Sunday 17 July 2016

2000 AD - June 1978.

June 1978 was clearly an exciting time to be alive. Not only did we see the start of the World Cup in Argentina, the release of the movie Grease, cartoon cat Garfield make his first appearance and the discovery of Pluto's moon Charon, it also featured the debut of the stage musical Evita.

My awesome knowledge of Spanish tells me that, "Evita," means, "Little Eva." Little Eva had a hit in the 1960s, with The Loco-Motion, a song that appears to be exhorting us to dance like a train. Evita tunesmith Andrew Lloyd Webber went on to write Starlight Express which featured actors pretending to be dancing trains.

Coincidence?

Or proof of something altogether more sinister?

As for 2000 AD, June was a momentous month for that mag too, as alien aardvark Tweak made his senses-shattering debut in the pages of Prog 69 and our lives would never be the same again.

The cover of Prog 67 is intriguing. Does this mean M.A.C.H. Zero has now become the protagonist rather than the antagonist? That fellow in the bandages, on the front of Prog 68, looks familiar. Was he some kind of hybrid of Frankenstein's Monster and Deathlok? I still don't remember anything at all about Death Planet.

This concludes my look back at what happened in 2000 AD in June 1978, which I must confess was more of a look back at what happened everywhere except within the pages of 2000 AD. Remember, no other blog gives you posts like this, because no other blog is so clueless about its primary subject matter.

2000 AD Prog 67, MACH Zero

2000 AD Prog 68, Harlem Heroes

2000 AD Prog 69, Judge Dredd

2000 AD Prog 70, Death Planet

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have found the "smoking gun" I've been looking for for decades! I've always thought that the first Robocop movie was heavily influenced by three distinct comic book sources. The basic Dead Guy Turned Cyborg origin is from Deathlok, the satiric TV clips are from Dark Knight Returns, and Robo's OTT crime-busting attitude is from Judge Dredd. So, check out Dredd's dialogue on the cover of Prog 67 -- it's almost a direct quote.

(Still a great movie though)

Anonymous said...

Oops, I meant Prog 69.

John Pitt said...

That Judge Dredd cover is a take on Cahill U.S. Marshall!