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First Issue: | 13th May 1978 | |||||
| Last Issue: | 7th October 1978 | ||||||
| Copyright: | IPC Magazines Ltd | ||||||
| Genre: | Sci-Fi | ||||||
| Incorporated Titles: | |||||||
| Incorporated By: | 2000AD | ||||||
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| Covers | Characters And Stories | First Issue | Memory Lane | Annuals | ||
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Starlord was undoubtedly IPC's attempt at producing a luxury comic, and very good it was too. Where the likes of 2000AD and Battle were still being printed on the typical low-quality paper with their four coloured pages, Starlord was produced on strong, smooth paper and contained eight high quality coloured pages. As for the stories, well, they were just excellent. Starlord lasted for just 22 issues. Issue #1 came with a free badge, and there were six different ones to collect, namely Tank Commander, Skateboard Strike Force, Robot, Laser Expert(?), Time Police(?) and Pilot. We were introduced to Johnny Alpha and Wulf in Strontium Dog. Drawn by Carlos Ezquerra (later Ian Gibson) and written by J.B. Grover, |
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which was the psuedonym for John Wagner and Alan Grant. It was set in the year 2180 and the opening scene is a shoot-out with Wulf and Johnny Alpha against a couple of murderers who have tried to escape from Earth's justice to another planet. And although the murderers are hiding under a chameleon cloak - which allows them to blend with any background, they hadn't reckoned on Johnny's eyes which could emit alpha-rays and see through this cloak. Johnny was warped from birth thanks to a Strontium Shower. Strontium 90 was a radioactive isotope which is present from fallout in nuclear explosions and was able to be biologically absorbed and thus creating mutants in living creatures. Johnny was one of these mutants but he decided to use his special skills as an S.D. Agent - Search And Destroy. However, the nickname for these people was Strontium Dogs because of what they did - bounty hunting - and because of their exposure to the fallout. A really excellent story which made the transition into 2000AD and became a very popular story indeed. TimeQuake, written by Jack Adrian and drawn by numerous artists including Ian Kennedy and John Cooper, was one of my personal favourites. James Blocker was the captain of a tramp steamer who had given illegal passage to a paid assasin who was to be very instrumental in the outbreak of World War 3 and eventual global annihalation. This lead to a chain of events which saw Blocker get transported back in time by members of Time Control just before the world ended. The head-quarters of Time Control was based 85 million years in the past in the Cretaceous era. Members of this organisation were from different time periods of Earth's history, from the 40th century backwards and enjoyed the fruits of time-travel. By the 40th century, Earth was the most dominant force in the universe but it did have one enemy in the shape of the Droon. The Droon were vicious 8 foot high creatures who had managed to steal the secret of time-travel and set about destroying their nemesis. This is where our Mr Blocker entered the fray. Our Mr Blocker had to return to his tramp steamer and kill himself and the paid assasin, which he successfully accomplished. After this and with the timeline returned to normal, James Blocker thought he could simply return to his normal life. But because of his jumps up and down the time-line, his body metabolism altered and he would have to join Time-Control or crumble to dust. This, he reluctantly and we were then treated to other interferences with the timeline. Although this story didn't immediately make the transition over to 2000AD, it did become a sort of 'hold-over' story and managed to appear in 4 episodes in progs 148-151 (Jan to Feb 1980). Timequake ended with the 5th August 1978 issue, but two weeks later (19th Aug 1978) the cover had a huge picture of the Droon on it (Maybe they travelled up the timeline and invaded Kings Reach Tower!). Click here for the whole story. |
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| Ro-Busters was yet another excellent Pat Mills creation. Drawn by numerous artists like Carlos Pino and Dave 'Big-E' Gibbons, it was set in the year 2078 at a time when people changed their robots like we change our cars, the days of the second-hand robots was coming to an end. Our heroes were Ro-Jaws and Hammer-Stein (a play on those musical composers Rogers and Hammerstein), who were just about to get destroyed by the robot-breaking machine known as Mek-Quake. At the moment of destruction a man came running in saying that their lives were going to be spared. A billionaire ecentric known as Howard Quartz had bought them to place in his international rescue operation known as Ro-Busters. And this is where the story truly starts. Howard Quartz - a man who was only 10% organic and a very shrewd business man - bought robots on the cheap because they were expendable and could do the jobs that humans couldn't. Ro-Jaws was an ex-garbage robot who had a flaw in his language and obedience circuits and was very much a 'working-class' hero. Hammerstein was an ex-wardroid and oozed superiority over those around him, but he was always brought down a peg by Ro-Jaws' quick quips and down-to-earthness. When they set out on their missions, we always had Ro-Jaws complaining about one thing or another (usually authority) and Hammerstein reminicing over the Big War. The script was always very well written and the 'colourful' language of Ro-Jaws was a very major plus point of the story - Take A Look. Ro-Busters made the transition over to 2000AD and enjoyed a very successful career within that comic. So-much-so that there was a very popular sequeal to it in the shape of ABC Warriors and both Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein were founder members. |
 Planet Of The Damned written by R.E. Wright and drawn by a variety of different artists, revolved around the mysteries concerning the Bermuda triangle. A Tri-Star aeroplane gets caught up in some strange magnetic fields and is dragged into an abyss and crash lands. The passengers find themselves surrounded by an eerie mountain-desert landscape and quickly encounter the locals, who greet the newies by spitting acid into their faces. These Ab-Humans were just about to go for the kill when Bos'un Jake Flint, an inhabitant of this land of 150 years, came to the rescue. Flint was quickly established as the leader and he explained that the only way to survive this hostile land was to behave like primitive man and live the Barbarian way! The story lasted for just 10 weeks, in which time we met many of the planets inhabitants like the mad Charlie's Angels and U-boat captain Schmidt who thought WW2 was still happening. Issue #2 saw the beginning of Mind Wars, written by Alan (Mind Wars, Major Eazy, El Mestizo) Hebden and drawn by Redondo, it was set in the year 3000AD and the Stellar Federation, of which Earth was a member, was at war with the Jugla Empire. A stalemate in the fighting had occured, and each side was trying to gain an advantage. The Jugla Empire managed to use a Primary Neural Irradiation (mind control process) on two earth children on the planet Vulcrugon. This gave the children, who were 17 year old twins Arlen and Ardeni Lakam, some very powerful mind powers, like stopping a plummeting aircraft in mid air and bringing it down softly followed by bringing a dead man back to life. The twins were accused of killing their own parents and destoying their farmland and were sent to trial. While the trial was in progress and being broadcast across the solar system a member of the Jugla empire pressed a button and the twins went beserk and wanted to harm everyone in the studio. Then, just as baying mob were charging towards the twins, they both disappeared and transported themselves back to their home world. There, they were befriended by Yosay Tilman, a member of Stella Federation, who assisted the twins by transporting them to a planet called Leonix and not Earth, like the Jugla empire wanted. The story continues with the twins slowly gaining more control of their newly acquired powers and this well-written story concludes with the twins neutralising all the weapons of the Jugla empire AND all the weapons of the Stella Federation, which meant that the two waring factions had to talk to each other to resolve their differences - a good ending to a story which lasted right upto the final issue. Issue #14 introduced us to Carl Hunter, in the story Holocaust. Carl was a private eye from San Francisco who was investigating a typical missing husband assignment, when he accidentally stumbled into a secret war with extra-terrestrials who were systematically destroying the planets food production. This story, drawn by Horacio Lalia, was another good writing effort from Alan Hebden. Hunter was informed by his old CIA boss that the aliens were infecting the worlds crops with mutated viruses which rendered them useless and that the aliens had a huge lifeboat ship hiding on the dark side of the moon, just waiting to inhabit their new home, Earth! As the story develops, Hunter discovers that the aliens can control the minds of humans and are vunerable to laughing gas, as well as fire. An alien, given the name J. Edgar, is befriended by Hunter and offers information that leads to the eventual downfall of the attack. This story ended in the final issue. Starlord's 22 issues contained just 6 stories, or 7 if you count Good Morning Sheldon, I Love You (a kind of Tharg's Future Shocks story), which appeared in issue 11 because the Strontium Dog took a break that week. Some people say that the stories that were running in Starlord at the time were far more enjoyable then those running in 2000AD, but the 2000AD name just sounded better. It's a shame it had such short run, but then again, it has become quite a collectable 'short-run' title. I'm just pleased it existed at all! |
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