2000 AD #1520
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeProg 1520 sits at a pivotal creative moment in 2000 AD's mid-2000s renaissance under Rebellion and editor Matt Smith, running in early 2007 just weeks before the landmark 30th-anniversary prog 1526. The issue carries the concluding chapter of Nikolai Dante's 'Deadlier Than the Male' arc — one of Robbie Morrison and Simon Fraser's most-praised runs on the character — alongside an early installment of Dan Abnett and Richard Elson's Kingdom, a series that introduced Gene the Hackman to weekly readers and quickly became one of the most celebrated new strips of the decade. It also features Pat Mills and Clint Langley's ABC Warriors: The Volgan War, whose fully computer-generated painted artwork represented a striking aesthetic shift for the long-running robot-war saga and helped set the template for Langley's defining tenure on the Warriors.
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By early 2007, 2000 AD was published by Rebellion Developments, with Matt Smith serving as editor — a role he had held since 2002. The period from prog 1518 onward represented a deliberate editorial build-up to the 30th-anniversary celebration at prog 1526, with new and returning strips staggered across the preceding weeks. Kingdom had debuted with a double-length first episode in the annual Prog 2007 special before its weekly installments commenced at prog 1518, making prog 1520 part of the strip's very first regular weekly run. Clint Langley's digitally painted ABC Warriors work, which began in this era and was later collected as the Volgan War volumes, was already drawing attention for its distinctive photorealistic CG approach to Pat Mills's decades-old cast of war droids.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Prog 1520 (cover-dated early 2007) is published by Rebellion Developments under editor Matt Smith, falling in the run-up to the comic's 30th-anniversary issue (prog 1526, dated 28 February 2007).
- The issue contains an early episode of Kingdom by Dan Abnett (writer) and Richard Elson (artist) — Gene the Hackman's first weekly-run arc debuted at prog 1518 after a double-length premiere in the annual Prog 2007 special.
- Gene the Hackman is a genetically engineered dog-soldier fighting giant insects called 'Them' on a post-apocalyptic Earth; the character's name is a deliberate pop-culture reference to the American actor Gene Hackman.
- Prog 1520 carries the concluding episode of the Nikolai Dante arc 'Deadlier Than the Male' (which ran progs 1518–1520), written by Robbie Morrison with art by Simon Fraser.
- The ABC Warriors strip running through this period — featuring Hammerstein, Deadlock, Mongrol, Blackblood, and Steelhorn — is the 'Volgan War' arc written by Pat Mills and drawn by Clint Langley using his signature fully digitally painted CG style.
- Deadlock first appeared in ABC Warriors at prog 123; Blackblood, Hammerstein, and Mongrol are among the strip's founding roster from its 1979 debut at prog 119.
- Steelhorn is one of the two original ABC Warriors members (alongside Happy Shrapnel) to have returned to the team after initially departing, though both returned in substantially altered forms.
- The Judge Dredd 'Origins' epic — a 23-part story filling in the backstory of Dredd and the Judge system, begun at prog 1500 — was on an interlude at prog 1520, with the Dredd slot occupied by a holding story rather than Origins proper.
Cast · 10 characters
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Reprints
Reprinted in ABC Warriors #1 (2010), Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files #44 (2024)
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