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.