By Pat Mills & Many, Many Others
Publisher: Rebellion
ISBN: 978-1-905437-82-5
Admittedly, I've had this one hanging around for a while, so hardly a new book. It charts the creation and development of those two iconic British comic characters Ro-Jaws and Hammer-stein (a joke that utterly passed me by as a spotty youth) from their first appearance in Starlord through to the amalgamation with 2000AD. There's a huge array of comic talent on show here, most of whom were still developing their craft, from Pat Mills and Alan Moore as writers to Dave Gibbons, Kev O'Neill, Bryan Talbot and Steve Dillon on art, and there are many more besides.
When I first came across the characters they had already transformed into the strip called ABC Warriors, so it was interesting to see how they were first conceived and presented to the British comic reader. And what a difference this initially was, with a concept that appears to be entirely lifted from Thunderbirds, with a good dose of silliness mixed in with the action. In fact the silliness is sometimes just too grating, but that may just be the passage of years and different sensibilities talking. The two heroes, one an ex-sewer droid, one an ex-army robot, are purchased by Mr Ten Per Cent, a man who has gradually replaced his body with robotic parts but, by law, is still strictly human as he retains ten per cent of his former body. He operated the Ro-Busters, a robotic team of disaster and emergency operatives who rescue humes from danger and potential death. They have to deal with all manner of problems, and failure could see them thrown to Mek-Quake, a giant droid who likes nothing better than to rip other robots apart.
It is an odd mix of stories, as the strip struggles to find its own identity, with some missing the mark entirely to others showing the promise that carried many of the creators to international fame in the comics arena. For me the best strip of all is the Terra-Meks, written by Pat Mills and illustrated by Dave Gibbons which sees a giant robot, Charlie, wading out to sea to help guide ships in to harbour. His hour arrives when he must face down the mammoth droids sent to demolish the city, something the city-dwellers look powerless to stop. The story is in fact reflecting the collapse of shipbuilding and the growth of international air freight that was going on at the time of the strip's creation, and the damage that this was doing to many northern cities – this being a fiction the result was somewhat more upbeat than the modern-day reality.
It's a mighty thick collection and worthy of your time and money for its completeness and because it offers a healthy dose of a British comic-industry that now is over a quarter of a century behind us. There are a few rum bits, but with such a thick volume, and with so many creators still finding their feet, I think that's forgivable.
And if you liked that: Read on with the ABC Warriors collections also available from Rebellion
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