2000 AD - October 1985.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

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If there was one guaranteed way to have a hit in the 1980s, it was to release a track called The Power of Love. Frankie Goes to Hollywood managed it, Huey Lews and the News managed it and, in October 1985, Jennifer Rush managed it. In fact, she managed it to such a degree that her single of that title spent the entire month at Number One on the UK chart.

Over on the accompanying album chart, things were massively more volatile, with no less than four LPs hitting the top spot, that month. Those Number Ones were Madonna's Like a Virgin,

Kate Bush's Hounds of Love, George Benson's Love Songs and Simple Minds' Once Upon A Time.

While all that was transpiring, in the cinemas of the world, celluloid lovers were thrilling to such treats as Re-Animator, I Dream of Jeannie... Fifteen Years Later, and Commando.

I must confess Re-Animator is the only one of those I've seen. I don't know if it counts as a great film but it does manage the seemingly impossible feat of making a film based on an HP Lovecraft story watchable, and that's an achievement few have replicated.

But what of the galaxy's greatest comic? Just what was that achieving, as the year entered the early evening of its soul?

It was achieving the continued publication of Nemesis, Robo-Hunter, Judge Dredd, Mean Team and Tharg's Future-Shocks. The keen-eyed reader will have spotted that none of these are new strips. Clearly, Tharg was working on the principle that there's nothing more comforting to readers than familiarity.