2000 AD - July 1977.

Hold on to your jet packs, future-dwellers because it's that time of month again. The one when I look back at what everyone's favourite UK sci-fi comic was doing exactly thirty eight years and one month ago.

It's always a strange experience for me, as I usually recognise the covers but have no recall at all of the actual stories within.

Still, I shall endeavour to see what sense I can make of the images that Fate has deigned to fling before me.

I've no memory at all of this story but do have a very strong recollection of the cover.

I like to think the tale it depicts is in the same mould as the Marvel War Toy story I reviewed all those many months ago.

This time, I don't recall the story or the cover but there's a certain Alan Class vibe to it all.

It seems that, at this stage in its history, 2000 AD was suddenly concentrating on using its one-off Future Shock type stories, rather than its regular characters, to lure readers in.

That alien on the right looks suspiciously like he may have been inspired by Dr Who's Zygons.

For some reason, the green woman on the left makes me think of Miss Jones in the classic 1970s sitcom Rising Damp. I suspect this may say more about me than it does about the drawing.

I really don't have a clue what's transpiring on this cover.

All I can say is thank the Lord we don't have such shenanigans occurring on the Sheffield Supertram. I'm not sure I could stand such drama as we wend our way towards Meadowhall.

It's another cover in the Alan Class envelope and means that not one established 2000 AD star made the cover in the whole of July. Has Tharg gone completely and totally bonkers mad?