2000AD timeline 14: 1990

1990 (Progs: 660 – 711)

The 1990s begin! It will prove to be a tough decade for the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic and British comics generally…

January: (Prog 660): The identity of The Dead Man is revealed!

(Prog 662): Dredd strip, Tale of the Dead Man begins (John Wagner/Will Simpson).

(Prog 663): The light-hearted Bix Barton arrives (Pete Milligan/Jim McCarthy).

February: (Prog 665) Chopper – Song of the Surfer ends memorably.

(Prog 667): 13^th birthday prog.

March (Prog 669): Five-part Countdown to Necropolis begins (Wagner/Ezquerra).

(Prog 671) New Harlem Heroes arrive (Michael Fleisher/Steve Dillon and Kevin Walker).

Armoured Gideon also debuts (John Tomlinson/Simon Jacob).

April (Prog 673): Universal Soldier begins (Alan McKenzie/Simon Coleby).

(Prog 674): A new Dredd mega-epic, Necropolis (Wagner/Ezquerra). As Dredd takes the Long Walk, Mega City One goes to Hell…

May: (Prog 679): Indigo Prime returns (John Smith/Chris Weston)

June (Prog 682): Strontium Dog returns for the last stage of The Final Solution now illustrated in full colour by Colin MacNeil (replacing Simon Harrison).

(Prog 688): Dredd returns. He has been physically absent from the comic for twenty progs (the longest period ever) even though the Judge Dredd strip (now embroiled in the Necropolis saga) has continued.

July (Prog 687): The shocking climax to Strontium Dog: The Final Solution.

Rogue Trooper (Friday) also finishes its current run (Gibbons/Simpson).

(Prog 688): Slaine the Horned God Book Three begins (Pat Mills/Simon Bisley). It ends in Prog 698 in September.

October (Prog 699(: Dredd mega-epic Necropolis ends.

Prog 700! Price rises to 45p. Paper quality of each issue improves. New stories: Time Flies (Garth Ennis/Philip Bond), Nemesis and Deadlock (Pat Mills/Carl Critchlow), Hewligan’s Haircut (Pete Milligan/Jamie Hewlett) and Anderson: Shamballa (Alan Grant/Arthur Ranson).

December (Prog 707): Hewligan’s Haircut ends. P.J Maybe returns to Judge Dredd.

Annuals: The 14^th 2000AD annual and 11^th Judge Dredd annual are published. Dredd annual features the story, Top Dog (Wagner/MacNeil) in which Dredd first encounters Strontium Dog, Johnny Alpha. Rogue Trooper appears in his one and only annual. Aside from Judge Dredd and Dan Dare, he is the only 2000AD character to ever get his own annual.

These are the last hardback 2000AD annuals to ever appear. The 2000AD and Dredd annuals revert to a softcover ‘Yearbook’ format for the four years dated 1992 to 1995. After that, they disappear completely.

Elsewhere:

Whizzer and Chips (est: 1969) merges into Buster. The Beezer and Topper join forces. The Beano’s Dennis the Menace and Viz’s Billy the Fish both get their own first ever cartoon TV series.

February: Quantum Leap debuts on BBC Two.

July: A big cinema month in the UK: Back to the Future Part III and Total Recall are big hits. Gremlins 2: The New Batch and Dick Tracy less so.

Revolver, a mature alternative monthly comic first appears. Highlights include Dare, a dark adult spin on the Dan Dare legend by Grant Morrison and Rian Hughes and Rogan Gosh by Peter Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. Revolver folds in January 1991 with some of its stories finishing off in Crisis.

September: Star Trek: The Next Generation arrives on BBC Two. In the US, (where the show has been on since 1987), the acclaimed Best of Both Worlds episodes in which Picard is captured by the Borg air.

October: Supernatural blockbuster, Ghost opens in the UK.

Judge Dredd The Megazine is launched. It is by far the most successful 2000AD spin-off ever and continues to this day. Early highlights include all-time classic, America (Wagner/MacNeil), the darkly humorous origins story, Young Death (Wagner/Peter Doherty) and Al’s Baby (Wagner/Ezquerra).

Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines and websites including The Companion, Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle, Metalzoic and Alan Moore’s Watchmen. In the past, he wrote for Metro.co.uk, Radio Times, DVD Monthly and Geeky Monkey. He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He also provided all the written content for the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars as well as for sections of the 2014 South Park annual and all the 2015 Transformers annual.

2000AD timeline 5: 1981

1981 (Progs: 193-244):

February (Prog 200): The 200th issue sees the launch of the epic Johnny Alpha origins story, Portrait of a Mutant in Strontium Dog (Grant/Ezquerra).

April (Prog 206): Dredd story Un-American Graffiti (Wagner/Ron Smith, Brett Ewins). First appearance of Marlon Shakespeare aka. Chopper.

June (Prog 216): Writer Peter Milligan debuts in the comic.

(Prog 217): Alan Moore and John Higgins’ famous Tharg’s Futureshock: The Last Rumble of the Platinum Horde! A rare instance of a Futureshock getting a cover (Cover art: Mike McMahon).

July (Prog 222): A major arrival: Nemesis the Warlock Book One begins (Mills/O’Neill). Two mini-stories appeared in 1980.

August (Prog 224): The Dark Judges arrive in Judge Death Lives! (Wagner and Grant/Bolland).

2000AD rises to 16p. It is now twice as much as it was when it started in 1977. This is not an unusual rate of increase for the time, however. Besides:, by 1981, the comic is undoubtedly enjoying a golden age.

A new Judge Dredd comic strip begins in the Daily Star newspaper this month, initially produced by John Wagner, Alan Grant and Ron Smith. It continues until 1998.

September (Prog 228): Rogue Trooper goes into battle for the first time (Finley-Day/Dave Gibbons). It becomes Gerry Finley-Day’s biggest hit and one of 2000AD’s most popular stories.

October (Prog 232): Ace Trucking Co. begins trading! It is one of the zaniest stories ever to appear in the comic. (Wagner and Grant/Belardinelli).

Other stories this year include: The Mean Arena, Meltdown Man (which ends in August after an unusually long fifty-issue run) and Return to Armageddon.

(Prog 236): Blockmania erupts in Judge Dredd! (Wagner and Grant/Boland, McMahon). This story leads directly into the Apocalypse War mega-epic which launches at the start of 1982.

Elsewhere:

January: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy TV series begins.

March: Tom Baker’s last outing as Doctor Who.

July: Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi fantasy classic, Time Bandits is released in UK cinemas. So is Clash of the Titans.

September: John Carpenter’s Escape From New York is released. TV version of John Wyndham’s 1951 novel, The Day of the Triffids begins showing.

December: Blake’s Seven ends.

Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines and websites including The Companion, Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle, Metalzoic and Alan Moore’s Watchmen. In the past, he wrote for Metro.co.uk, Radio Times, DVD Monthly and Geeky Monkey. He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and wrote A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He also provided all the written content for the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars as well as for sections of the 2014 South Park annual and all the 2015 Transformers annual.

2000AD timeline 4: 1980

1980 (Progs: 146-192)

January (Prog 149): With Dan Dare gone and the character’s appearance now firmly established, it is to be a very good year for Judge Dredd. This prog sees his first encounter with his most famous adversary, Judge Death (John Wagner/Brian Bolland). Judge Anderson makes her first appearance in Prog 150.

February (Prog 152): Sam Slade Robo-Hunter now joined by sidekick, Hoagy returns in the epic, Day of the Droids. (Wagner/Gibson). Fiends of the Eastern Front (Finley-Day/Ezquerra) also begins in this issue.

March (Prog 155). A rare Dredd-free issue!

(Prog 156): The comic’s third birthday. The Judge Child mega-epic begins in Judge Dredd (written by John Wagner). The Angel Gang including Mean Machine make their first appearance in April (Prog 160).

June (Prog 166): Slippery Jim diGriz returns in The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World (Gosnell/Ezquerra), based on Harry Harrison’s third SSR novel. The second, The Stainless Steel Rat’s Revenge is never adapted in 2000AD.

Nemesis and Torquemada make their first appearances in the experimental Terror Tube in Prog 167 and Killer Watt in Progs 178-179 (Pat Mills/Kevin O’Neill). Nemesis is not actually seen in the first of these – he is inside his ship, the Blitzspear.

August (Prog 173) The price rises from 12p to 14p. (Prog 175): The VCs finishes.

September (Prog 178): 2000AD ceases to be 2000AD and Tornado. A new logo which will see the comic through most of its 1980s golden age includes the sub-title ‘Featuring Judge Dredd,’ a sign of the character’s increasingly exulted status. The cover hails him as ‘Britain’s No-1 Sci-Fi Hero!’

October (Prog 181). The Judge Child saga ends. Alan Grant joins John Wagner as a regular writer on Dredd after this. He has already written many episodes of Strontium Dog this year, having previously written the ex-Tornado strip, Blackhawk.

December (Prog 189): Abelard Snazz first appears in a Ro-Jaws’ Robo-Tale written by Alan Moore.

Other stories this year include Dash Decent (Dave Angus/Kevin O’Neill), The Mean Arena (Tom Tully/John Richardson) and Meltdown Man (Alan Hebden/Massimo Belardinelli), Return to Armageddon (Malcolm Shaw/Jesus Redondo) and Mach Zero (Steve MacManus). Blackhawk, Wolfie Smith and other ex-Tornado strips all end by September.

This year’s Sci-Fi Special features the 2000AD debut of 26-year-old writer, Alan Moore. Moore becomes a prolific writer of Futureshocks in the years ahead. His first contribution to the regular comic appears in Prog 170.

The first ever Judge Dredd annual is published (dated: 1981). As of 2020, Dan Dare, Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper are the only 2000AD characters to ever get their own annuals. 2000AD and Star Lord annuals also appear dated 1981.

Elsewhere:

May: The first – or, if you prefer fifth, – Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back is released in the UK.

August: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century debuts on UK TV. Rock Hudson stars in a TV version of The Martian Chronicles.

September: Battlestar Galactica and Metal Mickey both arrive on British TV screens.

October: Douglas Adams’ Restaurant at the End of the Universe is published.

November: Marvel UK launch Future Tense (it ends in 1981).

Doctor Who Weekly goes monthly this year. The long-running TV series is nearing the end of the Tom Baker era.

December: Flash Gordon and Superman II are released in UK cinemas.

Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines and websites including The Companion, Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle, Metalzoic and Alan Moore’s Watchmen. In the past, he wrote for Metro.co.uk, Radio Times, DVD Monthly and Geeky Monkey. He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and wrote A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He also provided all the written content for the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars as well as for sections of the 2014 South Park annual and all the 2015 Transformers annual.

Top ten 2000AD stories which should be made into films

Chances are, if you like any comic at all, the last few years will have seen one of your favourites be made into some sort of film, with adaptations ranging from both the biggest to even the most obscure comics and graphic novels. Some, such as 2000AD’s most famous story, Judge Dredd, have been filmed more than once.

But which other stories from the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic are ripe for a big screen outing?

Sam Slade: Robohunter

The pitch: Like Blade Runner. Except funny.

Like Blade Runner, John “Judge Dredd” Wagner’s Robohunter took its inspiration from Philip K. Dick’s novella Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It was always much more fun than Ridley Scott’s film though (which it predates). Sam’s colleagues included Kidd, an obnoxious man trapped in a baby’s body and the idiotic android, Hoagy. His first mission saw him trying (and failing) to bring order to the colony Verdus where a full-blown robot revolution had occurred.

Rogue Trooper

The pitch: Blue movie.

Thanks to Avatar, The Watchmen and The Smurfs, cinema’s latest “blue” period may have peaked a few years ago. But the blue genetically engineered warrior Rogue, trapped in an eternal war on the desolate Nu Earth is the only 2000AD character other than Dredd to have ever got his own annual and could work well on screen.

Button Man

The pitch: The Hunger Games for grown-ups.

Not to be confused with Children’s ITV’s Button Moon (note: nobody has ever done this), this was a rare non-sci-fi outing for the comic. The premise – hired killers are paid by rich clients or “Voices” to hunt each other and fight to the death for sport – is so cinematic that it’s surprising it hasn’t been filmed already. In fact, Dreamworks bought the rights some years ago. But, as yet, there is no film.

The Ballad of Halo Jones

The pitch: The girl from tomorrow.

Before he became the beardy comics legend behind The Watchman and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Alan Moore wrote a lot for 2000AD, notably this unusual female-centric strip which saw its heroine progress from life in the claustrophobic 40^th century metropolis The Hoop, to a job on a luxury space cruise liner to ultimately fighting a future war on the time-distorting planet Moab.

Nemesis the Warlock

The pitch: Alien insurrection.

Nemesis is the alien leader of Credo, a resistance movement fighting the neo-fascist forces of the malevolent, futuristic masked megalomaniac Torquemada. With catchphrases like “Be pure, be vigilant, behave!” the villainous Torq is the real star of the strip. It’s a nice twist having humanity as the villain, although in general, Pat Mills’ story is probably a bit too weird to make into a film.

Slaine

The pitch: The Celtic Conan.

Pat Mills’ Slaine, the musclebound warrior of the Land of the Young, Tir Nan Og, may be steeped in Celtic mythology, but it did start around the same time as the first Conan films. Despite unique twists (the whole thing is related by Slaine’s morally questionable dwarf sidekick Ukko and Slaine himself is also prone to warp spasms – don’t ask), a Slaine film might struggle to escape from such unfair comparisons.

Chopper

The pitch: Surfs up!

A spin-off from Judge Dredd, Chopper – real name: Marlon Shakespeare -first appeared as a teenage graffiti artist not unlike a Mega City One version of Banksy, in the early Eighties before transforming into a world champion in the illegal sport of sky surfing. This could actually be brilliant, although risks comparison with the Silver Surfer (already brought to screen in the terrible Fantastic Four sequel). And as any Eric Bana fan will tell you: there is already a film called Chopper.

The ABC Warriors

The pitch: They, Robot.

Robotic fighting unit and sometime allies of Nemesis the Warlock (see above), the two most famous Atomic Bacterial Chemical Warriors – the wittily named Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein – first appeared in Ro-Busters, a sort of robot version of Thunderbirds, which appeared in 2000AD’s sister paper Star Lord, before merging into 2000AD in 1978. Oddly, Hammerstein has already been in a film, cropping up randomly in the first Judge Dredd movie.

Strontium Dog

The pitch: Alpha male.

In the future, a nuclear conflagration has left a sizeable minority of mutants, all forced – for some reason – to work as Search and Destroy agents (or “Strontium Dogs” basically bounty hunters) by the unsympathetic “norm” majority. The coolest of these is Johnny Alpha, accompanied by his Viking sidekick Wulf Sternhammer (“A skull to crack with the happy stick und Vulf is fine!”). Alpha’s mutation gives him white eyes but it also enables him to read minds and do all manner of cool stuff, so who’s complaining?

Anderson PSI

The pitch: She’s always in your mind.

Another Dredd spin-off but let’s face it, the psychic female Judge was the best thing about the recent Dredd film. She could also be pitched against Mega City One’s ultimate super-villain, Judge Death. Altogether now: the crime is life, the sentence is death!

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