Faked Tales

Charlie’s 2000 AD Marathon – 1983

Posted on July 16, 2025 by fakedtales

We’re almost caught up with the comics I’ve read once when I was going to cover them a hundred issues at a time. That was proving untenable as I’ve been needing to keep notes to remember what happened 52 or so issues at a time.

This time we’ve got Alan Moore having his first ongoing 2000 AD story in Skizz, some more Nemesis and a dramatic end to Harry Twenty on the High Rock.

The issues covered here are: 2000 AD issues 297-349, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1983, 2000 AD Annual 1984, Judge Dredd Annual 1984.

JUDGE DREDD

Issues Covered: 2000 AD issues 297-349, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1983, 2000 AD Annual 1984, Judge Dredd Annual 1984

There’s no one massive story here, but a few multi-parters.

Night of the Rad Beast has a person that’s 90% machine and highly radioactive on a rampage. The Last Invader has a remnant of East-Meg One who thinks the war’s still on. Given there was a recent story about weaponising a kid who thought he was related to an East-Meg soldier, I’m guessing it’s not over yet.

Shanty Town shows an uprising outside of Mega-City One which ends with even the innocents in the town getting driven away. It’s always impressive seeing the kind of dystopia of the city happened early on, rather than being something which grew with re-examinations over time.

The Starborn Thing shows more weird horrors as a UFO crash ends up with the deaths of several judges and the possession of Dredd by a weird monster. It moves on, but Dredd nearly dies just because of this little thing.

Block Out at the Crater Bowl in the Sci-Fi Special has art by John Byrne of all people. It’s weird seeing Dredd drawn with the signature Byrne chin and his bug-eyed supporting characters are allowed to look even weirder.

Condo shoots Dredd up into space to solve a spate of sabotage on wealthy space condos. Then there’s some supernatural influence with Cry of the Werewolf, which starts as just one werewolf, but gets bigger and more horrifying as it goes.

The Weather Man has a musician conducting an ‘orchestra’ of weather to a hostage audience. The Judges finally figure out who’s doing this, but not before the audience all die.

Requiem for a Heavyweight brings back the Fatties who were mostly imprisoned in rehab, but that doesn’t stop an underground eating contest from leading to the deaths of several people.

Graveyard Shift is a longer story, covering a single night on the job with all sorts of crimes going on. There’s a biting-based fighting ring and a man with a disintegrator who’s trying to break a record.

A Rumble in the Jungle has a three way gang war in a building site get trashed by the Judge’s new “Manta Prowl Tank” which feels like something I’d have expected to see in a kid’s toy range.

I’m an easy mark for a comic with a dinosaur.

Bob and Carol and Ted and Ringo features a quartet of dinosaurs which are paraded around town and broken loose by a janitorial robot. Bob is the main mischief maker out of the dinosaurs, eating people on his way to the border of Mega City One and eventually getting decapitated. He still runs around for a bit, and the others make it out of the city safely. A happy ending for dinosaur lovers.

Collected in: Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files 06, Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files 07

ROBO-HUNTER

Issues Covered: 2000 AD 297-307, 312-334, 2000 AD Annual 1984

This year sees the end of Robo-Hunter (as far as I’m aware).

Play It Again Sam continues from last year and is still just as interminable. The songs written out on the page as Kidd’s anti-robot “Human League” get sent ‘on holiday’ to a concentration camp. Hoagy guards them and eventually manages to rescue Sam once some sense is shaken into him. It turns out Sir Oswald Modroid did all of this and Iron Aggie is brought back. This wasn’t a good story and has only been made worse over time.

Slaying of Slade is bizarre. Sam’s killed by some tiny meks and he has an out of body experience. Apparently there’s another Sam out there and the bureaucracy of the afterlife needs Sam to figure it out. There’s a clone body raised as Sam Scumm, who’s a lot more down on his luck. He enters Sam Scumm’s body and shares it with him, pretty much picking up where he left off but with a second Sam in his head. Eventually the pair manage to stay alive, avenge themselves and retire to Tahiti.

51 years later… we get Sam Slade’s Last Case, where Hoagy and Stogie try to break him out of his lazy retirement. They drug and kidnap Sam, who doesn’t really appreciate it. What looks like a villainous robot doctor turns out to be a wellness retreat, so they’ve not really got anything for him to save. Eventually they decide to simply drug him and send him to rehab.

Collected in: Robo-Hunter The Droid Files: Volume 2, 2000 AD Ultimate Collection Issue 30

RO-BUSTERS

Issues Covered: 2000 AD Annual 1984

There’s only a little bit of the lads this time, as they face off against some people who are similar to but legally distinct from the Thunderbirds, who have been manufacturing disasters.

Collected in: Ro-Busters Vol 2

STRONTIUM DOG

Issues Covered: 2000 AD 335-345

There’s only one story this year, but it’s a long one. The Moses Incident kicks off when a kid called Moses follows Johnny on a mission and is killed. After seeing the impact on Moses’ family, Johnny heads to the Isle of the Dead, a castle on a lonely planet, serving as the prison for Malak Brood. The man’s a necromancer and a real creep, having reanimated his brothers into a pair of heads attached to the same box.

Malak asks for Johnny’s life, then pivots to asking for his freedom. Johnny tricks him and while Malak’s a man of his word, that word is, ‘betrayal’. Moses is brought back wrong, leading to the town wanting to lynch Johnny & Wulf until Moses’ mum shoots their ropes. She gets what happened and there’s been enough killing. That said, there’s a little more killing to do, as Johnny returns to Malak, stabs the ball and chain he’s attached to and the necromancer dies. The guild melts him and all his zombies.

Collected in: Strontium Dog: Search and Destroy 4

NEMESIS: THE WARLOCK BOOK THREE “WORLD OF NEMESIS”

Issues Covered: 2000 AD Annual 1984, 2000 AD 335-349

This book starts with a fight between centaur knights for the hand of Nemesis. Chira wins and the pair are married. Unfortunately Magna, the rejected party, calls on Torquemada.

Nemesis and Chira have a hatchling and call it Thoth. They also see Great Uncle Baal who’s brought some dancing skeletons. What hijinks!

Torquemada sends an invasion force after Nemesis, including Mek Quake! It’s fun to see him again, even if he’s evil here. He’s joined by a mech called Torque-Armada and Nemesis’ trickery had the two fight. He also torments a human knight called Sir Evric, offering him wishes in return for fleeing. He takes it, and is turned into a monster with a giant face. While I’ve not read much Nemesis prior to this readthrough, I’m sure I’ve read this part before at either my dad’s girlfriend’s or a friend’s I was crashing at.

Unfortunately all is not well, as Chira’s attacked and killed. She’s forseen this and bestows her powers to Thoth, then hides him before she’s killed. Thoth hypnotises an assassin into thinking he’s a human baby and can scheme from there.

Collected in: Nemesis The Warlock – The Definitive Edition, Volume 2

ROGUE TROOPER

Issues Covered: 2000 AD 297-349, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1983, 2000 AD Annual 1984

A moment of mercy, as Rogue lets a GI die without becoming a chip.

Fort Neuro continues with the siege of a group of odd larpers, such as the ‘disco greeks’ and the ‘scavs’ who are based mainly around Abba. Rogue manages to unite them against the Norts and eventually the people there are driven sane.

We meet a fun antagonist in Major Magnam, a GI whose chip is living in a gun and is a massive arsehole (despite not having one). He pulls rank and is a jerk, eventually given to a Souther salvage squad.

The Sci-Fi Special introduces some literal warheads who make for a fun one-shot antagonist.

Milli-Com Memories actually gives us more insight to the game as a delirious Rogue accidentally reveals things he’s been keeping from his comrades. He overheard that Gunnar’s not all that stable, he confesses that a female GI, Venus Bluegenes, fancies him instead of Helm and then that Bagman caused the deaths of some clone rejects.

Despite all of this, they still manage to help him and pretend not to have heard anything.

Eye of the General passes the perspective back and forth between Rogue and The Traitor General, who he’s closing in on. We meet Bland and Brass, a pair of mercenary scavengers who seem to have a fun time with everything. Despite that, Brass gets killed by the Traitor General who gets away.

From Hell to Eternity reunites Rogue (and Helm) with Venus, who’s been stranded on an island for a while. She’s grateful to see Rogue (not Helm) all seems well until we find out that she killed the other people stranded with her for being ‘weak’. Rogue abandons her on the island which is blown up. I’m aware Venus returns and we don’t see a body, so I’m guessing she’ll make it off one day.

Gasbah has an alien (or ‘ali’) bar which Rogue rocks up to. Of course, those tricksy Norts have also made it to Kyro and the Gasbah. Rogue’s helped by a weird ceiling fungus which gives its life to help him blow them up.

Finally in Timeslip, Rogue gets into some bio-acid wires and goes through a dome into what looks like an old Earth museum. He panics and everything goes nuts, only it turns out that he was hallucinating and thrown out the the inhabitants.

Collected in: Rogue Trooper: The Complete Collection – Book 1, Rogue Trooper: The Complete Collection – Book 2

ABELARD SNAZZ

Issues Covered: 2000 AD 299

Genius is Pain sees Snazz abducted from his latest near-death experience by The Manager of the Universe. He thinks he’s being tried and runs away before finding out that it’s his six millionth birthday. His present? Edwin, his obsequious robot, is returned to him.

Collected in: Complete Future Shocks Vol 2

HARRY TWENTY ON THE HIGH ROCK

Issues Covered: 2000 AD 297-307

The back half of this story realises the same problem that Lost had. After a while trapped in a place, you need to get off of it. Not before Magnifico 7 realises what happens if you pretend to snap; getting put on a horrific moon asylum.

Harry gets into an escape pod with Genghis and Old Ben, having made a parachute unlike the last batch of escapees. They fight a squark (half-squid, half-shark) and get tracked down. It turns out that Old Ben’s been an android traitor all this time, letting Harry think he had a way out before springing the trap. Genghis burns to death and Harry’s taken back for a quick sham trial with Warden Worldwise.

He teams up with Big Red just long enough to cause a riot, then gets betrayed by him of course. Harry’s riot ends up with the High Rock being taken over and after Worldwise starts fighting them from the vents, eventually he’s taken down. A bomb blast knocks the high rock out of orbit, where it’ll eventually get them to somewhere less awful than Earth. Hopefully it won’t go all Space: 1999.

This was a fun story and a complete one. It could have lasted longer, but I’m pleased it went out on a high note.

Collected in: 45 Years of 2000 AD – The Best of Gerry Finley-Day

SKIZZ

Issues Covered: 2000 AD 308-330

Originally created by Alan Moore and Jim Baikie

Why yes, E.T. had only recently been released before this comic started.

An alien ship goes off course and crash lands, dropping off rat-like creature who finds his way to Birmingham and the bedroom of a teenager called Roxy. She’s got fairly inexplicable hair and a rebellious streak. She also has some friends in Loz and Cornelius, a biker and a van driver who’s been through some things. Roxy helps an ailing Skizz get better and teaches him English before the bad guys show up.

Van Owen’s the villain of the piece, a very Gestapo-coded guy who believes Skizz is here with malicious intent. He abducts Skizz and Roxy gets arrested, but Loz, Cornelius and some bikers manage to hold a protest. As everyone faces off against each other and Cornelius gets shot, a UFO appears! Cornelius flings Van Owen away and Skizz tells his family that the humans are okay. Skizz says goodbye and leaves, and we’ve got a rare 2000 AD story where the protagonists haven’t died at the end.

Collected in: The Complete Skizz

RPG Ideas: Kids on Bikes has more of a Stranger Things direction, but it would work perfectly with the youths in this series and Skizz itself filling the ‘powered character’ role.

TIME TWISTERS: D.R. & QUINCH

Issues Covered: 2000 AD 317

Originally created by Alan Moore & Alan Davis

The first appearance of these delinquents.

I don’t normally cover the Time Twisters or Future Shocks, but this time we’ve got the introduction of D.R. and Quinch, who’ll get their own stories in 1983. “Diminished Responsibility” aka D.R. and the mute Ernie Quinch are suspended from their college and end up on Earth, messing with it throughout time. They cause a number of mysteries in order to offend their dean. Alan Davis’ art is evolving and he’s so good at drawing weird guys. He’ll really put this to use in Captain Britain and Excalibur.

Collected in: The Complete D.R. & Quinch

RPG Ideas: I’ve not got much to go on. For this story specifically, there’s Timewatch which has some time travel shenanigans, or some of the weirder Fiasco scenarios. I’ll probably revisit this next time.

ANDERSON, PSI-JUDGE

Issues Covered: 2000 AD Annual 1984

There’s only one story for Judge Anderson, but she’ll be back in the future. Anderson’s got another possession case to deal with and goes on a journey of the mind.

Collected in: Judge Anderson: The Psi-Files Volume 01

RPG Ideas: It’s not out yet, but Hollows is a game about entering people’s inner demons, made into literal fights in their mindscapes.

SLÁINE

Issues Covered: 2000 AD 330-349

Originally created by Pat Mills and Angela Kincaid

Sláine is a Celtic barbarian comic and originally I wasn’t sure how Conan-ish this was going to be. I’ve read some Conan both in prose and comic form, and I’m ambivalent towards it. Sláine’s been good fun so far, with roguish protagonists and weird Celtic lore being explored.

The Time Monster introduces us to Sláine, his axe ‘Brain Biter’, his conniving dwarf mate Ukko and his ability to ‘warp spasm’, mutating his body and turning him into a monster of muscle and murder.

The Beast in the Broch has Sláine fancying a king’s bridge, Niamh. He runs away, buys a jail with a monster in it who turns out to be an old cutpurse friend. Only no, she’s died and been replaced by a snake woman.

In The Bride of Crom, Sláine is sent to rescue the daughter, Medb, of a tribal leader from kidnappers. Sláine and Ukko get put in a wicker man and manage to fight their way out, but Medb is a Druness, working for the evil Slough Feg. She dances with a bull to demonstrate to her Lord Weird that she’s good to go forth, marry into a Celtic tribe and spread chaos.

McMahon’s art in the last arcs are a bit sketchy and the gaps in the inking make it look like rain. Still, this has been an interesting story, especially as I’ve not got a lot of knowledge of Celtic lore, myself.

Collected in: Sláine – The Definitive Edition, Volume 1

RPG Ideas: Ironsworn might work well for the kind of solo action that Sláine gets up to. There are a few specifically Celtic RPGs and a Sláine RPG, but I’ve no real experience of them. Swords Without Master is a bit Conan-themed, but would easily work for this sort of story with its ability to shift between grim and jovial styles.

CONCLUSION

I’m still loving the expanded look at the worlds of Dredd and Rogue Trooper, as we zoom out from just looking at them. Graveyard Shift was a nice idea but went on a bit long, but other than that, the Dredd stories were good. I loved The Moses Incident, even if the plot beats were a bit predictable.

I think my favourites of this era were Harry 20 on the High Rock and Skizz. I’m curious to see what one-off stories happen in the next year’s reading and how Thoth’s journey goes in Nemesis Book IV.

Posted in Comics | Tagged 2000 ad, Abelard Snazz, Dr and Quinch, Harry Twenty on the High Rock, judge Anderson, Judge Dredd, Major Magnam, Mek-Quake, Nemesis the Warlock, ro-busters, Robo-Hunter, Rogue Trooper, Skizz, Slaine, strontium dog, Venus Bluegenes | Leave a comment

Charlie’s 2000 AD Marathon – 1982

Posted on July 5, 2025 by fakedtales

We’ve got some cracking stories this year, with Judge Dredd having its longest story arc yet, and a ton of Rogue Trooper.

The issues covered here are: 2000 AD issues 245-296, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1982, 2000 AD Annual 1983, Judge Dredd Annual 1983

JUDGE DREDD

Issues Covered: 2000 AD 2000 AD 245-296, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1982, 2000 AD Annual 1983, Judge Dredd Annual 1983

It’s the Apocalypse War and everything’s screwed up.

The Apocalypse War had a bit of a warm-up with Block Mania, and kicks off when East-Meg One nukes, invades and just keeps pummelling Mega City One. The Judges still have people suffering from Block Mania to deal with as well. The Sov leadership manage to find time to backstab each other while it’s all going down, and supposedly kill Dredd. The public dance “The Apocalypto” as everything collapses around them, and radiation floods the streets. Things seem relentlessly terrible, but in a typically bonkers Mega-City One way, but the Judges manage to push through, even after their chief is brainwashed.

The collapse of the city continues to be a part of the series all the way through the rest of the year, starting with a rising of masterless robots. Meka City sees the brilliantly-named Precious Leglock create his own robot city themed around wrestling.

The League of Fatties has the Fatties working together to steal rationed food and Fungus sees an infection break out from a wanderer whose mind broke during the Apocalypse War.

In Destiny’s Angels, the Judge Child is still scheming against Dredd. He uses his powers to break Fink Angel out of prison and resurrect Mean Machine, who was too much fun to leave dead. The pair close in on Dredd leaving chaos in their wake and kidnapping his landlord, assuming she’s his wife. Eventually the Judge Child is killed by automated missiles which is fine, but I hope he’ll come back. He’s too much of a shit to die this easily.

The Executioner is a Dredd-light story, with Blanche Kominsky avenging her husband. She’s a good character, sympathetic and of course given this world, doomed.

Collected in: Judge Dredd: Case Files 05, Judge Dredd: Case Files 06

ROBO-HUNTER

Issues Covered: 259-272, 275-281, 283-288, 292-296 (parts 1-5 of 16)

The Beast of Blackheart Manor kicks off Sam’s time in the UK, where apparently barely any of us are working as it’s all been outsourced to robots. Unlike the present where automation’s probably going to just quietly and politely lead to poverty and death, in Brit-Cit, everyone’s pretty much permanently on holiday.

The Beast of Blackheart Manor is a murder mystery, while The Filby Case sees Sam warned away from a case repeatedly before he’s even taken it. In trying to rescue a robot from a cult, Hoagy is pretty much instantly indoctrinated by it.

The Killing of Kidd brings back Sam’s old colleague who was turned into a baby. He’s an actor in a sitcom and has been getting death threats. Given his terrible personality, it’s a tricky task as everyone wants him dead. Sam joins the cast as Kidd’s grandmother and gradually realises that everyone does actually want him dead and they’re working together to do it. Worse, when the cast are all arrested, Kidd decides to set up a rival detective agency.

I’ve little to say about Football Crazy, although if I was into football maybe some of it would have landed for me. There are some moments of racism both against the audience and the footballers, and Kidd pops up again to get in the way.

Play it Again, Sam starts in 1982 and will continue into next year. It’s… grating. I’m up and down on Robo-Hunter, but this is a definite ‘down’. Iron Aggie, a robot Thatcher, has decided that everyone has to sing in public or be arrested. This leads to a lot of musical sequences, which never works well in comics. There are narrative captions showing which songs the characters are ripping off, and Sam’s got to sing as well as trying to infiltrate The Human League. Not the band, but an anti-robot group.

Collected in: Robo-Hunter The Droid Files: Volume 1, Robo-Hunter The Droid Files: Volume 2

RO-BUSTERS

Issues Covered: 2000 AD Annual 1983

There’s a short story of Hammer-Stein having flashbacks to his time as an ABC Warrior and rampaging. As we’ve seen him in that era, Alan Moore’s able to call on those moments and that cast. There’s even a pleasant return in trying to get him to calm down.

Collected in: Ro-Busters Vol 2

STRONTIUM DOG

Issues Covered: 2000 AD Annual 1983

Incident at the Back o’ Beyond is a fairly simple story where Johnny and Wulf both enter a Wild West town under the thumb of crooks, take them down and move on.

Collected in: Strontium Dog: Search and Destroy 4

BLACKHAWK

Issues Covered: 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1982

Set before Black Hawk ended up in a black hole, this takes him back to his alien gladiator times. Similar to Strontium Dog, it’s nothing special, but it’s nice to see Black Hawk back.

Collected in: Blackhawk the Intergalactic Gladiator

NEMESIS: THE WARLOCK – BOOK TWO “THE ALIEN ALLIANCE”

Issues Covered: 2000 AD 246-257, 2000 AD Annual 1983

Nemesis is so big, it should be difficult to be ambushed by him.

You didn’t think he’d be back, but sure enough, that bastard Torquemada has returned! Just as it looks like Nemesis and the various freaky aliens are working together, Torquemada manages to infest humans in a sympathetic community, mess them up and then move from them to a giant spider. I love that in the world of Nemesis, the giant spiders are normally friendly. He’s eager to cause all out war, so of course Nemesis has to put this scheme to an end.

Collected in: Nemesis The Warlock – The Definitive Edition, Volume 1

MEAN ARENA

Issues Covered: 2000 AD 245-255, 258-259, 261-286

The story of Mean Arena ends, but not without some new teams to fight and a bit more of a look at some of Slater’s Slayers. Some trainees are brought in, just in time to fight the Oxford Invaders, who have been made to look like aliens.

After that, we get a bit more of a look at Brazen, who seems suspicious at first, but she’s the girlfriend of Matt Tallon’s dead brother, so she’s after vengeance as well! The Slayers fare badly against the Allerton Ants and Tallon takes some grief from the manager.

The vengeance story gets back on track when the Slayers fight a team made up of people dressed as vampires led by a blind woman called Mother Vlad. It turns out she’s faking and actually one of the three remaining members of the Hexa-Gang Tallon and Brazen are hunting.

Eventually, the team are fighting “The Rest of Europe” in a fake video game, only for Tallon to trap the final member of the gang in an actual video game. The reveal of who they were was good, but not as important as the games themselves or the challenges to Tallon in the story. I liked that other characters like Brazen, Wolf Rawker and Crazy Lil got a bit more panel time.

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

ROGUE TROOPER

Issues Covered: 246-258, 260-262, 265-296, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1982, 2000 AD Annual 1983

War drives a lot of folks mad, and this lot more than most.

Nu-Earth continues to be inhospitable with a deadly forest, hallucinatory gas and the Norts being dicks again. Rogue infiltrates a prison in order to break folks out and there’s even some engineered ape-men causing mischief.

Bagman gets a bit of depth in the Bagman Blues, where he gets shot and starts losing it. He’s still helpful, but there’s a level of uncertainty about what he can do.

A longer story is All Hell on the Dix-I Front, where an attempt to reel in Southern defectors turns into a bloodbath as the Norts attack it. Rogue makes a friend in Sister Sledge who his mates are instantly suspicious of. This was the same time as Brazen in Mean Arena, so I was wary of two suspicious women popping up. Unlike Brazen, Sledge is actually a traitor, a “Filth Columnist” who’s been poisoning people throughout the story. She gets her comeuppance and Rogue once again doesn’t trust anyone.

The Marauders has Rogue finally meeting The Traitor General, the Souther leader who caused the Quartz Zone Massacre. His face is all messed up and he’s leading some mercenaries, presenting some new problems. There’s even a bit where Rogue’s enemies have Helm, Bagman and Gunnar and are using them to hunt him. It’s fun seeing how and if they can react to help him.

The final arc of the year is the first seven parts of Fort Neuro, a border fort for the Southers which has themed itself around historical wars, starting with “The Napoleonic Complex”. These LARPers are armed, but feel like they might be doomed.

Collected in: Rogue Trooper: The Complete Collection – Book 1

ACE TRUCKING CO

Issues Covered: 245-285, 288-293

Oh god, more Ace. The group get the Speedo Ghost stolen in The Lugjack and have to recover it.

The Great Mush Rush is a race for a choice delivery route. This feels like the right kind of arc for Ace Trucking Co, as you’ve got a colourful cast of weirdos all competing with each other. Joobaloo! continues this trend as the group go to a gathering of truckers, only to find Feek the Freak’s terrible wife and a wrestling match, around the same time as Dredd was wrestling Precious Leglock.

Too Many Bams feels like an overuse of introducing wacky characters, as the cast have to help the Bams, who look like seaside caricatures come to life. They replicate by dancing and they keep doing it, leading to introduction after introduction of giant-faced weirdos.

The last arcs have Ace mistaken for a deity, which successfully happened in Abelard Snazz last year, and then trying to help Gator Magee, a crook Ace meets in prison. Breaking Magee out is more trouble than it’s worth, and then he betrays them anyway.

Collected in: The Complete Ace Trucking: Volume 1

ABELARD SNAZZ

Issues Covered: 245, 254

We get a couple more short Abelard Snazz stories, with him trapped on the way to paradise, socialising with gods as that’s what he was sacrificed as. He causes the gods to rebel and have a violent resurgence. He’s punished by having to solve a giant Rubix Cube. After that he’s rescued from the cube and messes up a peaceful society with some tennis robots.

Collected in: The Complete Future Shocks Volume Two

JOE BLACK

Issues Covered: 248, 252, 256

Joe Black of PEST is back, albeit mostly in Future Shocks. He finds a ‘Horn of Plenty’, able to replicate things. Then in The Hume Factor, he finds a society of giants and narrowly escapes a marriage to a giantess.

Collected in: The Complete Future Shocks Volume Two

AGENT RAT

Issues Covered: 273-274

Originally created by Steve Moore & Mike White

If a rat looked like they’d been hoodwinked, this is basically how they’d look.

Rattus R. Rattus is a detective who’s also a humanoid rat, getting into scrapes and while he’s smaller than most folks, isn’t literal rat-size at least. Like Joe Black, he doesn’t feel too far from previous 2000 AD outings, so I can see why he’s only had two appearances this year. While he’s sent to find a murderer, there are some twists in the tale, like any good noir.

Collected in: Judge Dredd Megazine 351 contains Trouble on Tree-World.

RPG Ideas: This feels like something which could be done with the Gumshoe system, perhaps even one of their one player, one GM games.

HARRY TWENTY ON THE HIGH ROCK

Issues Covered: 287-296 (1-10 of 21)

Originally created by Gerry Finley-Day and Alan Davis

I love Alan Davis’ artwork. One of the earliest X-Men spinoffs I read was Excalibur and I’ve adored his art ever since. In this series, he’s beginning to become the artist we’ll know him as.

Harry Thompson’s sent to a space prison for twenty years, his surname replaced with his sentence as a way of helping dehumanise prisoners. His crime was trying to get food to islanders. He fights and then befriends Genghis 18 and Old Ben 90. The High Rock is a terrible prison few people ever leave unless they join the ‘Heavenly Bodies’, a ring of corpses orbiting the prison in space.

Harry 20 makes an enemy of Big Red 1, an evil Santa-looking guy with some scars who causes Harry to get knocked into space at one point. He finds a way back in, but takes some flak. Finally for this half of the series, a pair of prisoners execute a cunning plan to escape, but are detected and burn up on re-entry. Next year we’ll get the back half of the story.

Collected in: Harry 20: On the High Rock

RPG Ideas: There’s a game called Durance by Bully Pulpit Games, where you play the prisoners and wardens of a secluded prison. It’s based loosely on the early days of Australia, but works well in its own right. You could probably do something in a secluded space rock like this.

THE GREAT DETECTIVE CAPER

Issues Covered: 289-290

Originally created by Chris Lowder & John Higgins

Another tiny story, Ernie Grice aka Hemlock Bones is an actor with an uncanny resemblance to Sherlock Holmes. He’s abducted by aliens who are very disappointed that he’s the wrong person. It feels very Galaxy Quest, despite being made long before it.

Collected in: The Complete Future Shocks Volume Two

RPG Ideas: This feels like one where it’s not really worth doing this for, but this feels like a very Fiasco type situation.

CONCLUSION

There are a few surprisingly short runs in this year, with Agent Rat and The Great Detective Caper joining Abelard Snazz as stories which are just slightly too long for Future Shocks. Some series like Strontium Dog and Ro-Busters barely get a look in, but Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper have some nicely chunky runs to read.

It feels like the comic’s allowing slightly more female characters into the comic with Blanche (briefly) in Judge Dredd, Sister Sledge and Brazen. They get the same kind of treatment as most 2000 AD characters (dead, traitor and dead, actually alive), too. Next year we’ll get our first female-led series with Snazz.

It took a while and an unspeakable amount of casualties, but the Apocalypse War is done!

Posted in Comics | Tagged 2000 ad, Abelard Snazz, Ace Trucking Co, Agent Rat, Apocalypse War, Blackhawk, Fort Neuro, Harry Twenty on the High Rock, Joe Black, Judge Dredd, Mean Arena, Nemesis the Warlock, ro-busters, Robo-Hunter, Rogue Trooper, strontium dog, The Great Detective Caper | Leave a comment

Charlie’s 2000 AD Marathon – 1981

Posted on May 8, 2025 by fakedtales

You’ve been pranked by Nemesis the Warlock!

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)

If sports teams dressed or acted like this, I’d actually watch sports.

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)

It doesn’t seem like it, but they’ll be friends. Well… colleagues.

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

The Speedo Ghost, I assume named after swimwear.

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

A weird ending, kind of happy for Nick, but everyone he adventured with will never exist.

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.

Posted in Comics | Tagged 2000 ad, Abelard Snazz, Ace Trucking Co, Fink Angel, Judge Dredd, Mean Arena, Meltdown Man, Nemesis the Warlock, Return to Armageddon, ro-busters, Rogue Trooper, strontium dog | Leave a comment

April Update – A Long Way to a Small Angry Plumber

Posted on May 4, 2025 by fakedtales

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

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!

Posted in General | Tagged A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Arkham horror, Sprigs & Kindling, Super Mario 64, Switch 2 | Leave a comment

Charlie’s 2000 AD Marathon – 1980

Posted on April 26, 2025 by fakedtales

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

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.

Collected in: Judge Dredd Complete Case Files 03 & Judge Dredd Complete Case Files 04.

M.A.C.H. ZERO

Issues Covered: 162-165

“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.

Collected in: M.A.C.H. 1: Book 02 “Close Encounters”

ROBO-HUNTER

Issues Covered: 152-174

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.

Collected in: Robo-Hunter The Droid Files Volume 1

STRONTIUM DOG

Issues Covered: 2000 AD Annual 1981, 178-192

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.

It’s time to bully the hell out of this dickhead.

Collected in: Strontium Dog Search and Destroy 2

TIME QUAKE

Issues Covered: 148-151

Time Quake’s back! I didn’t expect that.

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

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.

Collected in: Ultimate 2000 AD 179 contains The Mind of Wolfie Smith.

BLACKHAWK

Issues Covered: 146-161 (parts 19-34 of 34)

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.

Collected in: Ultimate 2000 AD 136 contains Black Hawk.

CAPTAIN KLEP

Issues Covered: 146-147, 149-153, 155-157, 159

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.

Collected in: The Stainless Steel Rat Colour Omnibus

THE V.C.’s

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.

Collected in: The VC’s: Hell in the Heavens

FIENDS OF THE EASTERN FRONT

Issues Covered: 151-161

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.

Collected in: Fiends of the Eastern Front

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.

Collected in: Nemesis the Warlock – The Definitive Edition, Volume 1

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

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

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.

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

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.

Collected in: Meltdown Man

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)

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.

Collected in: Return to Armageddon

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

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.

Next time, Nemesis!

Posted in Comics | Tagged 2000 ad, Blackhawk, Captain Klep, Comic Rock, Dash Decent, Fiends of the Eastern Front, judge Anderson, Judge Child, Judge Death, Judge Dredd, Mach Zero, Mean Arena, Meltdown Man, Nemesis, Return to Armageddon, Robo-Hunter, Stainless Steel Rat, strontium dog, The Mind of Wolfie Smith, The VCs, Time Quake | Leave a comment

Charlie’s 2000 AD Marathon – 1979

Posted on March 30, 2025 by fakedtales

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 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 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.

Collected in: Judge Dredd Case Files 02 and Judge Dredd Case Files 03

DAN DARE

Issues Covered: 100-107, 109-126

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.

Collected in: Dan Dare: The 2000 AD Years Volume Two

FLESH BOOK TWO

Issues Covered: 94-99

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.

Collected in: Flesh: The Dino Files

DISASTER 1990

Issues Covered: 119-139

The law takes a break in flooded London.

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.

Collected in: This was reprinted in Judge Dredd Megazine 331 and Judge Dredd Megazine 332.

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 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.

Collected in: Robo-Hunter: The Droid Files: Volume 1

RICK RANDOM AND THE RIDDLE OF THE ASTRAL ASSASSIN

Issues Covered: 113-118

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.

Collected in: I’ve had a look, I think Best of 2000 AD Monthly 86 has it.

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

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.

Collected in: Ro-Busters Vol 1

STRONTIUM DOG

Issues Covered: 94, 104-118

Johnny having to deal with the literal devil

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.

Collected in: Strontium Dog Search & Destroy 2

ANGEL

Issues Covered: 95-99

The man whose brain thinks he’s a plane!

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.

Collected in: Judge Dredd Megazine 321

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

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.

Collected in: ABC Warriors: The Mek Files 01

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.

Collected in: 2000 AD The Ultimate Collection Issue 179

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.

Collected in: Black Hawk The Intergalactic Gladiator

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)

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)

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.

Collected in: The Stainless Steel Rat Colour Omnibus

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

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

Collected in: The VC’s Hell in the Heavens

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

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.

Posted in Comics | Tagged 2000 ad, ABC Warriors, Angel, Black Hawk, Captain Klep, Disaster 1990, Flesh, Judge Dredd, ro-busters, Robo-Hunter, Stainless Steel Rat, strontium dog, The Mind of Wolfie Smith, The VCs | Leave a comment

Which Gilmore Girls Characters Got Vaccinated?

Posted on March 20, 2025 by fakedtales

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.

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

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.

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.

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’.

Kirk Gleason

You can’t get a job administering vaccines if you’re not already vaccinated.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Posted in Television | Tagged Covid-19, gilmore girls, Vaccine | Leave a comment

Charlie’s 2000 AD Marathon – 1978

Posted on March 8, 2025 by fakedtales

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

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.

Collected in: This year’s split out between Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files 01 and Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files 02. If you want the issues of The Cursed Earth which feature well-known fast food chains, then there’s The Cursed Earth Uncensored. It’s probably too much to hope for Case Files 02 to get an updated printing.

DAN DARE

Issues Covered: 46-85

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.

Collected in: Dan Dare – The 2000 AD Years, Col 2

FLESH: BOOK II

Issues Covered: 86-93 (parts 1-8 of 14)

What if Flesh, but in the sea?

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.

Collected in: Flesh: The Dino Files

INVASION!

Issues Covered: 46-51

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.

Collected in: Invasion!

INFERNO!

Issues Covered: 46-75 (parts 11-40 of 40)

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.

Collected in: The Complete Harlem Heroes

M.A.C.H. ONE and M.A.C.H. ZERO

This is not how I expected M.A.C.H. One to end.

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.

Collected in: M.A.C.H. 1: Book 01, M.A.C.H. 1: Book 02

BONJO FROM BEYOND THE STARS

Issues Covered: 46-50 (parts 5-10 of 10)

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.

Collected in: 2000 AD Presents: Sci-Fi Thrillers

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

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.

Collected in: 2000 AD Presents: Sci-Fi Thrillers

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

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.

Collected in: Planet of the Damned & Death Planet

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

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.

Collected in: Ant Wars

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.

Collected in: Robo-Hunter: The Droid Files Volume 01

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.

Posted in Comics | Tagged 2000 ad, Ant Wars, Bonjo from Beyond the Stars, Colony Earth, Dan Dare, Death Planet, Flesh, Inferno, Invasion, Judge Dredd, MACH One, Mach Zero, Robo-Hunter, The Visible Man, Walter the Wobot | Leave a comment

Faked Tales Update: Zombies & Yoshis

Posted on March 7, 2025 by fakedtales

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

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’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.

You can get Sprigs & Kindling here.

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.

Posted in General | Tagged 2000 ad, Conclave, George Romero, Living Dead, Nature Trail to Hell, Super Mario, x-men | Leave a comment

Charlie’s 2000 AD Marathon – 1978 Starlord 1-22 and Annuals

Posted on February 23, 2025 by fakedtales

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.

Collected in: Planet of the Damned & Death Planet

RO-BUSTERS

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.

Collected in: Ro-Busters: The Complete Nuts and Bolts Volume One

STRONTIUM DOG

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.

Collected in: Strontium Dog: Search/Destroy Agency Files 01

TIMEQUAKE

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.

Collected in: Mind Wars

HOLOCAUST

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.

Next time, back to 2000AD!