld” in one, although the system didn’t really feel all that interesting or reflective of the world. The GM was very knowledgeable and definitely helped with that side of things. There’s a hack of the Dread RPG called Dread: Dredd, which is officially endorsed and sees players as pro-democracy terrorists trying to get a message out before the Judges catch them. It feels like a world where it’d be more interesting playing the criminals or ordinary people, but if you were Judges, I’d kind of like either a Dogs in the Vineyard hack or a Carved from Brindlewood game.
SHAKO
What a legend.
Issues Covered: 20-35
Created by Pat Mills and John Wagner
The only bear on the CIA death list!
Like Old One-Eye, Shako’s an animal who spends the series fucking up a lot of humans. Unlike Flesh, you’re not really meant to side with the humans here, you’re on Shako’s side and that’s good with me.
Shako is a polar bear who’s very fighty and swallowed a capsule with a deadly germ weapon in it, so the CIA start hunting Shako down. As the series goes on and Shako butchers more hunters, the KGB also get involved.
Shako does sadly die by the end, but in a 2000AD annual we do get a fun origin story of Shako’s early years. He’s attacked by two hunters as a cub and bites one in the leg, causing him to shoot the others. You get them, Shako, live your best life.
RPG Ideas: You thought I’d say Honey Heist here, didn’t you? The problem with that is the bears in Honey Heist are torn between their lives as thieves and bears. Shako is all bear, all the time. While this one’s difficult, I think you could run the RPG of Actual Cannibal Shia LeBeouf with Shako instead of Shia and see how long you survive against him.
BONJO FROM BEYOND THE STARS
Issues Covered: 41-45 (continuing to 50)
Created by Kevin O’Neill
This is a small comic strip about a giant monster travelling the world and eating people. You’d think that I’d be down with more monsters doing murders. These short strips have aged terribly, especially when he goes to Asia.
Collected in: As far as I’m aware it’s not been reprinted outside of the 2000 AD annual from 1984.
RPG Ideas: No
FUTURE SHOCKS
For my sanity I’m not going to cover Tharg’s Future Shocks and other one-off stories. They’re a good fun anthology of hit and miss science fiction tales, generally with some kind of shock twist.
CONCLUSION
Me neither
This is the only year I’d read all of before and I wasn’t really able to retain much and didn’t care for it aside from Dredd. This time there was a lot more to love and I came to it with a sense of curiosity.
Coming from the present, I know the strips of a number of stories that continue and I’m curious about the ones that didn’t. At this point, 2000 AD’s still learning what it wants to be, with a lot of shouting men as protagonists (see Invasion, M.A.C.H. One) and also realising that people love a good monster, like Shako and Old One-Eye. Dan Dare even improves with its first reboot.
So far the low point was Bonjo from Beyond the Stars and I think my high points are Flesh or Invasion.
I used to review video games and still review board & roleplaying games for Who Dares Rolls, and sometimes I find myself with a few things to waffle about in a bit more of an informal manner. This year, I’m going to try to intermittently write about media I’ve been reading, watching and playing.
Mario Quest 2025
It’s a starry night and Mario’s setting out to rescue a princess (and a lot of mushrooms)
I love a good quest and have generally set myself reading-based quests in the past few years. This time, I’m going to be trying a quest I’ve been wanting to do for a little while. I love the Mario games, and I think I have all of the core ‘canon’. Most of these are on the Switch, but there are a few on the DS/3DS and the Wii U, which I’ll need to set back up later in the year.
I also want to play all the Zelda games, but that’s going to take ages.
So far this month, I’ve completed Super Mario Bros using the Switch and the SNES Super Mario All-Stars version. Looking online there’s barely any actual difference between this and the original, which is the main way I’ve played this over the years.
I played and completed Astro Bot over Christmas which was a real joy, and it was fascinating going back in time to this ancestor of it. One thing I’ve been too used to in Mario games and platformers in general is constantly running and in this playthrough of Super Mario Bros I started to wonder why I kept falling to my death so often. It turned out I’d been constantly running through the levels which made the game feel more uncontrollable. Trying to speed through the levels was ultimately making this a lot harder for myself, so when I slowed down things got better.
I did use the rewind function the game has relentlessly, and will do so for all of the Super Mario Bros trilogy as I’ve played them before a bunch of times. That said, this is the only one I’ve finished, so we’ll see how the other games go.
Ren Faire
King George
I’m a basic HBO bitch, I love The Wire and Sopranos. I loved Succession.
This documentary by HBO feels like Role Models meets Succession. It’s another story about how a wealthy man who thinks and acts like he’s immortal will burn everything else down around us. But it’s in a place where Americans make weird fake historical performances involving sword fights, beefeaters and a lot of corn.
The documentary is only three episodes and is compellingly produced. King George is the ruler of a Ren Faire and even acquired the surrounding town, commanding a cultish loyalty like people imagine their love of a benevolent feudal lord. Only he isn’t that, he’s old, weird and surrounded by people who won’t call him on his shit. One main aspiring inheritor is the king of corn, who runs around like he’s in a manic episode all the time, constantly on his earbuds to people, skulling energy drinks and talking a million miles a minute. He wants an EDM night, sounds horrendously mercenary and like he’d make a lot of enemies. The other contestant for the throne is Jeff, who is desperate to please, doesn’t have much money and is torn between hoping to take it over one day or just being King George’s underling forever in the deluded hope that he is immortal.
There’s a lot of talk of legacy, of the role of being king, all while King George just huffs, won’t listen to anyone or let any decisions get made as he’s too impatient for anything, and visits a ‘sugar daddy dating site’ to try and pick up young women. There are others who are more organised and more aware of the situation, or people like Jeff’s wife who he needs to fire when the idea of nepotism being bad is sent in King George’s direction even though he’s done a lot of that in his time.
It’s weird and kind of lucky it’s three episodes, I don’t know how much I’d have been able to take of it. Ultimately, the conclusion isn’t perfect, but while this is filmed in a highly narrativised fashion, it’s still a documentary and won’t cleanly fix everything or let either man who’s been gunning for the throne have a win.
Vampire Survivors
This looks like a lot, and it is, but it’s fairly late in a Vampire Survivors run.
I love Vampire Survivors. It’s a game I’ve bought four times now on different devices, and find incredibly moreish to do. I first played it on the iPad, then the Switch, the Xbox One and now on the PS5. This time was the realisation that I could probably pretty easily platinum it. And then I did, over the span of a week and a bit. I also realised I could use PlayStation Remote Play with my ageing iPad and sync a controller to it, so I could play when we were watching the television.
For those who aren’t aware, Vampire Survivors is a Castlevania-looking reverse shoot-em-up. You control a character who’s in the centre of the screen, constantly firing off different weapons. You move the character around, trying to position yourself so they go off and kill enemies. The weapons each have unique quirks, level up and ‘evolve’ when mixed with the right passive power. A whip lashes out to the sides, then a hollow heart increases health. When both are levelled up enough the weapon evolves into a red whip which is massive and heals you. There are challenges to complete, characters and levels to unlock and even new menu commands which will open up as you go. As I said, it’s very moreish.
Comics
I’ve been reading Dan Da Dan on the Shonen Jump app on my iPad and been enjoying it. I decided to start Sakamoto Days just in time for the anime’s beginning. On the Viz App I’m still reading Call of the Night and Rainbow Days.
I love these three idiots.
Dan Da Dan is about a girl who believes in ghosts and a boy who believes in UFOs, both of whom realise they’re both right and things get weirder from there. It can be crude, daft and also hits really hard when it needs to.
Sakamoto Days is about a retired hitman who runs a newsagent after getting married and settling down. He meets a psychic fan who has to kill him. It’s kind of like functional Sexcastle or John Wick.
Call of the Night is about an insomniac who wanders his town at night and ends up falling in with a vampire. He wants to be turned, but they need to be in love for it to work. Both characters and the supporting cast are messy, and there are some fun moments of wandering the quiet streets at night.
Rainbow Days is about four kids at school who are best friends, and their messy relationships. It’s not really The In-Betweeners, but it has a bit of that energy at times with how rubbish the teens are.
I’ve been keeping up to date with new releases for Marvel, too many of which are Venom event comics and Venom’s never going to get over with me. I’ve been neglecting the DC app and my 2000 AD marathon, so I’ll need to go back to them soon.
I’m currently thinking about slicing up my 2000 AD marathon articles and going year by year instead of a hundred issues at a time, as that’ll be shorter and easier for me to do while I remember the issues instead of getting an ever-increasing backlog.
My X-Men marathon’s reached late 2009 and the Utopia crossover, the second time there was a big mutant island community. I’ve been enjoying Matt Fraction and Mike Carey’s work on the core titles. X-Factor’s not aged great, but I don’t know how much of that is me being tired with current Peter David. X-Force is better than I thought it would be as the pivot to murder the team’s had. Cable’s been an enjoyable Lone Wolf & Cub in the far future. Young X-Men didn’t feel like much of anything and New Mutants has reminded me how much I love Zeb Wells’ writing.
Cyclops has hit his beak badass leader mode.
Big News!
My days of working full time are over! I’ve managed to reduce my hours at my day job and now I’ve got a dedicated day a week to write. I’ve already been making a list of things to do:
Prose: Finish Embers & Knights, proofread Mistbirch Mythos and rip apart Lightning’s current draft, adding in some new bits.
RPG: Learn Affinity to lay out my Blades in the Dark heists.
Comics: Sort out an artist for Amnesiac City and Let’s All Kill Mark Larkin, finish scripting A Forest in the Sky, start scripting Red Rails, pitch Explosion High and work out what I’m doing with Past Futuremann.
Speaking of which, here’s a coloured page of Past Futuremann, drawn the the Legendary Lane Lloyd!
Maybe I just live here now. Maybe I’m going to where the postman went, and the woman who tried to warn me.
My sleep in the post van was rough, trying to make any space for myself among undelivered packages and letters. Any peace I had didn’t last long, though.
There was a thud, and a feeling of momentum as the van was moving backwards. Something was dragging it. I tried to look through the back door and saw only the storm. It was best not to try opening it and facing whatever was taking me back up the hill. Instead I got back into the front in time to see the cabin passing by. The door open, the windows smashed. The elements were claiming it once more. Maybe that’s what happened last time, why there was only a basement left from its old incarnation.
The ground was rougher and trees battered the van. I reached the front door and opened it, only for it to slam in my face. I hammered on the windows, tried to break them and get out. Nothing. The woods, the fields, they all went past, all wilder and stranger than during any of my visits.
The spirit with the stone skull was following the van like it was part of a procession. It was watching me and what I was doing. I remembered the clearing I took the skull from. I was an interloper, I took their possession, I walked their land.
And I knew what was next.
The van fell down the slope with ease. It had been let go and gravity was taking over. The lake was next. I tried the door again. If the spirits had released the van, maybe I could escape. The steep hill’s momentum meant I only had seconds. I opened the door and fell out, battered by it on my way down.
I felt my ankle snap as I rolled over, falling into the lake. I kept low, clawing my way out of it and trying to be unseen by the spirits. They watched the van sinking, but any misstep and they would have seen me. Further along the lake path was the cave. Far enough that I could risk getting to it without being noticed. Drenched and injured, I ran to the cave, stifling any screams as I went.
I need medical attention, I’m no doctor and I’m sure I’ve messed up trying to splint my ankle. I’m cold and the snow doesn’t so any sign of stopping. If it does, I’ll make a break for it. If not, do not go into the woods and if you must, don’t take anything. The things in the woods are vengeful and won’t be reasoned with.
I love you Casey, Sam, Lou. I hope I get out of here, and that this letter isn’t my epitaph. If you are given this letter by someone else, do not come here, looking for me.
The Advent Calendar
Advent of Abomination is by Black Armada and available here.
Faked Tales 