The Stainless Steel Rat story

By Chris Hallam.

First published: 2018.

He was born, got drafted, sang the blues, got his revenge, saved the world, ran for president, went to Hell and joined the circus. Chris Hallam takes a look at the many ups and downs of “Slippery Jim” diGriz, AKA The Stainless Steel Rat…

DAY OF THE RAT

It began as two short stories, The Stainless Steel Rat (1957) and the Misplaced Battleship (1960). Their author, Connecticut-born World War II veteran Harry Harrison, then in his thirties, had a long history as a writer of comics and short stories, but was on the verge of becoming a full-time novelist. In 1961, he expanded the two stories into his second full-length novel, The Stainless Steel Rat.

The book established the essentials which would characterise the series over the next half century. The book is essentially the tale of James Bolivar “Slippery Jim” diGriz, a professional thief living in the distant future. Providing his own narrative, diGriz views himself as a “rat” within the otherwise flawless pristine high technology stainless steel environment of his time. Despite this, he is not wholly without morals and has a strict code of ethics regarding not injuring or killing anyone in the course of his work. He also has a rather romantic Robin Hood-style approach to his duties, generally targeting major corporations as targets for his own crimes. Like any ‘rat’, however, he has had to do what he can to adapt to his situation and survive.

Ironically, just as we meet him, diGriz becomes unstuck, however, and he is captured and recruited by an anti-crime organisation called the Special Corps. Dedicated to putting the principle “use a thief to catch a thief” into practice, the Corps persuade diGriz to do their bidding. diGriz, keen to avoid a prison sentence, reluctantly agrees.

His first mission concerns an investigation into the construction of a battleship. With war eradicated, having been recognised as ridiculously impractical and expensive in the future, the Corps are completely mystified as to why any planet would need to be developing a warship in the first place. diGriz investigates it. In the course of his adventure, he encounters Harold Inskipp, the director of the Corps, once a notorious criminal himself and Professor Coypu, the Corps head scientist, who like Q in the James Bond saga, has a penchant for ingenious gadgetry. As with Bond (the films of which, this first book predates) gadgets and disguises play a recurrent role in the Stainless Steel Rat.

Jim also meets another crucial figure in this first adventure, the feisty Angelina, another (largely) reformed criminal who retains residual psychotic tendencies but who ultimately becomes his wife. In The Stainless Steel Rat’s Revenge (1970) the couple have two twin sons, James and Bolivar diGriz, both named, with a touch of ego, after their father, James Bolivar diGriz.

RISE OF THE RAT

Harrison then had a busy Sixties spent establishing himself as a novelist. He completed the three books of the Deathworld trilogy, which would later be expanded further. He wrote Bill The Galactic Hero, a humorous riposte to the ultra-conservative science fiction of Robert A. Heinlein, author of Starship Troopers. He wrote the overpopulation saga, Make Room! Make Room! which was later made into the Charlton Heston film, Soylent Green in 1973. He wrote other books too.

From 1960 onwards, he would in fact produce on average of more than one novel a year for every one of the remaining fifty-two years of his life.

But it wasn’t until 1970, that he returned to Slippery Jim diGriz. The next decade saw the Stainless Steel Rat become a full-blown book series as Jim underwent numerous adventures.

The Stainless Steel Rat’s Revenge (1970) has a now rather dated sounding slightly Carry On film style storyline as the newly domesticated Jim is forced to team up with a tribe of beautiful sexually liberated Amazon women who are humanity’s last best hope against an interstellar war being launched by the Grey Men of the Planet Cliaand.

The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World (1972), meanwhile, sees diGriz forced to use a time helix to travel back to the 1970s (not 1984 as some blurbs claim) after certain people including Angelina and their two infant sons are suddenly erased out of existence. An enjoyable adventure sees our hero falling in with some Hell’s Angels and even witnessing a high technology version of the Napoleonic Wars in early 19^th century England which the wrong side seem to be winning.

The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You! (1978) sees diGriz facing twin challenges from the Internal and External Revenue Service and a crop of alien invaders hell-bound on overrunning the galaxy.

The Stainless Steel Rat for President (1982) meanwhile sees Jim and Angelina drawn into an election against a corrupt South American style dictator after investigating a murder. Time is clearly moving on by this point as Jim and Angelina’s sons, James and Bolivar are, by now growing into young men.

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

One feature occasionally referred to in the books is diGriz’s society’s utter fluency in the real life language of Esperanto. This in fact reflected Harrison’s own enthusiasm for the language. Speaking in Brighton in 1987, he said:

“The Esperanto movement is international, it breeds international co-operation… it was virtually wiped out during the war – the Nazis were against it, the Stalinists were against it, and the Americans were totally indifferent! I kid you not! The world knows no bounds. I have a great interest in languages, as well as in science fiction, and the two of them finally met in The Stainless Steel Rat books.”

Today it is believed up to two million people worldwide, to varying degrees, speak Esperanto. This is somewhere below the levels envisaged by Harrison. But then, The Stainless Steel Rat books are set in the 346^th century, so there is still plenty of time.

THE COMIC STRIP PRESENTS…

In 1979, it was decided to adapt the Stainless Steel Rat for the new-ish British science fiction comic, 2000AD. Although Harrison actually had some experience in comics himself, scripting duties went to the comic’s founding editor Kelvin Gosnell. Spanish-born artist Carlos Ezquerra, a major figure in the creation of 2000AD legends, Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog was tasked with bringing the first book to life on the page. The story was a success, the combination of sci-fi, dry humour and action, fitting in well in the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic. Harrison himself expressed his support with a letter to Tharg’s Nerve Centre (it is unclear what he spent the resulting £3 prize money on) and Ezquerra’s visuals were well received. He gave Angelina, a suitably fiery Latin-style temperament. Many felt Ezquerra’s version of diGriz owed something to the Hollywood actor, James Coburn.

A sequel soon followed, 2000AD skipping over the sexist second book and moving straight onto the third, the time travelling Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World which ran in 1979 and 1980. After some hiatus, Gosnell (now no longer 2000AD’s editor) and Ezquerra returned with the third and perhaps best of the three comic adaptations, The Stainless Steel Rat For President which coincided neatly with Ronald Reagan’s re-election as US president in 1984, running into 1985.

Given the success of the series which managed to be both generally faithful to the original books but still entertaining, it’s surprising 2000AD never attempted to adapt any of the other books. Indeed, the three stories remain the sole example of any straightforward book to comic adaptation in the comic’s forty-one-year history thus far.

RAT REBORN

Today, we are probably rather overfamiliar with the concept of the prequel. Yet in 1985, Harry Harrison’s decision to explore the early days of the adolescent Jim diGriz’s burgeoning criminal career, particularly his tutelage by his mentor, known only as the Bishop was actually a very good one. The three prequels A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born (1985), The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted (1987) and The Stainless Steel Rat Sings the Blues (1994) are all fresh, engaging and entertainingly written. And even if they do raise awkward tedious Star Wars type questions about which order the books should be read in, we can surely forgive Harry Harrison for that.

RAT REDUX

Harry Harrison died in 2012, aged 87. He left an impressive legacy, in addition to the books already mentioned above, he produced the Eden trilogy of novels which imagined that the fatal asteroid which is thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs had never struck the Earth, the Viking-orientated Hammer and the Cross saga, seven Deathworld books, the Bill the Galactic Hero novels and numerous stand-alone titles including The Techncolor Time Machine, Star Smashers of the Galaxy Raiders and Queen Victoria’s Revenge.

The Stainless Steel Rat books in fact reflect only a sizeable minority off his prolific literary output. Yet he was writing them right to the end. His final published book was The Stainless Steel Rat Returns (2010).

THE RAT PACK

The complete works…

The Stainless Steel Rat (1957): Short story
The Misplaced Battleship (1960): Short story
The Stainless Steel Rat (1961)
The Stainless Steel Rat’s Revenge (1970)
The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World (1972)
The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You! (1978)
The Return of the Stainless Steel Rat (1981): Short story
The Stainless Steel Rat For President (1982)
A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born (1985)
The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted (1987)
You Can Be The Stainless Steel Rat (1988)
The Fourth Law of Robotics (1989): Short story
The Golden Years of The Stainless Steel Rat (1993): Short story
The Stainless Steel Rat Sings the Blues (1994)
The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell (1996)
The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus (1999)
The Stainless Steel Rat Returns (2010)

A Starlord story

ARTICLE FIRST PUBLISHED IN 2018.

WRITER: CHRIS HALLAM

Forty years ago, in May 1978, Starlord came to Earth. “A new wild era of sci-fi starts here!” the front page of the new comic promised and on early evidence, it seemed to deliver, promising a weekly offering of British comic strip excellence likely to endure well into the 1980s and beyond.

Starlord was bold. It was exciting. It was a bit like 2000AD.

Ultimately, Starlord’s star shone brightly, but only briefly. The last issue, only the 22^nd, appeared that October. Readers who had bought every issue from the start would have spent 12p a week during 1978, adding up to a grand total of £2.64. This is slightly less than one copy of 2000AD costs today.

What went wrong for the Galaxy’s OTHER greatest comic? We take a look back…

The same. Only different…

Starlord was supposed to be 2000AD’s older brother: indeed, perhaps a slightly posher brother who had picked up certain airs after attending the local grammar school. Eight of its pages were in full colour – a lot for the time – and at 12p, it was actually more expensive than 2000AD, which was a mere 9p.

2000AD, which was also edited by Kelvin Gosnell, had started just over a year before. Although a success – Judge Dredd was enjoying his first major epic storyline in ‘The Cursed Earth’ during the brief era of Starlord – there is little doubt looking back: Starlord was, for a while, the better of the two comics.

Just as 2000AD had Tharg the Mighty as editor, Starlord had Starlord himself, an alien humanoid with something of the look of Shakin’ Stevens about him. Unlike Tharg, Starlord had an important and urgent message for humans everywhere. “Hail, Star-Troopers,” he declared in the first of his “starzines,” “I have escaped the satanic forces of the INTERSTELLAR FEDERATION…to bring you A DIRE WARNING!”

Yes! Earth was under threat and a crash course in interstellar survival offered the only hope for survival. The comic’s stories were thus “Starlord Survival Blueprints” while the range of six badges given away with issue one were “Starlord Star-Squad Equipment.” Rather alarmingly, Starlord warned of the badges: “DO NOT place it on your skin, as the badge is made from a special metal mined on AXIS 1A you could develop a skin disorder, putting you out of combat”! Issue 2, incidentally, included a free space calculator offered to the reader with the warning: “Use it! It could save your life!”

Like a series of tweets written by an increasingly unbalanced 21^st world leader, the use of capital letters grew more frequent as Starlord’s tone grew increasingly shrill. “I have seen the Gronks swarming in the star-spawned outer reaches of space – a sure sign of inter-Galactic disaster!…THE ENEMY IS MASSING TO STRIKE!” Finally, Starlord evoked the memory of a line from the 1951 film, ‘The Thing From Another World,’ which ended with an appeal to “Watch the skies!” “REMEMBER TROOPERS, STICK WITH ME,” urged Starlord. “AND WATCH THE STARS!”

How long could Starlord have maintained this perpetual state of high alert and frantic calls for vigilance for? Sadly, we never got the chance to find out.

Time after time

According to Starlord’s Survival Blueprints, the story ‘Planet of the Damned,” “toughens your endurance as your strength is tested to the very limit!” In fact, this description turned out to be surprisingly accurate. The first ever story in the comic was a hoary tale of nonsense based on what might happen to survivors lost in the midst of the mysterious Bermuda Triangle. In short, they got transported to another dimension. The story held over from its original planned home in 2000AD was the weakest of the new line-up. A test of endurance indeed…

Things improved somewhat with Timequake in which London tramp steamer skipper and working-class hero James Blocker inadvertently causes World War III. He then gets the opportunity to undo his error thanks to the intervention of a Star Trek type organisation called Time Control made up of recruits from Earth’s past and future ranging from the Roman era to the 40^th century. This is all after we are told ‘Lyon Sprague’ invented time travel in the year 1997. But, of course, we all remember that…

The characters including Blocker (“M-me? Y-you’re round the flamin’ twist!”) were all pretty dull but there were lots of fun moments in Timequake. There were the frog-like Droon, Time Control’s enemy who inspired Brian Bolland to do an excellent cover for issue 2. “Human scum! You’re the last survivors!” one Droon says (as with Star Trek’s the Borg, the plural and singular are the same). “We have destroyed every one of your accursed sub-stations from 1978 backwards! And now we Droon destroy you!”

The next Timequake story envisaged a Nazi future created by a maniac who turned out to be real-life senior Nazi Martin Bornmann in disguise, but the follow-up in which another defunct empire, this time the Incas, took over the future, rather suggested inspiration was starting to dry up, despite some excellent visuals from Ian Kennedy.

But the best Starlord strips were yet to come…

Alpha male

John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s Strontium Dog introduced us to the world of 2180 and mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha, a man warped by the impact of a Neutron War thirty years earlier (neutron bombs which kill people while leaving buildings and property relatively intact being briefly a fashionable but terrifying possibliity in 1978).

Johnny Alpha, as extensive captions inform us, has been given white eyes but mind-reading powers by his mutation. Like all mutants, however, he is shunned by society, forced to work as a bounty hunter: an SD or Search/Destroy agent. In common, anti-mutant parlance they are known as “strontium dogs”.

Originally conceived as a New York taxi driver type, Alpha’s sidekick ultimately became Wulf Sternhammer, a formidable but benevolent Viking. “Comrades ve are, Johnny! Vere you go, Wulf go!” Wulf argues, explaining why he sticks with Alpha, despite his own non-mutant status. “A skull to crack with the happy stick und Vulf is fine!”

Strontium Dog provided Starlord with its first cover hero and many of the comic’s best moments: a space pirate attack, a giant, but irritable and slightly deaf computer called McIntyre and a creature called the Gronk, a timid creature, who lives in a box and has a mouth in its stomach.

Is this one of the same Gronks Starlord was on about “swarming in the star-spawned outer reaches of space” before? It was never really made clear.

Big jobs

Finally, there was Ro-Busters. Rejecting an initial bizarre idea from someone else about wounded Second World War veterans developing superpowers, writer Pat Mills instead created droids Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein (get it?) who are rescued from destruction by billionaire Howard Quartz (known as “Mr Ten Percent” as 90% of his actual body parts have been mechanically replaced in a bid to cheat death) to form a new international rescue organisation in the late 21^st century. With the robots dealing with such trifles as a hole emerging in the trans-Atlantic tunnel and an organised robot uprising, this soon became very much “Thunderbirds with robots”. Ultimately, however, it was the likeable characters of Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein themselves, rather than the overall android international recue concept which would prove most enduring.

Two become one

There was more. Some brilliant covers: “It’s Planet Earth’s last day for this is the day of the clone. The day of Clone Wars!” There was another major strip, Mind Wars (“my brain is a time-bomb programmed to destroy all human life!”) and a brilliant one-off about a man, Sheldon and his ultimately deadly dream house.

But in October 1978, Starlord delivered his final message. “EARTH IS SAVED! The Int. Stell. Fed have abandoned their plans to attack and destroy us.” And there was other more news: “This is it! The big one! Two sci-fi greats unite in a giant leap for mankind!” Starlord – or at least, some of Starlord – was merging into its sister title, 2000AD.

Why had Starlord failed? Some argue it was doomed from an early stage.

“Starlord had been the creation of Kelvin Gosnell,” Steve MacManus wrote later. “His initial concept was a monthly science-fiction title that would sit comfortably alongside magazines such as Omni and Metal Hurlant. Both these titles were printed on glossy magazine paper and were aimed at fans of science-fiction stories and comic strips”. It was envisaged as an aspirational magazine packed with stories and sci-fi features which a 2000AD reader’s older brother might enjoy.

Sadly, all of these admirable plans soon went out the window.

“Out of the blue, management had decreed that the frequency should be weekly, not monthly,” MacManus explains. “This single change more or less ruined the title’s chances of establishing itself as a serious science-fiction magazine.”

The altered situation also caused problems for Ro-Busters’ author, Pat Mills.

“After writing it as a twelve-page self-contained story, there was a change of plan and the story was cut down to six pages an episode. This leads to all kinds of pacing problems,” Mills explains. And these were problems which he didn’t have time to fix. “A pity, because I knew the new format was wrong for it, and it’s why I started to lose interest in the series.”

MacManus soon found himself frustrated to be writing Starlord’s comparatively juvenile starzines. Although it often sold better than 2000AD, its similarity to the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic essentially doomed it to failure.

“Starlord was still a relatively unknown quantity to the five thousand odd newsagents who stocked comics and magazines at the time,” muses Steve MacManus. “whereas they’d had a year to grow accustomed to 2000AD.”

So that was it. The final cover proclaimed: “Starlord’s ship is waiting to carry him beyond the stars!” “Now that your future is assured, I must return to the spaceways for the Gronks are calling and I cannot let them down.” Yes. The Gronks again.

He concluded: “And so, it is farewell for the last time, my friends! But keep watching the stars, for one day I may return!”

This hasn’t happened.

Afterlife

Actually, in a way, Starlord did return: in three annuals dated 1980, 1981 and 1982. All three were a pale shadow of the short-lived comic which had spawned them: a monochrome assortment of below par Strontium Dog and Mind Wars episodes, random short stories (“Ghost Hunter”) and scientific features (“Telephone lines in space”) and a few stories which had never been in the original comic (“Jimmi From Jupiter”).

2000AD and Starlord became 2000AD and Tornado in 1979 when another short-lived sister comic merged into it. In 1980, it became just 2000AD again. It has just been 2000AD ever since. Very unusually for a British comic it survived the whole of the 1980s and 1990s without ever merging again with anyone else.

Timequake returned briefly in 2000AD in 1979 but never appeared again. The other characters have enjoyed a rich post-Starlord afterlife, however. Although Ro-Busters ended in 1979, the characters Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein have appeared in the strips Nemesis the Warlock and particularly The ABC Warriors up to this day. Hammerstein even appeared in the 1990s Judge Dredd film. Strontium Dog too, still continues.

In short, forty years on, Starlord’s legacy continues.

Watch the stars!

2000AD timeline 9: 1985

1985 (Prog 399- 450)

January: Prog 400!

February: (Prog 403): The cover price rises to 24p, three times its original 1977 price.

(Prog 404): The Stainless Steel Rat (Gosnell/Ezquerra) ends for good.

(Prog 405) The Ballad of Halo Jones (Moore/Gibson) returns for an acclaimed award-winning Book 2. Halo leaves the Hoop for a job on the luxury space liner, the Clara Pandy.

May (Prog 416): Judge Dredd favourite Cassandra Anderson confronts the Dark Judges in her own new strip, Anderson PSI (Wagner and Grant/Brett Ewins).

Other stories this year include Slaine, Rogue Trooper, Sam Slade: Robo-Hunter, Helltrekkers, Ace Trucking Co. and Strontium Dog.

June (Prog 425): Dredd runs into Chopper again in Midnight Surfer (Wagner and Grant/Cam Kennedy).

September (Prog 435): Nemesis the Warlock Book 5: Vengeance of Thoth (Pat Mills/Bryan Talbot).

(Prog 437): The Mean Team arrive (Wagner and Grant/Belardinelli).

October: The Best of 2000AD Monthly begins. Initially reprinting a range of stories in one issue e.g. Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog and Rogue Trooper, later issues restrict themselves to just one story e.g. Nemesis and the Gothic Empire or a collection of Dredd stories. it continues for 119 issues, falling just short of the ten year mark ending in August 1995.

November: Bad news for Johnny and Wulf as they run into Max Bubba in Strontium Dog.

Elsewhere:

Fantasy films, Legend, Red Sonja and Ladyhawke are all released this year.

French-Japanese animated space epic, Ulyssees 31 arrives on Children’s BBC.

January: James Cameron’s Terminator arrives in the UK.

Warrior comic breathes its last. Adult comic Viz goes nationwide.

March: 2010: The Year We Make Contact is released, Peter Hyams’ sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

April: Max Headroom (Matt Frewer) debuts on Channel 4.

December: Release of Back To The Future.

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, Metalzoic, Dan Dare, The Eagle 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.

2000AD timeline 3: 1979

1979 (Progs 94 – 145)

February: The 100th prog! The second part of Sam Slade’s classic Verdus adventure (Wagner/Gibson) now continues in 2000AD, the saga having been briefly interrupted by the Star Lord merger.

March: A new comic, Tornado sweeps into town. Ostensibly edited by a mysterious figure called ‘The Big E,’ 2000AD’s Kelvin Gosnell is also thought to be involved. Stories include Blackhawk (Gerry Finley-Day/Alfonso Azpiri) and The Mind of Wolfie Smith (Tom Tully) which had no connection to the character played by Robert Lindsay, also called Wolfie Smith appearing in BBC sitcom, Citizen Smith at this time.

April (Prog 109): A rare Dredd-free issue of 2000AD. He has just finished his long saga battling Judge Cal in The Day The Law Died. John Wagner has now become pretty much the permanent wrier on Dredd.

June (Prog 115): Ro-Busters ends. But fear not…(Prog 119): Hammerstein returns in The ABC Warriors (Mills/O’Neill)! Ro-Jaws does not appear, although remains a frequent guest star in the comic.

Bill Savage, star of Invasion! also returns in Disaster 1990 (Finley-Day/Carlos Pino). Although he now faces a catastrophic flood in Invasion! he previously battled the Volgan Empire: now the ABC Warriors’ enemy on Mars.

2000AD gets a new logo. The ‘Starlord’ bit is dropped from the title and it becomes just 2000AD again. At least, for a short while…

July (Prog 122): The cover price rises from 10p to 12p.

August (Prog 126): Once 2000AD’s lead story, Dan Dare ends on a cliff-hanger. It never returns to the comic.

(Prog 127): Tornado merges into 2000AD. Blackhawk, The Mind of Wolfie Smith and Captain Klep all move into 2000AD. As Tornado was not primarily a sci-fi comic, their storylines are all altered slightly to strengthen their sci-fi credentials. None last beyond September 1980, when Wolfie Smith ends and 2000AD and Tornado becomes just 2000AD again.

No other comics have merged into 2000AD in the forty-plus years since. This is in itself an achievement: well over 20 UK comics merged into each other in the 1980s alone.

November (Prog 140): Gerry Finley-Day’s new future war story, The VCs comes into land.

In an unusual but successful move, a new adaptation of US sci-fi author Harry Harrison’s light-hearted future crime novel, The Stainless Steel Rat begins (Gosnell/Ezquerra).

Stainless Steel Rat writer Kelvin Gosnell incidentally ceases to be 2000AD’s editor this year incidentally and is replaced by Steve MacManus. Other stories this year include: Flesh, Project Overkill and Angel.

The second and last 2000AD-related Dan Dare annual is released, dated 1980. Two later Dan Dare annuals appeared, dated 1987 and 1991 too, but both were linked to the revived Eagle comic (which started in 1982), not to 2000AD.

Elsewhere:

April: DC Thomson’s monthly sci-fi anthology, Starblazer begins. It lasts until 1991.

June: The space-themed James Bond film, Moonraker comes out.

September: Ridley’s Scott’s Alien opens in UK cinemas.

October: Douglas Adams’ book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is published. In the same month, a Tom Baker-era episode of Doctor Who scripted by Adams, achieves the highest ratings ever achieved by a Doctor Who episode before or since (16.1 million) partly due to a strike taking out ITV. Doctor Who Weekly also begins this month.

December: Star Trek: The Motion Picture is released. Disney’s The Black Hole comes out in the UK. It proves a massive flop at the box office.

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 1: 1977

1977 (Progs 1 – 45)

February: The Galaxy’s Greatest comic, 2000AD is launched. Prog 1 is priced 8p (Earth money). The editor is advertised as Tharg the Mighty, an alien from Betelgeuse, who will soon answer readers’ letters from his Nerve Centre.

The first issue features a revived Dan Dare (formerly of legendary 1950-69 comic, The Eagle), Invasion! about a Soviet-inspired attempt to occupy 1990s Britain, Flesh, a time-travelling dinosaur drama, future sport thriller, The Harlem Heroes and M.A.C.H.1. All of these are, at least in part, created by 2000AD’s original editor, Pat Mills.

As of 2020, of all the British comics competing for shelf space in the newsagents of 1977 only The Beano, Commando and 2000AD survive today.

March: Judge Dredd, top lawman in the crime-ridden futuristic 21st/22nd century metropolis of Mega City One debuts in Prog 2. Dredd quickly becomes the comic’s most popular, well-known and enduring character.

May: Dredd Robot Wars story begins (Prog 9).

July: Pat Mills resigns as editor after 19 issues and is replaced Kelvin Gosnell. Mills remains a very active presence in the comic.

August: The price rises to 9p. The first of Tharg’s Futureshocks (occasional one-off stories, usually with a twist) appears (Both Prog 25). Other new stories this year include Shako and Inferno.

September: Judge Dredd’s brother appears in The Return of Rico! (Prog 30).

The first 2000AD Sci-Fi Special appears. It initially appears under the name, Summer Special Supercomic, becoming the Sci-Fi Special from 1978 onwards. A Dan Dare Poster Magazine is also published in the summer.

The first 2000AD annual also appears, dated 1978.

Elsewhere:

April: US sci-fi magazine, Heavy Metal is launched.

September: The first Eagle Awards ceremony for British comics.

October: The controversial Action comic comes to an end. Contrary to popular belief, it is not banned.

December: George Lucas’s Star Wars is released in the UK, seven months after it is released in the US in May. An unexpected massive hit, its release triggers a science fiction boom which to some extent, continues to this day.

Science-fiction magazine, Starburst begins, also in December 1977.

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.