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A History of The FutureEdit

The long-running science fiction anthology 2000AD was created by Pat Mills and Kelvin Gosnell of IPC/Fleetway Publications, partly as a reaction to the media outcry over the violent content of IPC's previous action oriented title Action, their reasoning being that the public would be less likely to complain about violent acts perpetrated on aliens and robots rather than people! Though the first issue (or 'Programme', later shortened to 'Prog', as 2000AD would have it), published on 26th Fenbruary 1977, cover starred a new version of the legendary space hero Dan Dare, it was Prog #2 which gave the comic its longest-running and most popular star, the fascistic lawman of the future, Judge Dredd. Other strips in the original lineup included Flesh (a story about cowboys from the future traveling back to prehistory and harvesting dinosaurs for their meat), the Harlem Heroes (about a team of futuristic sports stars) and M.A.C.H. One (a Six Million Dollar Man knockoff about a secret agent named John Probe who had a computer implanted in his brain and gained super powers from a form of acupuncture with electrified needles!). Later stories in the title's early period included Shako (the story of a giant killer Polar bear), the Visible Man (about a man whose skin was turned translucent by accident), Ant Wars (giant insects running amok in South America) and, from Prog #76, Robo-Hunter, about a private detective who specialized in rogue robots. Robo-Hunter would go on to become one of 2000AD's longest running and most popular recurring strips.

With Prog #86 (October 1978), 2000AD absorbed its short lived sister title, Star-Lord, and gained two more strips which would contribute some of its most popular characters, Strontium Dog (concerning the adventures of mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha) and Ro-Busters (a kind of robotic version of the Thunderbirds TV series, with a robot disaster squad headed up by the comedic duo Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein. The former war robot Hammerstein would later become the star of a Ro-Busters prequel series, the long running ABC Warriors, which continues to appear to this day. Prog #127 (August 1979) brought another merger, as 2000AD was joined by short lived adventure title Tornado, though neither Black-Hawk nor The Mind of Wolfie Smith really caught on in the long term, both of them being gone within a year or so (Tornado's comedic superhero Captain Klep fared no better, though following his disappearance 2000AD followed the strip up with Flash Gordon spoof Dash Decent). Another character to appear at this time was Galactic thief Slippery Jim DiGriz, since 2000AD had obtained the rights to adapt some of author Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat books (three were adapted in total).

The early 1980s were 2000AD's golden period, with Dredd and Robo-Hunter now part of a core of about five or six recurring strips intercut with various shorter-lived series including Meltdown man, Return to Armageddon and Mean Arena. The other principal regulars were Gerry Finlay-Day and dave Gibbons' future war sage Rogue Trooper (about a genetically-engineered soldier on a private mission to avenge his comrades), Pat Mills' sword and sorcery saga Slaine, the anarchic space comedy Ace Trucking Co. (inspired by the short-lived craze for CB radio) and the bizarre Nemesis the Warlock, about an alien revolutionary combatting an oppressive human regime. Creators working on the title at this time included Alan Moore (who made his name at 2000AD with characters such as Skizz and Halo Jones), Dave Gibbons, Alan Davis and Brian Bolland, though virtually every significant creator to come out of Britain in the last thirty years has worked on, or got their start at, 2000AD, other notables including Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison and Bryan Talbot.

In 1987, the title came under the ownership of Robert Maxwell and had something of a revamp, with a slight change in format and a number of new characters including Grant Morrison's shallow, self absorbed superhero Zenith. The ABC Warriors (by now relegated to a supporting role in Nemesis) also returned in their own series, but another long-running regular was killed off in 1990 when Johnny Alpha met his apparently final end in the bleak epic 'Strontium Dog: the Final Solution', a story which upset original series artist Carlos Ezquerra so much that he refused to draw it. 2000AD has never been about standing still though, and the title — though it has had its low points, most notably in the mid nineties (despite, or possibly because of, strips like the satirical Big Dave and the controversial B.L.A.I.R 1) — has mostly gone from strength to strength in the last few decades, with other long running characters like Russian rogue Nikolai Dante and wisecracking hit-men Sinister Dexter joining the lineup. Since 1991, it has been mostly an all colour publication (black & white stories still appear, but these days that decision is made on aesthetic rather than financial grounds), and since 2000, it has been owned by games company Rebellion, having previously been under the umbrella of Fleetway Editions since Maxwell's death in 1991, when Fleetway was sold to the owners of London Editions Magazines.

In Prog #502 a worried reader (C Merfield, from Cheam) asked the editor, "I hope we're not heading for the future you have been predicting, but if we are, is there anything you can do about it?" Tharg the Mighty replied, "Yes... I can show you what it looks like. Unfortunately, you have to do the rest yourselves."

From 1983 to the early 1990s, a range of US format colour reprint titles featuring mostly 2000AD characters (with a few others, such as the Steel Claw, Axa and Cursitor Doom thrown in for good measure) was published first by Eagle Comics and then Quality Comics.
Spin-off publications have included the Judge Dredd Megazine, Crisis and the role playing comic Dice Man, as well as the 2000AD Action Special published in 1992, which mistakenly used a number of IPC characters not at that time owned by Fleetway. One of these characters, Tim Kelly of Kelly's Eye, also appeared intermittently in 2000AD itself from 1991-1993, until the facts of the ownership situation were clarified.
Hardcover 2000AD Annuals were published from 1977-1990 (always dated the following year, so the first was dated 1978), later followed by softcover 'Yearbooks' until 1994. There were also spin-off annuals dedicated to Judge Dredd (1980-1994, the last few being Yearbooks), Dan Dare (1978-1978) and Rogue Trooper (1990), as well as various Specials, notably the long running 2000AD Sci-Fi Special and the 2000AD Winter Special.
From October 1985 to August 1995, many classic 2000AD strips were reprinted in The Best of 2000AD Monthly, a companion title which was later relaunched as 'Classic 2000AD'. There was also a spinoff reprint title featuring Judge Dredd, The Complete Judge Dredd, and later Classic Judge Dredd which was published alongside Classic 2000AD.
Though the annuals are no longer published, since 2000, there is a tradition of 2000AD ceasing regular publication for three weeks around Christmas and New Year, with a single, oversized and squarebound volume dated with the coming year's date to tide the readership over in lieu of an annual proper. Prog 2000 was the first of these. What will happen when the title reaches its actual 2000th edition remains unclear...
Tharg's Future Worlds
Added by Tony ingram
Added by Tony ingram