Dare would have been better off asking for CVs and references. Unfortunately, Zapper and Tremloc’s main contributions are getting into trouble and hindering the mission. During a lengthy story, they now pursue the Mekon in Dare’s new spaceship – the Britannia Eagle – in an effort to stop him building a mcguffinaneum-based doomsday weapon which will destroy the entire galaxy. Later on, they get joined by Velvet O’Neal, a Tully character who had appeared in some previous stories, but who now takes on a larger role, and celebrates by adopting a much tighter jumpsuit. Ultimately, this ‘team’ consists of Zapper, a mutated blue Treen called Tremloc and coolest of all, walking cliché Apsilon Stelth, an alien knight, dying of a deadly disease, and with his own catchphrase – “Detrimus Krede!”. Unfortunately, he goes for a rather unsophisticated recruitment policy, which simply consists of wandering around, and hiring whoever he happens to bump into. Dan now goes about putting together an elite team called Dare’s Eagles. In concept, Zapper resembles Flamer Spry from the original strips, but with the extra wish-fulfilment frisson that he’s from the present day. Dare has to return empty-handed apart from Zapper Lawrence, a twentieth century teenager who implausibly turns out to be brilliant at the weapon systems of the future. Most of the old characters like simply Pinkerton disappear, while Digby – now confined to a wheelchair – only appears in a few episodes.Īfter some angry shouting, Dare follows the Mekon to 1987, but the green dome-head escapes back to the 23 rd century with some McGuffinaneum rock (I may have just made that up) he’s stolen from the British museum.

Quite why they should think that now is a bit of a mystery, as the Mekon has been trapped in time since their last encounter (see “ Eagle issues 209-229”), and turns out to be causing trouble in London in 1987.Īll of this is, of course, an excuse for a bit of a re-format, as Dare is brought back from the dead somehow angrier and more aggressive than before – a move bound to antagonise purists. This is soon solved, as the Mysterons – sorry, Mythereons – turn up to bring him back to life to ‘balance’ a cosmos which needs a Dan to oppose the evil of the Mekon. In fact, it was business as usual, except for the fact that Dan Dare was dead. The script was still by Tom Tully, although he went uncredited for a few issues. The most obvious beneficiary of the change was Dan Dare, for which Carlos Cruz could now provide fully painted colour art for the first time since the days of Ian Kennedy and Pat Mills 4 years earlier. It’s an indication of how important to IPC Eagle was, that 2000AD would not do the same thing for another couple of months. As colour and other printing processes got cheaper, Eagle finally threw off the ear of inky newsprint, and with issue 259 (7 th March 1987) re-launched with a new look. By the mid-to-late 80s, computers were changing the economics of publishing.

Doomlord by Alan Grant