Each issue of 2000AD was called a 'programme' (later to be shortened to 'prog').
Tharg's space-ship was disguised as Kings Reach Tower, a 32 storey office block in London[2].
Tharg brought with him millions of Thargian space spinners which were cover-mounted as a promotional gift. First use of the term Splundig Vur Thrigg[2].
One British pound was worth 10 Galactic Groats[2], though while costing 8p on Earth, 2000AD cost 17g on Mercury.
This first issue featured five stories:
There was Invasion - a story set in 1999, where Britain is invaded by a Soviet-style nation and one man, our hero Bill Savage, stands up to them and fights back, guerilla-style.
Flesh was a story set in both the future and the past, where future man have exhausted their supplies of fresh meat, so have used time-travel to send herders back to the age of the dinosaurs to round up prehistoric meat sources.
Dan Dare saw the return of the eponymous hero, having last been seen in Eagle comic 10 years previously. Although this incarnation seemed to owe little to any previous ones.
There was M.A.C.H.1 - Man Activated by Compu-puncture Hyperpower, about as contrived an acronym as you could wish for. This was about a man named John Probe imbued with super-powers and a computer brain by a government scientific experiment. The character clearly owed a lot to the American TV series The Six Million Dollar Man, which had been airing since 1974 and was hugely popular at the time.
Completing the line-up was Harlem Heroes, a futuristic sports strip about an African-American aeroball team, apparently loosely inspired by the Harlem Globetrotters. Aeroball, was a bit like basketball, but played with jet-packs, and all the body contact of ice-hockey.
Harlem Heroes was the only strip not to get a mention on the cover. It was mostly given over to the free gift, but the other four strips all got a mention somewhere around the perimeter. Kevin O'Neill was the artist.
Behind the Scenes[]
2000AD Prog 1 was created by Pat Mills, who also wrote or edited all of the stories which appeared in the first Programme.
The launch prog sold approximately 220,000 copies[3].
Though he doesn't appear in a story, Judge Dredd does appear on the Meet Tharg page in a teaser for Prog 2. The illustration used of Dredd comes from Frankenstein 2, which would see print in Prog 6.
Contents[]
- Welcome to your Future![4]
- Invasion: The Resistance Part 1 of 5
- Flesh: Book One Part 1 of 19
- Dan Dare: The Biogs Part 1 of 11
- Meet Tharg[4]
- M.A.C.H.1: Vulcan Part 1 of 2
- Harlem Heroes: Harlem Heroes Part 1 of 27
References[]
- ↑ Down the Tubes
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Meet Tharg, 2000AD Prog 1
- ↑ Pat Mills Wordpress
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Blimey! It's another blog about comics!: Happy Birthday to 2000AD