Comics
2000 AD and Battle Action collide in possibly the greatest ‘What If’ moment in British comic history
Anarchy reigns.
We all have a love for the meta and the hypotheticals. It’s the fodder and musings of every successful comic book imprint, afterall. So we cant help but get a giddy when we are posed quite the British proposition… what would happen if the greatest comic book publishers Britain has ever know decided to band together? Dadaist, anarchist mayhem. Obviously. More succinctly, in a brand new “what if?” crossover event is coming in September betwixt 2000AD and Battle Action
Set to feature some of Britain’s biggest comic book talents this September 20 (November 1 for Americans) , 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine find the answer to the question: what would 2000 AD have looked like if it had combined forces with the legendary Battle Action?
The special 48-page bumper issue of 2000 AD and the 132-page Judge Dredd Megazine will see Judge Dredd take on the anarchic, riotous teens of ‘Kids Rule OK’, the controversial comic strip that helped lead to Action being pulled from shelves in 1976.
Remember when comics were burned and banned? Now its just the real history books *whew*.
The line-up includes Alan Hebden and Carlos Ezquerra’s former enslaved gunslinger El Mestizo and laconic WWII officer Major Eazy, as well as deadly future sport ‘Death Game 2049’, and daring Panzer officer ‘Hellman of Hell Force’, as well as Dreddworld reinventions of strips such as John Wagner and Mike Western’s tale of the ‘Forgotten Army’, ’Darkie’s Mob’, and Tom Tully and Joe Colquhoun’s WW2 air ace ‘Johnny Red’.
Editor of 2000 AD Matt Smith had this to say about the news:
The history of comics on the UK’s newsstand is marked by the practice of merging titles, where two great anthologies combine. In the case of Starlord joining 2000 AD, it meant the Prog gained Strontium Dog and Ro-Busters. When Tornado’s Black Hawkjoined the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic, it led to a radical reinvention of the strip. Writer Ken Niemand suggested to me a special asking what would’ve happened if Battle Action merged with 2000 AD in the early eighties, with its war stories getting something of a science-fiction/fantasy makeover, and I couldn’t resist!
