Right. In all likelihood nobody will be able to answer this question due to its sheer vagueness but it's been driving me mad for months and maybe, just maybe, there's some ultra-enlightened OTFer and 2000 AD fan out there who might just have a smidgen of an idea what I'm on about.

There was a strip that appeared in the comic back in, I reckon, 91-92 that seemed like a riff on Aliens - a platoon of grunts are dispatched to some hellhole with orders to either investigate the disappearances of a number of humans or to off some horrific alien threat only to be offed themselves one-by-one in gruesome fashion. The threat in this case being a humanoid monster/mutant (can't remember which) that resembled Tina Turner if she'd spent a few decades immersed in grey Kryptonine - grey skin, blonde Jovi-esque hair, fingers elongated to savage claws, a mouth full of animalistic teeth. The story was told from the creature's point of view. The first panel and the title page opened with a picture of the monster looking directly at the reader just after ripping out some poor soul's neck saying, "I'm just a monster. Wasn't I always?"

The images stuck with me if the story didn't. The strip was beautifully illustrated, very creepy. I'd love to read it again but have absolutely no idea where to pick it up. Sorry about the infuriating vagueness and randomness of the recollection but that's proof that alcohol is bad for you, kids.

I didn't know that 2000AD was still going in the nineties. I stopped buying in about 1983.

This one?

Mumpo - afraid not but that's bizzarely close, thanks. The strip didn't make the cover of the magazine anyway.

Bad Company?

No, the strip was a one-off and all of the humans were killed I seem to remember.

Sorry guys, this one is just too vague. Forget I mentioned it. I'll just have to consign it to the mind's recycle bin. Thanks for the suggestions, mind!

I have a couple of friends who might be able to help (one used to draw for 200AD, the other has every issue from Prog 1 to the present). I'll ask them... it might take a while, though. I'm off on a trip tomorrow.

So, was it a series, or just a one-episode story? If it was a series, it might be worth digging through a list of stories. If it was a one-shot, Future Shock type thing, I fear the scpe of the task is beyond me.

Right, I asked this question on the 2000AD-online message board, and before long a confident answer came back that it was part of Strontium Dogs, an offshoot of Strontium Dog that continued the adventures of various Search and Destroy agents after the death of Johnny Alpha.



There you go. Gotta be the one (though I admit the fact that I found that cover featuring Feral was complete coincidence).

kugelrund wrote:


An ex-editor of 2000AD works in the very next office to us. He didn't take over the helm until long after 1991, though.

In fact, I'm willing to bet that this is the only town apart from London that's can boast ex-editors of 2000AD and the Doctor Who Monthly.

Johnny Alpha's dead? well that's ruined my afternoon.

Funnily enough, when m'lovely daughters were shopping for their magazines the other day I noticed 2000AD was back on the shelves, and was hit by a wave of nostalgia. I picked it up and a flick through but there was no mention of Ro-Jaws and Hammer-Stein so I dejectedly put it down again.

I reckon that's it, Mumpo. Thank you (and the 2000 AD message boarders) for your dilligence! The moral here is never underestimate the extent of nerds' knowledge.

Sorry, Rogin. I tried to put that bit in spoiler text but I couldn't get it to work properly.

Oh well, as long as Wulf's still ok.