Tag Archives: Judge Dredd annual

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): 13th 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 14th 2000AD annual and 11th 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 8: 1984

1984 (Progs 350 – 398)

There are fewer progs of 2000AD than usual this year, due to industrial action halting publication of the Galaxy’s Greatest comic for several weeks in the summer.

March (Prog 359): Judge Dredd investigates The Haunting of Sector House 9 (Wagner and Grant/Brett Ewins).

(Prog 362): The cover price rises to 22p.

April (Prog 366): Dave the Orangutan makes his first appearance in Portrait of a Politician in Judge Dredd.

July (Prog 376): The Ballad of Halo Jones (Alan Moore/Ian Gibson) begins. Initially not popular, in time it becomes one of the most highly acclaimed 2000AD stories ever produced.

August (Prog 377): Mean Machine returns in Dredd Angel (Wagner and Grant/Ron Smith). This is the first issue in a month, following a printers’ strike.

September (Prog 385): Halo Jones Book One ends. Strontium Dog saga Outlaw! ends too.

October (Prog 387): Nemesis the Warlock encounters The Gothic Empire (Mills/O’Neill). The story will see him re-unite the ABC Warriors as well as ex-Ro-Busters, Ro-Jaws and Mek-Quake.

November (Prog 392): Rogue Trooper tracks down the Traitor General.

Other strips this year include: The Helltrekers, Ace Trucking Co., Rogue Trooper, Slaine and D.R. and Quinch.

(Prog 393): The final and perhaps best of the comic adaptations of Harry Harrison’s novels, The Stainless Steel Rat For President begins (Gosnell/Ezquerra). Judge Dredd meanwhile confronts the Hill Street Blues in City of the Damned.

Elsewhere:

February: Surprisingly disturbing John Wyndham adaptation, Chocky airs on Children’s ITV. Chocky’s Children (1985) and Chocky’s Children (1986) later follow.

March: Horror comic Scream! is launched. Sadly, it finishes in June, partly as a result of the strikes this year. Stories such as The Thirteenth Floor find their way into The Eagle.

Peter Davison regenerates into Colin Baker on Doctor Who.

July: William Gibson’s ground-breaking cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer is published.

Star Trek III: The Search For Spock arrives. It is one of the odd numbered ones, so is generally considered less than good.

The Last Starfighter is released in the US.

Extra-terrestrial thriller, V lands on ITV this summer.

August: The first series of Manimal hits the UK.

September: The Tripods stride boldly onto British TV screens. Horrifying nuclear war drama, Threads is also broadcast.

October: Conan the Destroyer is unleashed.

November: The fourth Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book, So Long and Thanks For All The Fish by Douglas Adams is published.

December: The year ends on a high as Ghostbusters hits UK cinemas along with Joe Dante’s Gremlins. As does David Lynch’s Dune.

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.